I think my dd is clever, school say she is really struggling. I feel like a knob.

[SewhereIam]

I have a 5 year old dd in year 1. She is my PSB, as my PFB is 13 years older and there are 6 miscarriages inbetween them, and PSB was a very poorly foetus and very poorly baby.

As a bit of background, I was a high achiever at school, went to Oxbridge, and PFB outshone me in her GCSE's and A-Levels, and is currently at a red brick university with hopes to do a masters PhD at Oxbridge, so academia means a lot to me and I put a lot of time and effort in to making sure my girls have everything they need to be able to suceed. (This is my problem, I know, there is more to life than academics).

DD2 has always had issues with her motor skills, and has had medical investigations for a suspected brain tumour and mild cerebral palsy when she was younger, but we have been very lucky and she is fine. She is incredibly quick, can outsmart me at every turn, is very self assured, loves word play and puns, and is on the pathway for ASD diagnosis. She has a fantastic vocabulary, a photographic memory and usually gets concepts first time (which is just infuriating 😂). I know I shouldn't say this, but out of the three of us I would say that she is mentally the quickest.

School have said that she is really behind. Her writing and numbers are very clearly wobbly and usually back to front and very shakey. We have done a lot of work on fine and gross motor skills from pretty much day dot, but she is still finding it really hard. School have said she needs a lot of extra support and we need to do more at home with her, which is fine, but they also suggested that she is far below average intelligence. Apparently they see "glimpses of great ideas in there but they just don't translate".

What can I do to help her? This isn't the dd2 I know, but maybe I have been blinded by her being my precarious child and my last baby. I feel like such an idiot, and like I have failed her terribly. Where do I start? I feel terrible.

Poor Motor skills are not part of how clever she is

She needs a proper assessment, sounds like the school cannot meet her academic needs to me as they can't see her needs and just therefore default to not so clever.

Never ever compare OP!! Very bright kids often develop slower in younger years and often have learning differences. Try to relax and just let her progress at her own rate else she will sense pressure. Schools often don't realise this different developmental trajectory and think that the kids are just behind. Over the years the progress can be amazing but often support is needed (I have two neurodiverse boys myself) and also success doesn't always come out in school in the 'traditional' way which can be hard if you are hung up on academics as a marker of success or indicator of IQ. Try not to focus on these things too much and just let her express herself.

Also assessment not just for ASD but for dyspraxia

If she says the paper and pencil is too rough, she may be describing the sound - I taught an autistic girl who couldn't cope with the noise of pencil and paper, but wrote fine on a whiteboard or with a pen - the lack of noise enabled her to concentrate more - just worth thinking about, but in Reception as many other pp have said, motor skills are no indicator of "intelligence".

@Jimsbooks

What a lovely post 💜 your son sounds great and he's very lucky to have you in his corner

She’s five. She should be focused on play. That’s the most age appropriate way for her to learn and develop. There is plenty of time for ‘academics’ down the line.

You haven't really talked about whether she is happy, what she enjoys doing etc.

It sounds as if in your different ways you and the school are both ultra-focused on measurement and achievement and making your daughter into some kind of product.

There's nothing wrong - and a lot right - about supporting your child's development. But there's something rather sad about this post.

Honestly, don't worry at all. Sounds a lot like my DD. She failed her phonics test in reception and year 1 and really struggled writing. She has Dyslexia and Dyscalculia, is awaiting an appointment with neurodevelopal assessment for ASD, following a referral, which took years!

DD also has motor and coordination issues. By about yr 5 of primary school, she was way ahead of her age in reading and creative writing.

I think you are probably right about your DD being super sharp, but it will take her a while to find how to express that to the outside world.

I have a 5 yr old son with ASD. He’s very clever with reading ability and concepts etc but he also struggles with writing because of his coordination. He tried his best and practices writing at home every day to improve, he also completes spelling tests and reads sometimes 3-4 times a day ( willingly ) especially at weekends. He’s my wonderful little man and I try my best at home to encourage fine motor skills, beads, tweezers etc to encourage hand eye coordination and we use play putty, play dough and make bread & pastries etc to strengthen those muscles in his hands. He also benefits using one of the triangle shaped pencils you can get made by Stabilo. He’s the youngest in the year so he’s really got a lot of work on his shoulders but he throws himself in to every challenge school sets him. I hope you can find some ways to help your DD

Sounds like she is clever but not in a way that's demonstrable at school at the moment.

I suspect she'd have a very spikey cognitive profile with some real highs and some weaknesses.

But don't get her assessed. No need. Just have faith in her that she'll find her own way and her strengths will emerge then.

Don't put too much emphasis on what the school are saying. They're talking about specific curriculum skills not her general intelligence.

But that doesn't matter just let her develop supported by you and school and don't let any current 'struggles' define her.

I'd push for the ASD diagnosis. I'd find out which nhs consultant she is due to see and then pay to see them privately.

I'd also push Senco for EP appointment. Say she needs this because you are concerned how much damage is being done to her currently.

This! My dd learnt practically nothing in Reception except drawing and colouring in. She started a new school in Yr1 and came home with spellings. I thought, 'spellings! She can't write! She can barely read!' The school didn't see this as a crisis. She got a bit of extra support in handwriting from the special needs teacher and caught up in about a year. I'm surprised the school is presenting this is unusual/ a problem.

Thank you all so much for replying to me. You have given me excellent advice and some really brilliant links, thank ypu. I definitely need to take my foot off the gas and chill out about it more; I have always so intrinsically linked my childrens' successes (in anything) with whether I was parenting them well enough, putting enough effort in, working hard enough to be a good mum, and if they weren't where their teacher/coach/instructor wanted them to be it was because I was failing in my parenting of them, and so it was entirely down to my poor parenting. I think I may need to see someone too.

Thank you all again, I think I have some work to do on me! Thank you again for the fantastic links too, I will follow them up this evening x

My dd1's reception teacher thought she was very dozy. She was in the bottom groups for a couple of years. She got 3A*s is A levels and an awful lot of 9s in her GCSEs. Her reception teacher was newly qualified and didn't quite have the experience to see beyond her inattention and desire to spend her life sucking her thumb. On the other hand, her very experienced nursery teacher had taken me aside and said how good she was at maths. (She'd just gone to uni to study maths).

Sometimes teachers don't always get it right.

How did they suggest she is below average intelligence. Did they say that?
Ive never heard professionals describe a child like that even if its clearly thd case

I Remember hating the feeling of rough paper when I was writing at school. I had to put a ruler under my hand to stop it touching the paper. I also have dyslexia and ADHD. Oh, and I have masters degree too.

Lots of good advice here. Not all 'bright' kids thrive in school, especially in the first few years when they're still really quite little. It sounds like she might need help with motor skills (my very bright oldest had and still has terrible writing at 14), and don't worry too much about how you did.

DH and I were both high academic achievers and have had to make a bit of an adjustment with DS having ADHD and finding school a challenge; we're mainly concentrating on making sure education is gratifying for him and not a miserable slog. He is very smart but may or may not be capable of doing well at exams - we really can't tell (DH tells me he only really began to shine in secondary, which DS has just started) so we're being open minded as to what the right path will be for him. As things stand, he's made a much better and more confident start than we expected at secondary, so things do change given time.

I'm another mum with children who "under-performed" in KS1 according to the school and have gone on to Russell Group unis. Not that RG is the be all and end all.
A lot of kids are not ready for formal learning at age 5.
A lot of emphasis is placed on handwriting at primary. one of mine has literally never learned to do joined up writing and still managed to get an A in an essay based subject at A level.

Letters back to front / wrong way round can be linked to visual processing disorder (this won't be picked up at an eye test). Our son has this and it impacts things like numbers being the right way round (he can see 21 as 12), spaces between words, drawing throwing / catching and judging distances. He's a bright and articulate student who struggles to get things on paper- a laptop has really helped him with this.

Doesn't this thread reflect the critical and urgent need to get teachers trained in spotting Sen... proper senco in schools with a certain level of training to actually confidentially offer up strategies to parents with children like this?

I feel like we are in the middle ages when a child is wearing the dunce hat because they can't write a letter to a standard!
But it's not them it's the literally ignorant people around them who can't see them and don't know how to just help them

Op it will take all your degree training to help your daughter.
No system will click into place here, no one will observe her and throw up ideas for you.
In fact don't be surprised if you get lied too and meet smoke, mirrors and obfustication as you just try and help your dd.

My 5yo has also been a bit delayed with motor skills and really struggled to learn to write, use scissors etc and a bit with processing verbal instructions. School have a targeted plan with lots of help from the TA, ideas for things we can do at home, and we're gathering evidence for a referral for an NHS dyspraxia assessment. I've never for a moment thought that any of this means he is not super bright. He's sharp, amazing vocabulary and has this incredible thirst for facts, asks hundreds of questions to properly understand complex things he's interested in. I've no doubt that once he's developed a bit more in his motor skills and potentially had some support for dyspraxia, if that turns out to be a diagnosis, then he will fly. I was a high achiever academically too and it has been a bit strange discussing the additional support he needs, but I really don't see these things as any indication of intelligence, they're just motor skills.

Yup i agree...no school would say that about a 5 year old.

My daugther struggled a lot early primary. The school never said anything about her intellegence. I got her a tutor and she improved immensely.

From my direct experience.
Accept that she is different from you and her sibling
Praise effort, not attainment.
Accept that development is not linear.

Dd3 could not speak to make herself understood in reception.
Could not write a word until the end of year 1.
Did not get to grips with reading until the end of year 3.
At end of year six, managed to hit level 4 so average. Which I was delighted with
Now year 10 she is set 2 out of 6 for English and Maths.

I'd be looking seriously at dyspraxia and dyslexia as well as ASD.

Definitely do get her assessed as it will really help to know exactly what she has issues with. Definitely don't 'just leave her to find her own way'.

She may be very bright but the teachers are not seeing her ability due to her SEN, like judging a fish as not being clever because it isn't able to fly.

Absolutely do encourage her as much as your other dd, mine has ASD and dyspraxia and got mostly 9's at GCSE, he had a lot of input from me teaching him to read etc when he was young. It is confidence giving to see that you can do things even if you need more support at first to be able to do them.

Mother of premmie babies who had multiple speech
/language issues and speech and motor dyspraxia here. A professional who should have known better told us, 6 months before DS started school, that he would not be able to cope in mainstream school and would probably not learn to write much more than his name. I haven’t been able to find her to update on his progress - mainstream schools, two uni degrees, jobs, promotions. And groaning eclectic bookshelves in his room 😂 competing with my collection.
It wasn’t easy. There was a lot of occupational therapy and speech therapy and some physio as well, and star charts all round the house (not so much as rewards, but to keep me on track as to who’d done what 😂) and lots creative thinking about how to make this really quite boring but helpful activity the therapist recommends fun and interesting, and sometimes tears and sulks (mine too) because pushing past comfort zones is hard. And there was swimming training and martial arts and music lessons because it all helped.
School was hard, we can’t pretend otherwise. Primary school was very hard, and grades were anything but stellar. But he was learning, I spent a lot of time explaining to teachers that work will be either finished or something vaguely approximating neat and organised. But not both. And they should tell DS if it was important to finish in a time, or if it was ok to take longer and make it “neat” (neat for him).
Thing improved in secondary. A couple of teachers recognised his particular brand of “smarts” (problem solving skills) and built on those. Confidence grew. Opportunities opened up.
i won’t go on, your child’s path will be different, because they are their own person. Just sharing because it isn’t set in stone yet, and you certainly haven’t failed them. They’re lucky to have you because you will out so much time and effort, as you said, into making sure you support them, and because as you said, you know there is more to life than academics.
All the best to you both on your journey.