to be furious with teacher for keeping son in at lunch time

[23balloons]

Hi I have posted in SEN education but haven't had a reply.

I am feeling furious right now & plan to approach his teacher tomorrow. Briefly, I have always suspected he was dyslexic, cannot read fluently, very slow, very messy writing bad spelling etc. I recently paid for a diagnostic assessment and the assessor verbally confirmed dyslexia, said he had slow processing and trouble with long term recall, he had a vision test last year and this showed his tracking and processing problems. I have told the school and written a letter and asked for a meeting before his SATS (in a couple of weeks, he is in y6).

At parents' evening recently his teacher was implying he was lazy and would struggle to keep up at secondary school which was one of the reasons I finally went ahead with the diagnosis. She said she had been keeping him in at lunch to catch up on his work. Afterwards I felt I should have protested at this but I didn't at the time. Since I told her he was dyslexic and I would have a report soon I assumed she would realise why he wasn't keeping up. Today he has told me he has been kept in at lunch this week and will have to spend tomorrow lunch break doing work in the Heads office. I am toatlly furious as he is a very energetic boy who loves sport and I feel he needs to run around at lunch time to burn off energy.

Sould I go in all guns blazing tomorrow or wait for the report and complain?

gafhyb I would love to move him but I am thinking 'better the devil you know?' I don't know if I could get a place in a decent school, he has a very close knit group of nice friends, he finds it hard to make friends and lacks confidence. For the first time this year (Y4) he has started to gain a small amount of confidence in writing as he has a really good teacher (it was the TA who told him he would have to stay in on Friday?). Last year he froze and couldn't write anything in his Y3 tests, his Y3 teacher (the SENCO) told me not to worry - now the music teacher is the SENCO and he doesn't want to switch schools.

"I would do all of the above even if I thought he was just lazy- I would want to rule out any SEN before I decided he was lazy, and then I would use the same strategy of differentiating his work. Children tend to be lazy when they are bored"

yy

Or when they are so discouraged that trying is too much of a risk. Or when they are actually lazy

gafhyb; agreed regarding your point about strategies... However, I would put in place a 'cover all' strategy such as breaking down tasks which stands much less of a chance of damaging a child's enthusiasm for learning than this teacher is using.

tether - we seem to be vehemently agreeing

I wouldn't keep a lazy child in at lunchtime for being lazy.

Oooh, so we are

OP
I did mention this further up, i work in child health, in this type of situation I would refer to a Parent Support Adviser and SALT.

I think it's definitely worth pushing, especially as ks2 data is a huge factor in determining sets and ability groups when a pupil starts secondary school...

I wish he was in your school!! Your pupils are very lucky :)

Why, if you suspected your son was dyslexic, are you only having him assessed in Year 6? It's hard to believe, coupled with the fact that he's been in physical pain since learning to write because "they didn't teach him the pencil grip properly". Why didn't you teach him?

And constantly punishing your child without investigating or addressing the root cause (whatever it is) is very lazy of the school.

Rhino I very much doubt they have a Parent Support Advisor but I will look into it.
spg I might mention the criteria re late arrangements to the head & see what she says. She told me secondary schools took no notice of SATS results, but the school my son is going to definitely does and also uses them to set.

Flog because every teacher I mentioned it to said "no he isn't" and I believed them. I decided to do it after seeing 18 / 19 year olds assessed at University having never been diagnosed all the way through secondary school.

I'd be mad too

Flog it didn't occur to me to teach him to write. I have heard schools have there own methods and I didn't want to confuse him, in hindsight it obviously wasn't a good idea to leave it to the school but what did I know?

Flogging, that is unfair.

Why hasn't the school had him assessed and taught him to write correctly? There is clearly a problem if he is having to stay in at lunchtimes to complete his work.

Yes, a parent should support a child's education, but this does not absolve the school of any responsibility at all- the OP's son is not home educated.

What of the children who do not have parents who will get them assessed?

I find it genuinely upsetting that there are members, senior members, of my profession who can fail children so completely.

Flogging

As a parent, you don't always trust your instinctive feelings that something isn't right - when you are being told there's nothing to worry about, when you hope things will come right, when you don't want to push your child (especially when they are emotionally very resistant), and mostly, because you are not a teacher!

Especially when it's your first child

OP
the PSA may not be based at your sons school. In my area the PSA is based in the secondary school and also covers the feeder primaries.

Thanks I will look into it. Trouble is his primary & secondary are in different boroughts and we live in a different borough again. The school is closed to children tomorrow as it is being used as a polling station - maybe that's why there has been so much emphasis on catching up at lunch? Anyway it will give me more time to research things. I am going to email the Head tomorrow because I want to put my feelings in writing and will be interested to read her response.

Aaaargh... "secondaries take no notice of ks2 results"...what a load of tosh, it does my head in when this is said. Whenever a new pupil joins us between yrs 7 and 9, the ks2 result (as in the raw scores from each module, not just the level) is the first bit of info which is used to put them into the appropriate set. And...most secondaries take pupils from a cluster of schools, so in order to compare them, the most reliable and standardised piece of data to use is...ks2 test result, not even teacher assessments as they are not moderated between schools.

I know I'm banging on about it but...soooo much is decided based on the ks2 score, even target gcse grades are generated using ks2 levels. It really annoys me when teachers try to downplay their importance; I realise you don't want to stress the pupils out but to downright deny they are used for anything else is wrong IMO

Doesn't matter, if the PSA is based I. The school your sons primary feeds to can still act for you even if your son won't be going there in year 7.

You can google parent support adviser + name of borough he goes to school, also should tell you on your LA website.

They are not employed by the school.

Sorry but what do you expect the school has no written confirmation of any diagnosis

My son has a poor Woking memory which is the clinical name for "trouble with long term recall" as you say a educational physcoligost assessed my son and a written report was sent to my self and to the school that is how things are done the school can't just go on the say so of some parent

With all due respect parents are always self diagnosing ADHD, aurtism ECt

And even though my son has a poor working memory it dose no exuse his forgetfulness it just explains it he gets support with his memory issues but dose not have leave to just blame everything he chooses not do on a bad memory

And FYI high schools take NO NOTICE OF year 6 sats results I know this because 3 days after my son started high school they re tested them for their

Sets