That I do not need behaviour updates from teacher.

[neunundneunzigluftballons]

My daughter aged 8, has what appears to be dyslexia and is due to be assessed next month although her resource teacher needs no convincing. She consequently has awful organisation skills. She does not get the time to write down her homework in her journal and has more than once since the start of term forgotten to bring home items she needs for homework including today. Today she got behaviour comments in her notebook about forgetting her work. I am not happy about this being linked to behaviour as my daughter is clearly deficit in organisation skills and actuallt is very well behaved. AIBU. I wrote a note to the teacher to mention once again that DD forgot to bring home work but she told me that teacher doesn't like to get notes from parents. I felt like telling DD that I know how she feels.

Kim that is super she has very poor coordination and hand writing and we have been looking for some tips.

As a teacher, "Danny is wearing trainers instead of school shoes because he stepped in a puddle on the way to school" is fine for notes, but when the issues are so important like this, I want to sit down face to face and nut out the issue. It's quicker than waiting for notes to go back and forth, and has the benefit of personal communication. We can also usually involve the student in parts of the meeting. I then send a summary out to everyone concerned and we confirm what was said and agreed to.

OP, sit down with the teacher and have a chat and discuss some strategies. It always works better if you go in with solutions, rather than just complaints. If she's not getting time to write down her homework, then she'll need extra time for that, or alternative strategies put in place. I usually put the homework up on a smart board with a list of what is needed. Students can then copy it down, and if they have to stay back a few minutes to make sure they have it all, then so be it. Perhaps put a laminated page in her bag which lists all the things she should bring home on the average day (reading book, coat, pe kit, etc) that she can look at each afternoon before she leaves, with the teacher checking for any usual items (special homework, etc) each day? If she's forgetting to bring her books or homework TO school, then that's not something the teacher can control, you need to take some responsibility for that. You'll need to check every morning to make sure she's got what she needs before she's out the door. The checklist system can work well there, or have her sit down and do her homework, then repack her bag the night before, not when it's crazy and busy in the morning. Homework done, bag packed, sitting beside the front door ready to go.

If she's getting overwhelmed with the amount of homework, set a time limit for her. I tell parents that if their child has genuinely attempted the homework for x amount of time (age appropriate) that they should stop and the parent should let me know why so that I can work on what it is that they are struggling with. I don't want any child sitting at home getting upset over some homework tasks (not that I do much in the way of formal homework anyway).

Good luck with your chat with the teacher, I'm sure they want to help your daughter as much as you do but it is a team effort.

Grants I missed your second post I am laughing at your notes comments. Altinkum I find that' most people are unaware that poor organisation and poor concentration can be features of dyslexia. Midnite thanks for the teacher input I must say about DD hanging back after school. I have a feeling the teacher might be putting the homework up on a screen and it needs to be taken down to progress the rest of the class. None of the issues happen from home to school we have had to learn to be hyper organised because we both work some distance away and so cannot sort issues in the morning.

An organisational issue is not a behavioural issue. Any teacher who believes the two are, or even could be, one and the same thing, is a moron.

Let me make myself a bit clearer there.

Any teacher who automatically assumes, in the absence of an SEN statement, that a child who forgets his or her homework is merely trying to push boundaries...

...is intellectually deficient. Such teachers made my life hell at school and I have no respect for them.

There is usually other context when people forget their homework. So there could be a behavioural issue there, or it could be resultant from some kind of learning difficulty like dyslexia.

But to have a policy of "forgetting homework = behaviour issue!" - that's plain wrong.

I would love to get behaviour notes about ds1 forgetting stuff. Honestly. It helps me keep track of how he's doing, means that the teacher has noticed, and that these issues are being documented and can be used as evidence to support a request for learning support to look at organisational deficits and teaching coping skills.

In fact, this very day I have finally managed to get one of the teachers at his school to agree this is necessary, largely because she emailed about him forgetting a form. I thanked her profusely, (he has add, asd traits, anxieties, phobias etc) and suggested it was time for us to start working with his homeroom teacher and learning support to enable him to build those organisational skills.

He's had his dx for two years, officially documented, but as he's also gifted, they don't pay much attention to his learning needs (ie anything non-academic).

So, notes like this are my way in to request support.

It's hard to see stuff that we assume is critical, but for kids like ours, these notes are literally gold dust. Take them and make the most of them, and ask the teacher to make many many more. The more the better.

A dx does not support make.

A really useful phrase OP is 'I understand you may find that frustrating, however let's be clear we're looking at DD's challenges rather than focussing on the behaviour caused by the challenges. How can we support DD to understand her homework?'

Good luck with it, I have just had exactly the same convo with school about planning and changing for activities:

CT: WilsonJr can't take that amount of time, because he's holding us all up.

Me: That's unfortunate, but of course we've discussed how challenging planning and organisation is for him so often over the past x years haven't we? So how can we support him with changing quickly?

Yup.

The teacher yesterday suggested she cut Ds out of the aperture trail and emailed the stuff to me directly so that I could sign and email back.

I agreed in the interim as a short term measure to solve an immediate problem - but used it as an opportunity to seek wider support in school to teach Ds the coping skills and organisational skills he needs for life.

This isn't criticism, it's keeping you see fully informed. If you don't intend to use the knowledge the teacher is giving you, then I can see that it might look like criticism. But what what she is giving you is knowledge and power.