To think that the school is jumping the gun?

[AdorableMisfit]

My daughter turned four at the end of June, started Reception class in September. She was never in formal education before she went to school, as due to childcare issues we couldn't take advantage of the 15 hours free nursery education (we live in a part of the country where the Council forces you to send your child to a school nursery 2.5 hours per day, 5 days a week, rather than letting you choose how to use the 15 free hours, so it just wasn't possible for us to fit it around our work and her paid nursery place).

We met with our daughter's teacher at a parents evening just before the half term holiday, so in the latter part of October. She told us then that DD was a bit disruptive, not always following instructions and generally not very good at sitting still and listening. I told the teacher that I put that down to her basicallly being new to all this school stuff and not being used to the formal educational setting and also, you know, due to being four years old. I know other four year olds who behave in much the same way. The teacher suggested that she introduce a sticker chart to try to encourage our DD to behave in class, which I thought was a good idea as she responded well to a sticker chart for potty training when smaller.

I work full time and DD goes to breakfast club and after school club, so I haven't seen the teacher since, but she has my mobile number and email address. Fast forward to today, some 5 weeks later. I've not seen any trace of the suggested sticker chart, nor have I had any more communication from the teacher about my daughter's behaviour, so I assumed that things were improving as I'd heard nothing to the contrary.

Then today, out of the blue, I got a phone call from the school nurse, saying she wants to refer my daughter to a paediatrician for assessment as they are concerned about her behaviour, because she doesn't listen and follow instructions very well, and it's hard to keep her "on task" when they want her to do something. She also said that she's been told by the teacher that my daughter will start randomly crying in class for no apparent reason (rather than crying because she doesn't get her own way, or something). This is not something the school has ever mentioned to me.

I'm absolutely fuming. Surely it's not unreasonable of me to expect that the teacher should have contacted me sooner if she had such serious concerns about DD's behaviour that she was considering contacting a medical professional about it? And surely if they are worried about my daughter's mood they should have talked to me about that before getting a nurse involved?

I have had absolutely no concerns about DD's behaviour at home. Yes, she's not very good at focusing on things she's not interested in, and no, she's not very good at listening and following instructions, but most other four year olds I know are exactly the same. It's not like she's incapable of sitting down and listening at all - she will happily sit and listen to me reading her book after book, and she can snuggle up on the sofa with me and watch an entire Disney movie. She is only four, and I'm sure she will get better at listening to her teacher with time.

AIBU to think that the school is trying to make a medical issue out of something which is completely normal behaviour?

Ps. I agreed to the referral to the paediatrician, just in case, as there's a 6 month waiting list.

I think it is harder to work with a child in school than a child in daycare nursery. I have a friend who asked to cut hours and has now stopped working with a child in yr1.

Over Xmas it sounds like you have leave - have time to think about things. Can you or dh apply for flexible working or parental leave. I agree that breakfast and after school club every day is a lot for a young child. She may well be just exhausted - tired and tearful is the best description of my dd when she is like that.

What are your plans for homework and after school activities. From yr 1 she may well have spellings etc to be done nightly. A cm or nanny may well be a better option.

I work In a professional job but manage by finishing at 4 and Dd in a private school which doesn't finish til 4.30 and realises mums work so plenty of notice of events/emails answered/evening meetings etc.

I know from friends and colleagues this isn't the state norm around here - text on a Thursday to say school shutting at 2pm tomorrow and no after club isn't unusual.

Using the I referred medium for primary school: letter

Well surely this us only to raise an issue with the HT in the first place. You can't communicate with a parent on a regular basis through letters going through reception etc.
if the OP has used the general email address, as far as I'm concerned, the teacher should have been notifies immediately and should have answer just as quickly. If it has t halos ex, it's still an issue, regardless if it's one with reception who doesn't forward messages or with the teacher who doesn't answer or because teacher isn't suppose to use email (she should then use another way to contact the parent).
What I would t be surprised us a situation where the email being ignored 'because it's well I own we don't do things by email' type if attitude from the school which is a crap way to de with things. A quick message back saying 'we prefer to use X and Y to communicate. Please could you send us this info through the system set suited to you' would be a better approach. Or even better using that system X and saying 'it's better to use X system. Or you could use Y. But to answer your questions....'

Don't shoot the messenger- I'm just saying how it is! I agree that it's outmoded.

Presumably OP's dd has a reading record that goes back and forth each day. TBH I would expect, if a parent wanted to ask something or let me know of anything, that there would be a letter/note slipped in the reading record. Likewise if I am sending any information home it would go that way.

I used to be a teacher and the normal procedure regarding referrals involved a number of meetings with the SENCO and an individual education plan. The teacher,however experienced, will have spoken to the SENCO at some stage. I would have expected that you would have received some correspondence from the SENCO at some point - this is the strangest bit.

The only upside to this is that at least the referral will discount any problems or enable to school to act on them while she is still young. The school does have a communication problem which is unfortunately exasperated because you are unable to chat informally to the teacher at the end or beginning of the day - but everyone has earn money so it is situation that will have to be worked around.

I hope all goes well and that all of the issues get resolved soon.

Not shooting the messenger promise :)

My point us more about the fact that you have to be very assertive with schools otherwise things just do not happen.
I found that you need to tell them what you want to see happening, knowing it is common practice anyway, so that it happens.

And yes I'm surprised too that the OP hasn't been td about a meeting with the SENCO etc either.

Thanks again for all your responses.

outtolunchagain - you asked how we cope if DD is ill. We've been quite lucky in that she's rarely ill, but on those occasions that she has been ill, DH and I have had to take turns to take time off work to stay at home with her. When I return to work after a few days off, my work has piled up in my absence, and I often end up having to put in extra unpaid hours on days when my DH is able to drop off/collect DD to her wraparound care. It's not unusual for me to be in work until 7.30 in the evening a couple of times a week on the days when DH picks DD up from after school club. At the moment, work "owes me" 12 hours, but I've got too much work to do to have time to take those hours back. I don't really want to be in this situation, but as I said, we're extremely short of staff in my line of work (I'm a Probation Officer, for those of you who hadn't figured that out). This is the reason one of my colleagues has gone off sick with stress!

Some of you have suggested that DD might be exhausted or be finding school + after school club too much. I'll be honest, I hadn't really considered that an issue. She coped fine with the long days in nursery, so didn't think it would be a problem. My husband is picking her up from the after school club tomorrow, so I will tell him to ask them whether they think she seems like she's very tired etc. She hasn't come across that way to me, but they might have a different perspective.

I have no idea how much a nanny costs or if you can even get such a thing as a live-out nanny in this area. We don't have space to have someone come live with us, we've only got two bedrooms and live in a rented house. I'm also hesitant to use any form of childcare that relies on just ONE person. e.g. a child minder or nanny, because what do you do if that person's ill, or if they need to be off suddenly for other reasons. That's one of the main reasons we chose the after school club instead of looking for a childminder to take her too/from school, because you know they're always going to be open (well, at least until 6pm). Additionally, my mum had very bad experiences with childminders when my siblings were younger, so I'm feeling a bit reluctant for that reason too.

The Friar & everyone else that's been discussing the email contact. To clarify, I don't actually have the teacher's direct email address. I rang the school to ask for it, and they wouldn't give it to me, but said I could send an email to the school admin and they would pass it along to her. So that's what I did on Tuesday, and I had a response from the school admin saying she'd passed my message on to the class teacher and the head teacher (because I asked her to), but i've heard nothing from the school since then. Perhaps the reason the teacher hasn't answered is that the school admin didn't actually pass on the email. I'm going to print out a copy of the email and put it in my daughter's book bag, just in case my correspondence is being "filtered" by the admin for some reason.

I'm quite surprised by the comments about "teacher speak". I would have thought that as a teacher you'd have the backbone to say what you mean instead of saying the complete opposite, but perhaps that's because in my line of work I have to tell people things they don't want to hear on a daily basis (e.g. that they can't move back in with their partner, or they can't take up a particular job, or that I'm not going to support their release from prison and so forth) so I assume that other people will also be capable of delivering bad news to others if it's necessary. I think that's part of the reason I'm so annoyed about this, I feel like the teacher has asked the school nurse - a woman who's a complete stranger to me and I've never met - to be her messenger, instead of making an attempt to communicate directly with me about her concerns.

3bunnies - I will contact the school admin (tomorrow, too late now) to see if she can tell me when the teacher might be available for a telephone conversation, thanks for the suggestion.
Yes, DD is my only child, but she was in a private nursery for three years so has plenty of experience in socialising with others. The nursery never raised any concerns about her interactions with the other kids.
At the school fair, I spoke to the parents of a couple of the boys she plays with (there are three boys in particular who are in her class and who also go to the after school club so she seems to play with them throughout the day) and they said their kids come home and talk about having played with DD so I don't think she's completely isolated or anything like that, I hadn't even considered that her relationships with classmates could be a concern. Again though, if the teacher will talk to me, then I will ask her about this. Also, she has friends outside of the school setting - I have two sets of friends with daughters who are around my daughter's age, and she seems to play fine with them. She makes friends with other kids in the park etc. so I haven't had any reason to suspect she's struggling with her social skills.

Someone said about asking the teacher for feedback on Thursday - I'd have to relay that message to my husband as I can't be there on Thursday as I'll be on a my way to Heathrow airport to go "home" for a funeral. I've sent another email to the school admin today asking for an appointment for my husband to meet the teacher next Thursday, but have not heard back yet. I'm going to print out a copy of that email too and put it in the book bag, just in case the admin doesn't pass the message on.

CharlesRyder - you suggest the school may want to work with us but have hit a communication barrier. I have absolutely not put up a barrier to communicating with the school. On the contrary, I've presented them with an array of options for making contact with me (phone numbers for work and mobile, email addresses - the teacher could even put a note in DD's book bag) but they haven't taken up any of those options. Surely they cannot be so inflexible that they just ignore parents who can't come to the school in person? From my perspective, it feels like the school isn't interested in communicating with us at all, because they're not even responding to the emails I've sent. In case you're wondering why I'm emailing them instead of calling them, it's primarily because I want to have a "paper trail" so they can't say I didn't get in touch.
You also asked about the reading record - she does have one, and I write in it regularly. The teacher has not commented in the reading book once. Apparently it's school policy only to comment on the reading record "when the child moves to the next stage", which my daughter has not done yet. She's not really that interested in reading at the moment (she loves being read to, but doesn't want to learn letters herself at the moment, she's more interested in numbers) and the teacher said not to push her as she may then decide she doesn't want to do it at all.

Supermum - Thank you. Nobody has mentioned the SENCO, there have been no letters. Nobody has told us anything at all since the "she's beginning to settle" talk at half term. That's why I'm so angry.

OP is not that teachers don't have the backbone, it's that they aren't allowed to say certain things- especially when it comes to children behaving badly or struggling.

The teacher should have told you face to face that your DD was struggling, but she would have to be very careful with the words she used. Blame the LEA for that, not the teachers, they'd rather say bluntly if a child is being great, needs help or being a bully.

Definitely ask for the Senco's details and speak to the Head if you still have no joy. It is good that they are looking out for her, just seems there's been miscommunication somewhere.

reading record - I often put a note in dcs reading record. A separate not slipped in between the pages. It tends to get a quick response.

as to teacher talk - remember you are used to dealing with stroppy adults. Teachers are trained to deal with children and not primarily adults. Some parents are horrendous. Teachers are supposed to emphasize the positive.

I know many parents who have been very surprised at the difference between full time nursery and school. School is much, much more tiring. Many kids come home and nap, or have massive meltdowns on the way home, or get ill, all because they are exhausted after a day in school. Reception kids doing wrap around care is very tiring for the child. If I had a free choice, I wouldn't do wrap around care at school until they were much older. My youngest is year 2 and is exhausted and she comes straight home. There really isn't a comparison between nursery and school.

I know that is very hard to hear. But to be honest your posts read as if you are very stressed in our job, and that is your priority, rather than the needs of your dd. There has to be a balance with everyone in the family's needs, but she is coming low on the list at the moment.
I would seriously think about making some changes. You work will be even less happy if you go off with stress too.

Nothing much to add but I do wonder if some posters have any idea what beakfast and after school clubs are like?

Breakfast club - they, erm, eat breakfast and sit and chat to their friends. My kids are up at 7 whether they go to breakfast club or not. They spend 45 minutes getting ready. The only difference to their morning is eating breakfast at home, then trying to sneak in an epsiode of Crash and Bernstein while I'm running round moaning or eating breakfast at school then chatting to their friends.

After school club, they might sit and do their homework or use the IT suite or run around with their friends. At home they will do their home work, go on MInecraft (or cbeebies website when they were younger) or play. The one at my children's school insists you have your children off site by 5.45pm.

They're not gulags. Assuming a child doesn't sleep right up until 8.30am and then sleep again at 4pm they're not going to be any more strenuous than being at home doing the same things.

Karen that's right. My DC's school has no breakfast club but mine would be going if they did! I've seen the after school sessions and they're just as you describe. Happy kids drawing, playing games...having toast and fruit.

Pretty much what mine do at home anyway!

"I find it hard to comprehend that schools would not be used to parents working full time in this day and age and have systems in place for how to communicate with those parents whose kids go to wraparound care."

I know. I find it hard to comprehend too. But that is how it is in most cases. My experience of working full-time with three children going through the education system is that in primary they really do rely on seeing you at least once a day and when they need to communicate it tends to be - 'Oh Mrs Joe's-Mother, I wonder if I could have a quick word?'. I guess they have such a burden of admin these days that emailing/phoning you is too much until the issue has become more serious. I found that with my youngest, who had the most issues, they would wait for the one day a week when I was able to pick him up myself to contact me in person. I suspect that is at the root of the communication issue - she spoke to you at parents' evening, she didn't see you again but did contact you when she reckoned action needed to be taken. I think that is fairly normal, and acceptable in the circumstances.

Please don't worry about stigmatising. Look on it as a good thing she is being assessed. My youngest is on the autistic spectrum and was assessed for all kinds of things included dyspraxia and dyscalculia. He never got a formal diagnosis as nothing was that severe. He was bullied a little anyway - nothing really bad I guess and he ignored it for the most part - but not because of any 'label' just because he is a bit of a an oddball (and god I love the bones of him but even I have to admit he is a strange one at times!)

Karen Timely

Depending on the room and number of children, ASCs can quiet and gentle, or they can be noisy, busy places where are young child can't chill out quietly, but has to negotiate playing along side other older children.

I used to volunteer at an ASC, and the reception children who were picked up later (ie gone 5.30) really did look shattered by the end.

OP I have only read sections of the thread so if I repeat/missed anything sorry.

If there is one thing I have experienced with both of my Dc it is that their school tends to keep parents at arms length until your permission is needed for something e.g the pediatrician appointment, and also if I approach the school regarding anything outside of school which I believe is stemming from school I am always told everything is fine........until I get the end of year report which clearly shows that everything has been far from fine.

let your Dc go to the appointment but have a chat with the CT and ask that you are involved more with any discussions regarding your Dc. Make sure you are copied in on any reports.

Don't worry! I know easier said than done....been there, done that.

This is a good...sometimes things can look a lot different from an outsiders point of view.

If all is fine you have nothing to worry about...if not, you have nothing to worry about because of early intervention.

Chances are it will be as simple as a hearing test or eye test and they want it doing now rather than wait until the who year have them done.

Karen unfortunately that is not always the picture with wrap-around care.

I have worked in several schools with breakfast and after school clubs and the quality really varies. The worst example really was a zoo. Occasionally school TAs had to cover ASC staff absences and they absolutely dreaded it. The one at my current school is not much better, I know because it is right next to my classroom. There is a lot of very hyped up behaviour which is not well managed by the casual staff. It would not be possible for a small child to have any down time in that environment.

I begged for years for my school, for an EP and a paed referral. got nowhere. finally he was diagnosed autistic.
I can't believe your school are referring do easily.

and for gods sake take your entitled lunch break and arrange a phone appointment with teacher asap.

Sorry you are having such stresses all round

Just on the tiredness point - I used to laugh at people who said they get tired at school - Ds had been at nursery 10 hours a day 4 or 5 days a week since age 1 and is autumn birthday and well ready for school. But on the 2 days I pick up from school he really is shattered.

He is with a childminder 2 days a week after school and she recognises when he is tired and sometimes he just sits on the sofa and watches telly. Only one other child so it is quiet.

I didnt have a childminder when he was a baby as I never found one I liked plus big responsibility to find the right person to have my child for 40 hours a week, but at this age I found it much easier.

I'm sorry for all the stress op.

I work in a similar role to where / who your daughter has been referred. We do not get referrals Willy nilly. We do not get referrals from the class teacher, but the senco.

My job is extremely pressured and requires long hours and total commitment. This was impossible to deliver with a reception aged child and I speak from personal and professional experience in suggesting the following. In my view, it would be advisable for you to:

A. Explain to work that you need to prioritize your child and adjust your work accordingly, even temporarily in order to do drop off and pick up at school hours and to watch for tiredness, distress, etc. Your child is more important than any job, no matter the pressure, and no one else is going to be there for your daughter.
B. Go with dh to meet with school. Stop emailing the class teacher and contact the senco, who will have made the referral.
C. Start actively looking for a suitable child minder or nanny to do pick up instead of after school club.
D. Look after yourself and prioritise your relationship with your dd and meeting all her needs - especially emotional - above all else for the time being.
E. Stop blaming the school.

Good luck. Hope it all works out.

Early intervention can be crucial to outcomes with asd and adhd. Kids rarly get refered this early without parents having had major suspicions and having asked repeatrdly for intervention so I would say the teachers are seeing some very pronounced markers and behaviour!But I very much ageee with sole above much of what they could be observing could just be major overstimulation and exhaustion.I would be looking at how to manage her 1st few years at school in a more relaced and nurturing way that it appears you and your dh are able to at the moment.

OP, you're totally right they could communicate better with you. Tb perfectly h, your school doesn't sound brilliant in a couple of ways - our reading records are written in every week at a bare minimum, often more, and email addresses/online ways of communication are freely given. I've never had a communication ignored, and I am also never at school to drop-off/collect.

I really will stand by what I said about wraparound for small kids. School + wraparound at both ends of the day for a summer-born Reception child sounds really tough. Mine were veterans of 10-hour days in childcare but school is different to the preschool years. They're coping with so much, emotionally and intellectually, that it exhausts them. If you could go and meet a few childminders, and see they can be great for yourself, or find someone who'd do after-school in your own home, you might all be happier. Try childcare.co.uk - often a good source? After-school sometimes suits someone older who doesn't want full-time hours but is happy to have a regular commitment of part-time.

Good luck. Hopefully all this will be water under the bridge as your DD gets older and more mature.

Our school has a rule that we must reply within 24 hours (during the working week) to a parent's email, a "holding" email is ok if information needs gathering. Email correspondence is encouraged rather than phone calls.

OP I hope you hear from the class teacher (or another member of staff) soon.

Thanks again everyone for your responses. Most of you have given me very useful information and advice to think about.

The head teacher phoned this morning and was very apologetic, she said their normal procedures hadn't been followed and made it sound more or less like the school nurse had decided to phone me off her own back without really consulting the class teacher. My husband has a meeting with the class teacher and the head teacher later this week to discuss things and see where we go from here.

Can you not make the meeting?

I have a child in Reception. She goes to breakfast and after school club 3 times a week until 5 pm, whereupon she's only fit for supper, stories and bed. She is exhausted.
The other two days I collect her on time, and we go home and relax on the sofa or back in Sept we had a little walk through the park with an ice cream. I really value that time together and we both need it. I adjusted my hours this year to enable it. We're a little worse off but mentally, we've got through til Christmas (almost) without too many tears or traumas.

Threepiecesuite - I think I said in one of my earlier posts that I have to go "home" for a family funeral, so I can't make the meeting on Thursday as I'll be travelling all day and I won't be back until Sunday night. I'm hoping to be able to meet up with the teacher the other side of Christmas, as neither she nor I will have time next week, and then there's the two weeks Christmas holiday.