to think the school are at fault?

[Marie0]

My DS 13 (year 9) has really bad behavioural problems.

He's in a vicious cycle in school. He doesn't learn anything due to him being sent out class due to his behaviour and then when he doesn't understand his work he starts to misbehave again due to frustration of not understanding.

He hates most of his teachers as they don't have the time of day for him and are seemingly waiting for him to make a wrong move to send him out. As a result school have put him on a different time table to his friends so he attends lessons with teachers he gets along with who will 'tolerate' him and hopefully he will learn something.

We regularly meet with his head of year (once a term) and the content of the meetings are just about his behaviour. (Disrespectful, truancy no motivation). It didn't really occur to me that there may be a learning difficulty as I presumed teachers would be able to pick up on this?

We've just been told they did a test and he has the reading age of 8!

AIBU to think the vast majority of his behavioural problems are probably down to the fact he most likely has a learning difficulty and that school should have been on this a lot sooner?

It sounds as though the school have let him down. Sadly, so have his parents.

Why is it up to the school to notice?

Because they have a duty in law to use their best endeavours to identify and provide for SEN. Because they are also supposed to have the expertise to do so. Because there is a whole statutory regime requiring them to do so.

OP, you need to get this thread moved to SEN. On AIBU people have little knowledge of or interest in the realities of SEN and schools' duties in that regard, and are much more interested in piling in, particularly if a child's SEN lead to behavioural difficulties.

Helpme that's a great, supportive and useful post. Hope the OP is still reading so she can see it.

@longestlurkerever I would expect an 8 year to be able to comprehend sentences, to be able to read short fiction but a full book. I would expect them to be able to put the book down sleep and continue reading the next day and be able to remember the story line. Think famous 5, Enid blyton style stories. An advanced 8 year old I would expect lion the witch and the wardrobe. A struggling 8 year old (but one that could catch up with support) I would expect them to be able to read a short story of no more than ten pages. I wouldn’t expect them to be able to put it down and remember the storyline to continue reading it after more than an hour.

I would expect a 13 year to be able to comprehend academic texts that aren’t part of their vocabulary. Ie. Shakespeare. I’d expect them to be able to decipher the language or to know where to go for he info ie a dictionary.

Does that help?

The message coming over here seems to be that it's the parent's job to ensure their child both learns and behaves appropriately at school.
So what about children whose parents are unable to do that? Those who can't read themselves,or who are ill,or just can't be bothered...are we ok with their children just sinking without trace,cos it's not the school's job to help and support them? ( and I know many parents cope in spite of problems but that doesn't mean everyone will)
It is the school's job to recognise a child is not functioning at the expected level.And to discuss this with the parents and suggest what can be done,because even if you are aware as a parent there is an issue you may not know what could help.

And I can't find the post,but a poster up thread said " maybe he should have noticed". I'm sure he has noticed that he struggles with work his friends find easy.He's 13 - he won't be thinking "maybe I have SEN,what help is out there for me" , he'll be thinking "I'm stupid" .And possibly "I can't do this because it's all stupid"

Dear God, OP. You should be ashamed. Take the advice offered and parent your child.

Your poor boy. He must be exhausted, trying to keep his game face on every day at school. Every lesson he will be on guard in case he is asked to read something out and face ridicule.

Is there any possibility you could home-school him for a term to get his reading up to speed? If he didn't have all the distractions he could de-stress and work at his own pace. Does he have any hobbies or interests you could use to motivate him to read? Eg, you could get him a magazine subscription and read some of the articles with him so that he builds up his vocabulary.

There are loads of workbooks etc in The Works or WHSmith at his level. He would get more benefit out of them if he was able to work at his level quietly at home than at school where his friends might see.

Now that you know, you can help him. Get the SK2 Sats revision books so you can see where the gaps in his knowledge are. Ask older members of your family - is there anyone who can sit with him and do some tutoring?

Think of this as being like a broken leg - yes, it's hurting now, but you can fix it.

maybe you should have noticed yourself op. Do you read with your child? Interact with homework? Discipline him ever?!

School see him for about 30 hours a week, 39 weeks a year. You should have noticed before they did! Get involved in your child's education!

OP, you need to get this thread moved to SEN. On AIBU people have little knowledge of or interest in the realities of SEN and schools' duties in that regard, and are much more interested in piling in, particularly if a child's SEN lead to behavioural difficulties.

Again, this last paragraph confuses me as the OP has not asked for help or support once. The last paragraph in the OP is pretty clear. I agree that AIBU is terrible for support in SEN usually but I can’t help but think if the OP was asking for help or support, the vast majority of posts would be different. However, the OP has given no indication of wanting anything other than people’s thoughts on if the school is 100% at fault or not.

I ask again, what is a reading age of 8?

That's a really valid and important question, given the enthusiasm with which people are accusing OP of not noticing the problem. That is the reading age you need to read the Sun. So how many hard-working Sun reading parents would automatically realise their child with this reading age had learning difficulties?

Thanks for the explanation. I genuinely think my 7yo reads like an adult does. I'm not saying she could analyse a text like an adult does or anything but as far as learning to read in itself goes I thought we were done. I try and teach her all sorts of things and to engender a love of learning but I have never considered it my job to try and assess where she is relative to her peers. I'd totally rely on teachers for that.

The message coming over here seems to be that it's the parent's job to ensure their child both learns and behaves appropriately at school.
So what about children whose parents are unable to do that? Those who can't read themselves,or who are ill,or just can't be bothered...are we ok with their children just sinking without trace,cos it's not the school's job to help and support them? ( and I know many parents cope in spite of problems but that doesn't mean everyone will)

It is the school's job to recognise a child is not functioning at the expected level.And to discuss this with the parents and suggest what can be done,because even if you are aware as a parent there is an issue you may not know what could help.

This!

I'm quite horrified at the responses on here which seem to imply that whenever a school fails to recognise and meet children's special educational needs (which happens only too often), it can't be the school's fault and must be 100% the parents' fault. The sheer ignorance of the nature of SEN and how it manifests itself is breathtaking. So much for MN being a place to support parents.

The message coming over here seems to be that it's the parent's job to ensure their child both learns and behaves appropriately at school.
So what about children whose parents are unable to do that? Those who can't read themselves

Yes, but what struck me was how well the OPs first post was written. So no lack of literacy there. I might have been wrong, but I always assumed that school was there to top up the education we gave our DC ourselves. Reading, basic maths, a curiosity about the world around them, a good level of general knowledge, knowing how to behave in a variety of circumstances, that sort of thing.

Helpme

A 'reading age of 8' - and tbh the tests which give a 'reading age' involve a child reading a series of increasingly arcane words from a list on a poorly photocopied sheet IME (because the test is donkeys' years old) and therefore give no indication whatever of 'normal' decoding or comprehension - is 5 years behind, not 8.

I can, tbh, see how children whose behaviour is very very poor (or have diagnoses of SEN that are predominantly behavioural in nature, more accurately) falling that far behind over 8 -9 years in formal education, tbh. It wouldn't be unknown, for example, for a child with acute behavioural needs in a mainstream setting (maybe inappropriately placed, but through wishes of parents) to be working at the level of a 5 year old at the age of 8, and I can see it would be possioble to only gain another couple of years over the next 5 years of schooling.

I am thinking of the type of child whose behaviour leads to them only being 'actively engaged in academic work' for a couple of minutes or less in every 15, though, those who can physically, due to the nature and severity of their behavioural needs, never sustain attention to listen to or read a page of a book etc. Not 'a bit naughty' or 'often in a spot of trouble with the teacher'.

The usual test that gives 'reading age' is, in my experience - never used it as a teacher, uit's too out of date, but have encountered it every now again - is the Burt test

You can decide whether it is 'accurate' in deciding the comprehension and understanding of a text by a child....

I try and teach her all sorts of things and to engender a love of learning but I have never considered it my job to try and assess where she is relative to her peers. I'd totally rely on teachers for that.

This. I have no idea what my 7 year old's reading age is.

longestlurker and that’s how Children develop from initially learning to read. Most students can get to the stage where they can read most things. It’s constantly developing it to comprehend more complicated texts. If she is an excellent reader than get her reading non fiction as well as fiction because learning background information helps understanding with more complex texts.

The difficulty with something like a reading age of age 8 is that on the surface it looks very much as though the person is able to read.

The other difficulty is that children with SEN can be very good at mimicking and masking their needs to save face, so it's even tougher to pick up on for parents and schools.

OP, if you're still reading, it's awful that your DS is in the place he's in, but blaming them versus you won't change this. It's going to be incredibly hard but try to get on school's side and work with them from this point onwards to help him move forwards. It's absolutely possible that his SEN issues are having an enormous impact on his behaviour, but until he's diagnosed and understood and supported fully, you won't be any closer to changing his cycle of behaviour. It's hard to bite your tongue when you think school are at fault but really try to let go of the anger now and move forwards with them at your side.

|no I don't think I am at fault. I'm not his teacher

|Indeed, you're not. You're his parent His behaviour is your responsibility.

YABVVVVVU

In fact, I can't believe this isn't just a wind up. I hope it is.

MiddlingMum,I take your point,I'd moved on from the specific OP to the overall tone of the thread.
But :"I always assumed that school was there to top up the education we gave our DC ourselves. Reading, basic maths, a curiosity about the world around them, a good level of general knowledge, knowing how to behave in a variety of circumstances, that sort of thing."isn't what I think -I agree with you on how to behave in various circumstances and curiosity about the world,and I did do reading and maths with my DC,but no way do I think schools are topping up on what children learn at home.Topping up implies a solid base of knowledge and skill with the school just adding frills on the top.Most families aren't able to provide the breadth and depth of knowledge in the range of subjects covered at school,and even if your family can - again,what about the children whose families can't?

For a 13 year old to have a reading age of 8 means that this must have been a problem since primary school. The secondary has been slow on the uptake, but OP has raised no concerns about his abilities, and if no information has been sent from the primary school, I can understand why this has slipped even though it shouldn't have. Indeed they may have received heavily inflated SATs grades from y6 that could have misled them (which would trigger unrealistic GCSE targets) The secondary has been firefighting the aftermath. Individual teachers will only see him for 1-3 hours per week, and it can be hard to join the dots up without a trigger to look for patterns. If his behaviour has been motivated by avoidence of work, subject teachers will have little evidence to help them see the underlying issues.

I am surprised that OP hasn't picked something up herself. Not so much at secondary which is more independent, but at primary where support with reading is very strongly encouraged from the outset.

The blame can't be entirely upon the school, concern should have been raised years ago. I hope now it has been identified, measures can be put in place to support him and remedy the situation. Sadly the reality is that pupils needing additional support need their parents to push for maximum support, and yes, those that don't have that advocate for them frequently flounder

For people saying how would I know how my child does compared to their peers; SATs results, CAT testing, end of year exams, school reports, parents' evening, checking their homework and then asking them what mark they got for it, if they are getting low marks doing extra work with them or actively seeking advice from the school, just because the school have divided on behaviour at meetings (understandably tbh) there was nothing stopping OP asking about his academic attainment. Yes the school should have noticed but it's not rocket science for a parent to recognise their child is behind their peer group by five years.

I'm just wondering if people realise the average reading age in the UK is 9 years old.
Thought provoking detail...rather than knocking OP.

But Mrs strowman all those things you quote are things that come from school. Which is exactly what the options is saying. Why hasn't this ever been shared with her before? If school had always said my DD was doing fine I wouldn't be googling reading levels and getting her to do the Burt test online.