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?

The usual test that gives 'reading age' is, in my experience - never used it as a teacher, uit's too out of date, but have encountered it every now again - is the Burt test
No it isn’t, cantkeep. I’m an English teacher. Everywhere I’ve worked for the last 30 years has used NFER reading comprehension tests to get a reading age.

I think reading ability comes down to more than just reading regularly with parents as a young child. My dh is a professional with postgraduate qualifications and hates reading and books, at the age of 40 he finally realises that all these years he has probably struggled with dyslexia. He is a slow reader and says he often has to re-read sentences. Takes him ages to get through passages. Luckily his chosen profession relies more on scientific knowledge/maths so he's got by ok but his educational journey has been a bit of a slog! He seems to find working and reading on a laptop easier. He also has a stammer so not sure if this is related, being a language difficulty. I hope your son gets the help he needs, perhaps a referral to an educational psychologist to find out exactly what's going on.

Thanks cardibach! As I say, rarely come across 'reading age' as a measure, tbh, and when i have it has been the Bart test. Glad that a better test of comprehension is being used now!

Yeah the school should have noticed, but as a PARENT you should have noticed it first! Bloody hell..

I’m sorry but there’s just no excuse for not noticing that your 13 year old has a reading difficulty.

My DS struggles with reading due to mild dyslexia and I’ve been ‘on it’ for YEARS. It’s not any teacher’s responsibility to monitor this. It’s yours.

I think the thing to think carefully about is the consequences for each party.
Assuming other children are doing well in the school , then one child doing badly isn't going to have a great affect in the scheme of things , and in fact may even improve results if he is being removed from lessons he was previously disrupting allowing other students to learn.
However the consequence for your son (and you) are huge , with life changing results.
That is the reason why I think it is your responsibility to take control.

I teach Mathematics, not English , but I can say that in my experience the only way students will catch up is by doing more work that the others are doing, and that means extra stuff at home.

@Gersemi the school may be at fault directly but schoolomg is the choice of the parent. If a parent chooses to put a child in a bad school they are responsible for the outcome. Being ignorant is not an excuse to fail your child or to place the responsibility for raising your child squarely on the shoulders of the state. Parents have a moral obligation to take an interest in their children, to make good decisions on their children's behalf, to ensure that their child's needs are being met etc. Putting a child in school is part of that. Good parents choose to put their children in school because they are confident that the school will meet their child's educational needs and they monitor the schools performance/intervene kg necessary. OP seems to have decided that she can completely abrogate her responsibility for his education by sending him to school. This isn't the case.

It is very good that put society has welfare systems and laws in place to ensure that bad or carelrss parents are forced to educate their children but this doesn't not somehow shift the responsibility onto the state. Your kind of thinking highlights the downsides of welfarism whereby the government is expected to provide absolutely everything in which case what is the point of the individual? What is the point of a parent is they can't be bothered to make sure their child is being educated properly?

Has your child actually been diagnosed with a SEN? Plenty of people have said things about SEN on here but so far I've just heard about his behaviour and reading age.

The reading age thing is no surprise really. It's very common for disaffected teenagers to have a lower than expected reading age. My children are in primary school and their reading age is assessed regularly. OP were you never told your sons reading age? As he approached the end of primary school did the school not warn you that his reading age was low?

I don't think the secondary school are to blame at all. Sorry. I think the primary school may hold some of the responsibility though depending on how they managed things.

Honestly I can't believe that this is the first you knew though and I massively object to this:

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

Secondary teachers have chosen to do that job because they care more than most about teenagers. They have a duty to all the students in their class and unfortunately if your son is so disruptive and unresponsive to warnings it is the right thing to remove him from the class. This doesn't mean he is being given up on. The teacher will remove him from their class but will follow up with him later. She/he doesn't hate him. If she/he hated him they wouldnt be doing this job. Believe me. In every school year in every school their are lots of people like your DS.

If a parent chooses to put a child in a bad school they are responsible for the outcome

Wow. You are clearly oblivious to the fact that many parents have very little choice and don't get their first choice school anyway. But the wealthy ones are ok because they can afford to buy homes in the best areas and increase their child's chances of getting in the good schools and then they can laud it over those without those privileges.

Your attitude isnt great op. That can’t help your son.

How often do you hear him read? How often is he reading at home? Can you compare that with how often he is on electronics gaming? What does he do most? What’s most beneficial for him?

What do you give as consequences for his poor behaviour (a) at home and (b) at School as a way to reinforce the school’s sanctions?

If a parent chooses to put a child in a bad school they are responsible for the outcome.

How is OP supposed to know if a school is not complying with it's SEN responsibilities? And in many areas it's ridiculous to suggest that parents have any realistic choice of schools.

I'd say the vast majority of his problems stem from having a mother that doesn't bother with her son. How else can you not be aware of his reading ability and why haven't you done more to address his behaviour and attitude.
You have totally let your child down as it sounds like he needs a lot more help across the board. In fact I think this post is probably a wind up!

You are his mother, that makes you far more responsible for his behaviour, attitude and skills than a teacher!

How often did you read to him before he started school and how often did you listen to him read after he started school?

Reading is a key skill, possibly the key skill. It opens the doors to everything else.

Now that the issue has been identified, you, as his parent, need to take action. Make sure he does his homework, follow up on any thing the school says or sends to you. Support the school as they try to support him.

If the poor behaviour has been going on for a long time then I think he hasnt been engaging in lessons and has missed a lot of education. Things seem quite serious if he is on a special timetable and his behaviour is poor at home. If you are serious about helping him maybe consider a tutor at home to work on his reading. If there isnt an underlying issue ge should make rapid progress one to one if he is willing.

It’s a really common response to bad news, especially about one’s child, to shoot the messenger.

The OP has got a DS with really difficult behaviour, she is regularly attending meetings at school and if he is also poorly behaved at home then life must be pretty stressful. A bombshell like ‘he’s 5 year’s behind his expected reading age’ is going to provoke a strong reaction in someone who cares about their DS. Anger is quite common.

It’s possible that a child can go through school getting poor results, ‘below expected progress’ etc and for a parent to not realise just how bad the problem is until it is presented starkly in a figure like reading age. The reporting system in schools is not this clear - it may show a child is behind, but not how far behind.

And yes, the school should have picked up on this earlier. They probably knew he had weak literacy but hadn’t done the assessments. But it is what it is and working with them to support him should be the way forward.

I know I'm being a bitch but she wrote the title out as "the school are at fault". I don't think reading is this families strong suit 😕

Or even "this family's strong suit" Zfactorstar.

If you had him read out loud to you every evening (or at least, some evenings) as is recommended by primary schools, his reading would have improved .
It sounds like his Primary school did try to help him but had very little input from home .

I have a son with a SEN and he has no behaviour problems and it pissed me off that your blaming an SEN on his behaviour. We don't know how you helped him at home when primary were giving him catch up.lessons as you haven't come back to tell us, but the fact you are happy to blame school suggests your looking for someone to blame about his behaviour.......try looking into the mirror. Stop playing the blame game and get the child into a routine at home were you support his learning and teach him how to deal with his frustration in a way that doesn't manifest as "bad behaviour" .

Some kids with reading problems misbehave, some go quiet to hide it. Either way spotting these things is usually a joint effort.

Basically if he has a reading age of 8 he either started reading very slowly and you (yes you as parent) should have realised things were very hard going or at some point he has hit a plateau. Actually you are best places to spot this as each year he will have a new class teacher in primary and lots in secondary. So age 13 if he isn't reading at a teen level (ie can he/does he read books from teen section in library/bookshop) then you have an issue. Plus let's not ignore the school have spotted it, they did the test.

Leaving that aside poor behaviour at home too means it's not all reading. So I would like to ask you an honest question, as a teacher, that I have wanted to ask parents complaining of things like this. Why do you think I should go to work each day to be abused and disrespected by your son? If it worked in a shop and a customer was like this they would be asked to leave, why should I put up with it? It isn't my job- that is to teach, it is your job, to parent and teach boundaries. You do your job and I will do mine.

Your son probably has a reading age of 8 as he's missed learning due to his behaviour. Parents should be reading with their children just as much as school. You have only a small amount of children to read with. School have around 30 in a class all of whom have different needs and abilities making it very challenging to meet every child's potential particularly if they are not engaging with education. Can you even begin to imagine teaching 30 kids how do hundreds and hundreds of things in year.
Step up and realise that education is not just school's job. Its a parents job too.

Time to get pro active - an ed psych recommended a book for my dyslexic son called word wasp. It's great, it works on spelling and reading. I'd actually look at getting him a tutor.

I would also consider having a look at adhd to see if he fits the profile. Undiagnosed adhd'ers can have hell at school and being so inattentive can stop learning. I'm not saying this is your son but worth looking g at everything.

I'd want the school to carry out an educational psychology assessment

Well said Catsbeen !

And yes, the school should have picked up on this earlier.
But how are the school supposed to pick up on it when he's continually misbehaving? His teachers don't have the chance to assess his educational abilities because they're too busy trying to manage his disruptive behaviour. Surely if you know that your child is struggling at primary school because they've highlighted it, then you follow up on it? You don't just assume that they're sorting it out?! That's not parenting, it's passing the buck. You liaise with the (primary) school, you encourage your DC, you work with them after school in conjunction with the school...
It doesn't matter whether you think the secondary school should have picked up on it or not because you should have been all over it at primary level.

I think blame, if you want to lay blame, lies with school and the OP.

It sounds as though the DS was identified as being a poorer reader at primary school as he was in intervention groups. This would be my first port of call (Year 3 teacher). SEN is not my first thought when faced with a child who struggles at something, you give them more support and interventions and see if that helps. Parents would be informed of this. I ask all parents to read regularly with their children too, as I don't necessarily get to hear every child read aloud every week. Ongoing lack of progress would trigger work with the SENCo to try to get some assessments perhaps, but often it's down to the parents to push for things, especially if outside agencies are involved.

But just having a low reading age or behavioural issues does not mean the child has learning difficulties.

So the primary school did put interventions in place, but between them, the secondary school and the OP no assessments have been done in a timely manner. So school and parent both at fault.