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?

No one noticed he had the reading age of an 8 year old? Do you see him read? Does he read to you? Do you read to him?

If he behaves badly at home too then its not caused by school...

You need to take a hard look at your son , your home life and his schooling and work with the school to find a way forward.

@bionicnemonic

'@ MissusGeneHunt maybe see if you think ‘slow processing’ fits'

Sorry, only just saw this!!! Thank you so much, will check it out. Another kind PP also gave me some pointers. There are some lovely mumsnetters here!!

If he behaves badly at home too then its not caused by school...

Nonsense. This is such a common misconception, but anyone who knows anything about SN knows that it's total rubbish. A child whose self-esteem is fucked up because his needs aren't being met in school, and who is spending every school day trying to hide his difficulties being punished for something he can't control, and getting increasingly stressed and anxious is highly likely to act out at home, not least because it's a safe environment where he can let all those stresses out. Children are constantly being seriously let down by people who make facile and totally baseless assumptions like this.

Gersemi

Well said

I would also add 'blaming' anyone at this stage is not going to help ... least if all the child.

He obviously needs some sort of help and he's being failed.

How you rebuild him needs to be positive and worth while.

Ask the GP for assessments, ask for a CAMHS referral, ask schools or dyslexic screening.

Make a change and get things moving - if school won't help - move schools