AIBU to think school should contact me before referring DD7 for Lego therapy?

[rumpusboo]

This is my first post, please be gentle. DD7 is in year 3, she's in an oversubscribed 'outstanding' school. At the end of year 1, classes were shuffled and DD was the only girl in her class who was moved to another class. She was initially upset but has settled and made friends. Since the start of year 2, in every report, her teachers have stated that her communication is emerging but have provided no evidence as proof. DD has always been advanced in her speech and has a larger vocabulary verbally and in writing than DD10, she is confident and has a brilliant sense of humour. It is one thing saying that a child is quiet, it's another saying that she is unable to communicate when it's far from the truth. At the start of year 3, I met with the head of inclusion and she suggested ways in which she could be encouraged to come out of her shell. Her teacher hasn't followed this action plan. DD says she is never picked when she raises her hand to participate in class and seems to be giving up on trying as the teacher expects so little of her. Her maths and English is always assessed as expected whilst she is markedly advanced in English. DD attends tuition outside school and her tutor is gobsmacked whenever I mention that her teacher says her communication is emerging as she is an excellent communicator and is working above year 4 level. This has also been the case when I've mentioned this issue to my mum who is a retired headteacher. At her most recent parents evening, I asked her teacher if her communication was improving, the teacher looked blankly at me and said she has not really had a chance to speak to her. This was after a full term in her class. DD has many friends and still gets most of her party invites from girls who were in her year 1 class. She is quite popular and has a firm group of friends who she's is really close to. I've just checked her contact book and seen a letter informing me that she would be attending an intervention group called Lego Therapy every Monday and Tuesday morning before school. She told me that she was taken there this morning along with two of the most boisterous boys in her class. I have looked up Lego Therapy. Please see the link below. AIBU to think the teacher should know my daughter better than she does by now and the school should have discussed this with me prior to referring her for the group?
www.ucl.ac.uk/educational-psychology/resources/CS1Songara16-19.pdf

Never heard of Lego therapy.

It is very hard to detect ASD in girls. ASD girls mask their ASD by behaving in certain ways. Schools do not waste essential resources for no reason. I suspect that your daughter is behaving one way at home where she feels comfortable and another way in school where there is a lot more noise, people and distraction. My son was diagnosed with ASD a year ago and I was not totally surprised given some of his symptoms over the years. Its just been raised my daughter might also has some traits which knocked me for six because she does not have any obvious to me issues...but now its been pointed out I can see why I'm being told this. Google the Girl with the Curly hair.

You said she still gets invited from her old class, has she made any friends in this class?

My son is very different in school to how he is out of school. I know he won’t say his sounds to his teacher yet with me is already beginning to blend them. Some children are different in school and unfortunately the teachers have to assess on what they see there and not what you say they can do at home.

You could ask to see her assessment records and then as previous posts suggest ask to see her individual provision map to see what support she has in place

The whole thing does sound very strange.

I really don’t understand the objection to the therapy. It is not a punishment and will allow the school to get to know her better. Clearly they are trying to do their best for her.

It is well worth having a conversation with the class teacher with a senior member of staff present and seeing what they say. However parents cannot cherry pick their favourite teachers or schools would not work, so it is very unlikely that she will be moved to another class.

The reality is that you have the choice to suck it up for this year (only about 8 months left now) and hope she gets a more understanding teacher next year or look at other school options, including private with smaller classes.

Some schools are not a fit with some pupils, however good the school or talented the pupil..

I’m a teacher and we run Lego therapy sessions in our school. We include a range of children and in a group of 3 we ensure there are good role models for behaviour, communication, social skills etc to help the children with a specific issue. As you say she’s going with 2 boisterous boys, could it possibly be she’s part of the group as a role model for good behaviour and it may also help improve her communication skills too.

My youngest is very different at school than home. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him in school. Looked very serious, walked around very straight backed and basically didn’t speak until he was in year 5. At home - the youngest of three boys - he was known as the difficult, stroppy, shouty screamy one.

He’s quite an anxious child (driving both the mute-ness & the stroppy screamy ness imo). I think (for various reasons) he may also have a mildish sensory processing disorder. Now 14 he is apparently still quiet at school but recognised as a hard worker. At home he isn’t as stroppy as he was.

Definitely have a chat with the school to get a sense of how she is there. School couldn’t believe my description of ds3 at home and I was a bit gobsmacked by their description of him at school. Lego therapy seems to be the in thing at the moment - it may be helpful, probably worth a try. But yes I think you need to talk to the school.

We have talked about the difference between ‘school ds3’ & ‘home ds3’ quite a bit over the years (with him I mean), which has been interesting.

My youngest is a lot younger (nursery age) but he has selective mutism. The child he is at school is completely different from the child he is at home or in other situations where there is only a small group of children with him.

The school obviously have concerns and moving her has evidently knocked her confidence. You need to speak to the school and find out what they are concerned about. And what you can do to work together on it.

Honestly, schools can't win. For a school to (i) Identify a potential issue and (2) Put an intervention in place to help is a good thing. Wish my ds's had been in a school like this. She will not have to declare in her CV that she was in lego therapy at 7 so don't worry about her getting long terms labels because of this.

Something like this is a much more realistic way to build her confidence than expecting the teacher to disproportionately ask her to answer questions in class.

This will help nurture her emotional well-being which is far more important than pushing the academic side.

Make an appointment with the senco to discuss things further but I certainly wouldn’t discount any positive intervention like this

I would personally be looking for a new school as they have clearly formed an unhelpful view of your DD. However if you want to keep the same school I would be asking them the following:

1. To detail their concerns in writing and provide examples as you are struggling to connect the child they score in reports to the child you are at home.
2. To detail what they are doing to support her and provide examples.
3. To ensure they gain your permission prior to new interventions and to keep you informed regularly.
4. To move DD to a new class as her current teacher appears to have formed a set opinion of her that is unhelpful.

I would also be:

1. Asking the tutor to write to the school to advise that he is confused having read the school reports vs her attainment with him. He could ask the school to provide more detail so that his tutoring can be tailored.
2. Enrolling her in activities that encourage confidence outside of school.

There absolutely no way you can compare your dd at a 1 to 1 tutoring session, or time with a grandparent, to time in the classroom and at school. Your dd is obviously presenting very differently. Whether your dd has a great vocabulary and is a confident communicator at home and 1 to 1 with adults isn't being questioned here. The issue is that at school she isn't a confident communicator, and seems to be lacking in confidence generally. The school have recognised this and are putting in support.

You need to put aside your view of your dd at home and work with the school.

Please also bear in mind that you're paying the tutor. She will therefore agree with your obvious outrage that you believe the school has got it wrong. It's in her financial interest to do so.

My DS1's school also talk about him being nervous and quiet. The total opposite of him at home. He's also in a class with big personalities and gets lost. This has literally happened from carpet time on induction day when he had his hand up desperate to answer the question and kept being passed over.

I definitely go into the school to talk about it. Make a list of prompts from this thread.

Is it Kumon? I'm amazed the school allowed that.

FIRSTLY APOLOGIES FOR THE LENGTH

As a women with a very ‘social’ 9yo daughter and an 11yo ASD son, we recently discovered that my dd is also on the spectrum and I very likely am too. DD has always been very social, verbally advanced, yet was showing signs that her class teacher, like your daughters, was not seeing the child that we have at home. For example, DD was completely frustrated as was in a lower reading group, when she goes through novels on her own at school. I contacted her head teacher, who took dd out of class and spent a morning assessing her and suddenly she is moved up to the top reading group and has fantastic comments on how good her reading is and her expression when reading aloud.

DD is in a smaller school, we moved her because she was just lost within the bigger school and socially she flourished. So any worries we may of had were settled by the fact she was flourishing at her new school and since the intervention of her head teacher, she was placed in the top groups for maths and reading.

What I hadn’t realised is that DD is very good at mimicking the popular girls, which means she fits in. But yet despite this popularity, she would often be spending breaks and lunch alone, as she wanted to implement rules and structure to her play, but her friends obviously don’t. Spending all day at school pretending to be someone she isn’t, was emotionally exhausting for her. Emotionally my dd is much younger than her peers even if verbally she sounds very mature. As she approaches her teens I am afraid this will become even more obvious. Which looking back, was exactly how I was! I was very popular all the way through primary, only to be bullied horrendously in the Academy.

I am subscribed to many different YouTube channels that discuss autism, as I have found great strategies on YouTube that support my ds. This video came up on my suggested videos on YouTube and it was enlightening!

After watching this video, I was shocked to see my daughter (and myself- which I had previously suspected) in nearly everything he was talking about. I asked my dh, (who at this point was very resistant to the idea of dd being on the spectrum) to watch it with me, yet when we watched it together, he agreed with even more points. This was during the October holidays and DD was very emotional and pleading with us not to send her back to school, which makes a lot of sense now (she finds transitions and change difficult and had a new teacher starting after the holidays)! We sat her down and had a chat with her, where she confided that she felt she had to be always bubbly and fun and act like someone she wasn’t because she thought her friends would dislike who she is inside. She had always been anxious but as anxiety is a genetic trait, we assumed that she was just anxious because I am anxious.

Since our talk with her, our dd has opened up and is flourishing. The annoying thing is, that I know autism! I read every book I could get my hands on and yet I missed it in dd! Because girls don’t present the same way boys do! My dd and ds are chalk and cheese at times, his autism when younger was very obvious to the trained eye! In fact it was his difference to dd that made me first consider that he was ASD!

Yet when you read up on girls on the spectrum, my dd ticks every box, just as her db had when we were putting him through diagnosis! If I can recommend a book to read, it would be this one:

www.amazon.co.uk/Aspergirls-Empowering-Females-Asperger-Syndrome/dp/1849058261/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=aspergirls+rudy+simone&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1543302229&sr=8-1

Interestingly, it discusses the kind of issues your dd may be having in communication. Alongside selective mutism.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult for girls to be diagnosed with autism/ Aspergers, as the DMS-IV is designed around the male presentation of autism. We have opted to research everything we can on girls on the spectrum, we are also working closely with her school. We have started to implement some strategies and also purchased her her own weighted blanket and sensory lights for her room. Which she is loving and we now have a happy little girl who is opening up to us more every day and asking so many questions about social skills and friendships.

Hi, child psychologist here. I agree with the above points that children often present differently at school compared to home. Nothing to worry about.

I would also ask to have a conversation with the senco to ascertain the goals of Lego Therapy for your DD. When I run Lego Therapy groups I have to get parental consent and so it's up to you whether you wish to provide that consent or not.

If your DD has friends and likes going to school everyday I would argue this is the most important thing. As others have said, she's only got 2 terms left and then she's on to the next year with a new teacher.

I would have thought the best people to meet with would be the class teacher and the Senco, the latter being responsible for assessing children for interventions such as Lego therapy. Unless the deputy head is also her class teacher?

Bring your child’s IEP or support arrangements plan, both of which should have been sent home for you to sign.

I wouldn’t compare what a paid tutor tells you with what the class teacher tells you. Children often perform better in a 1:1 scenario, but what’s important while they’re in the school system is how they learn in a classroom setting.

Maybe put the idea of moving her into a different class on the back burner while you’re dealing with the learning issue. Unless there’s a space in the other class, it will mean moving another child as well, and that would be unfair on the other child.

Can I ask why your daughter has an out of school tutor? Especially since she seems to be working at over a year above her level? If she has got used to one-to-one tuition she may be overwhelmed in trying to compete for her school teacher's attention so might not bother. Especially if everything is so easy for her as it must be if she is so far advanced of her peers.

Schools have very limited resources so I can't imagine they would use a place in intervention for someone who doesn't need it.

When was the last parents evening, you said it was after a whole term in this teacher's class, so I assume in October? What has happened in the weeks since, I assume you followed up immediately after the unsatisfactory meeting with the teacher?

I agree with Bumsex (very strange writing that)

if she’s was producing English work above year 4 level in class as your tutor insists she does out of school I’m sure the teacher would be delighted to record and take credit for it!

It doesn't sounds like it's just this teacher who has noticed as you say Since the start of year 2, in every report, her teachers have stated that her communication is emerging If she's in year 3 now that's an entire year she has been emerging, so there will definitely be evidence of whether or not this is the case.

Ps. Trying to be gentle here, as requested, but you you seem quite upset that your genius Year 3 child (you say she is better than your 10 year old verbally (so better than a year 6 level), working ABOVE year 4 level (so year 5 level), has an amazing sense of humour etc, etc) is not seen as such by the school and you don't like the idea of her needing intervention. Even incredibly bright children need help in some areas, it's nothing to be ashamed of!

It also seems like you are exerting a heck of a lot of expectation on your little girl, especially with extra tuition.

Well they have contacted you haven't they? They sent you a letter. They are doing something about her quietness and will use the intervention to see if she begins to talk in a smaller situation. Just accept it - it might do some good.

Talk to the school - something is going on if they have such a different opinion about her.

I agree selective mutism could be a potential diagnosis. One of DD friends had it at her previous school and since she has moved has gradually come out of her shell. She is still shy but nothing like before

The class move could have caused this.

I think it’s possible you and the school are both right.

It’s often the case.

I would go in with that mindset and ask them to elaborate because you don’t recognise the child they’re describing and you’re struggling to get your head around it.

Work with them and don’t just assume they’ve done fuck all and stuck her in expensive Lego therapy sessions rather than let her answer a question in class. Because that will make you sound silly.

Lego therapy is a nurturing tool. She doesn't have to have sen

would personally be looking for a new school as they have clearly formed an unhelpful view of your DD.
Eh? A bit extreme. Saying a child is shy or reluctant to speak in class isn’t unhelpful. Identifying it and then putting something in place to help is very helpful.
Lego therapy isn’t exclusion, it isn’t a behaviour group. Get a grip, that’s not helpful advice for the OP.

it just sounds like she is struggling to make herself heard in class and they are sending her to help with that - nothing to do with vocab or written skills. It sounds more like social communication. Perhaps she goes quiet around 'boisterous boys' and they think building some lego together and structuring conversations with them will help her.