To just feel very sad

[Leveled]

DD is nearing the end of school in year 11. She's struggled her whole school life, the easy target of bullies because of how quiet she was, struggled massively socially, has been berated for her Sen on occasion, had just enough diagnosed SEN to be a hinder but not enough to have any real help.

I've spent the last decade fighting a stretched system for any scrap of support for her.

Initially she kept up barely, she passed her Sat , just, but as the work got harder she just couldn't.
We have arrived in year 11 and my lovely girl so full of dreams is barely going to scrape enough grades for the lowest of college courses if at all and I am just so bloody sad for her.
Obviously I dont tell her this, obviously I cheer her on every step but what's left is a anxious child who has had panic attacks in school, can't cope and believes she is a failure and will always fail no matter what she does.

Even with help and tutoring she just has given up.
I'm just so pissed that this is what inclusion in mainstream for Sen kids looks like .

I’m so sorry OP

I hope that she’s able to thrive again once she leaves the school environment. She still has options for her life and academic grades aren’t everything. She should still be full of dreams and you can help them to blossom now she’s out of the regimented environment of school.

The school system has failed your daughter. Your daughter hasn’t failed anything. The system is too rigid and doesn’t always take into account students individuality. School is not the be all and end all. There will be other opportunities for her especially with such a supportive parent. There are other ways to get qualifications and there are other options outside of academia. What are your daughter’s dreams? Just becasue the school environment doesn’t suit her doesn’t mean she needs to give up on them.

She wants to be a nurse, she would ideally like to work connected to the military somehow. She is a cadet and absolutely loves it.

I've just found out that on Monday she was asked to do a presentation to the camera Infront of her peers ( she was selective mute when under 5 and also has Dyslexia issues amongst much more a) which resulted in her becoming hugely distressed in school and having a panic attack.

I'm so sorry for everything you and your girl have been through. School can be utterly shit for so many children and once she is out of there things might improve.

How is she doing in the cadets?

Would she be interested in working as a Health Care Assistant?

She's amazing at cadets. It's a small unit with fantastic leaders and there is at least one other teen there with similar needs. She loves the order and structure of it all and is a training one star. She does get frustrated sometimes socially but they are a great bunch of kids who seem to get her and the leaders would come down on any bullying immediately.

That might be an option. Thank you.
She actually has a place for September on a relevant course and they placed her based on her predicted on the top course but said they would move her where she needed to be after results but her grades have dropped so much and her school do limited subjects that she is unlikely to get the five GCSED needed for even the lowest course as I there is no entry level there. Obviously we are looking elsewhere.

She sounds like a more practical person.

Weirdly leaving school may be the best thing for her. She can concentrate on the things she’s good at rather than being held back by the things she struggles with.

If cadets is working for her that’s a positive.

She is definitely a practical person. She is awesome at doing first aid and bandages and things such as that and has always been the one to manage to draw the 'blood' out of the fake arm or insert a drip line etc .
She just can't get it from head to paper.

Not cadets or nursing, but a friend of mine has done fabulously without getting good grades. She went on to be a beautician, and now runs her own business out of her own home. It has been perfect with kids, she does exactly the hours she wants to do, and this has changed with each stage of her dcs lives. Charges about £40 an hour with little overheads. She charges about half the price of the salons in town, so gets to pick and choose her clients who are queuing up. She often jokes that it's really lucky she didn't do well at school, otherwise she'd have never ended up doing this.

If she gains employment as a carer in a nursing home they will support her through her NVQs in Social Care, and they normally offer to support into nursing if people decide to go down that route. Alongside the NVQ they also offer GCSE Maths and English if she wanted to up her grades. The assessor would work with her 1:1 to help her gain the qualifications. Plus she'd be drawing a wage.

I think this is The future for my DC7. Both my DC have SEN and both are currently being assessed. DC7 deffo has dyslexia. It couldn't be more obvious. It sounds like you've supported her well, and she's obviously just not great with writing things down. My brother was like ahiw. He retook maths and English I think, at college, and did an IT course iirc. TLDR: he worked his way up one company from sales to something important, and has since worked his way up a different company and been store manager. He also owns a house, has a wife, and two DC they are home schooling.
Not being academic doesn't have to be the end. My DC7 wants to be a midwife or nurse or early years teacher. She wants to work with babies, primarily. And I know she would be great at that, unless she has a huge personality transplant before then.

If she can get her foot in the door as an HCA, there are internal routes to becoming more qualified.

I am so sorry Levelled, your post brought tears to my eyes. However with a mother like you, in time she will achieve something worthwhile, we just can't see what at the moment.

Oh lovely
I just wanted to tell you about my no2 son.
I took him out of school at 12 because he was so badly bullied, and I was terrified he would do something stupid
Anyway, he didn't take GCSES but he is now a fully qualified chef, has his own home and life in a city a couple of hours from home, and is doing well and loving life.
There is more to life than the "traditional" path, so try not to worry - your girl will find her own way, especially with your support, and hopefully will be fine!

Thank you so much. Your own personal experiences do help so much.

It was parents evening last night and honestly it's bloody hard when your friends kids are being told what a shining future they will have and you are being told oh well we will be pleased if she gets a two.

What makes me more angry is in the subject she is getting all round help in from school, home and other where they changed teachers and put them in a smaller group, she has made two levels of progress in ten weeks but I can't afford to replicate that in other subjects and neither can school.

I sat in front of a subject teacher last night and told him that my child had given up completely in his subject and was struggling to process the information in the style it was being taught. I got nothing back. No how we could both tackle it, how I could help, nothing.
He told me that he had been running intervention for 8 week and DD hadn't been one to go. DD has told me she asked if she could come to intervention and had been told she had to have something specific to raise for help, she has Sen and doesn't know where to start as she now needs help with everything so didn't go...

In primary when they gave her the support she needed because they didn't want her to break their perfect SATS score she went from a 1a to a 4c/4b in less than a year.
I can help but I can't do it on my own :( and DD is now so down and determined she will fail that she's struggling to even think there is any point t anyway.