To resist homeschooling

[IrisMarch]

I have NCd either through cowardice or to protect the innocent.

Just had Ed Psych report which says 5yo and school don't really mix. Reception year has been worse than I realised, no positive benefits at all as far as I can see but a number of negative outcomes.

Tests revealed motor coordination in bottom 4%, IQ in top 2% which is causing some of the behavioual problems. A neurodevelopmental disorder was diagnosed.

"EHCP should consider suitability of child functioning within structured formal classroom"

I know getting an EHCP could take months or more and even then it's hard to see what school could even do other than give 1 to 1 tuition in a separate room most of the day. On the ed psych's school observation child spent a grand total of 20 minutes joining in to an extent. Completely disruptive or disengaged the rest of the time. Probable reason for not being disruptive during said 20 minutes was presence of another class containing several even more disruptive children. Must be a complete nightmare for the teacher.

I'm not at all keen to homeschool 100% and take on total responsibility for education, therapeutic input, equipment etc I'd have major difficulties in getting childcare while working and can't give up work. I would be up for a reduced timetable or flexischooling if allowed.

OTOH can I continue to put this child through such a damaging experience?

I know I haven't given a lot of detail and I'm happy to give more.

I have absolutely no idea how to handle this but, from experience, I believe you very possibly do.

Op if you want to explore flexischooling options there is an excellent Facebook group called Flexischooling Families UK which has over 7k members and lots of useful leaflets about the legal side of it all

bran my point (which I admit wasn't very clear) is that lack of progress and focus in a classroom isn't necessarily a problem unless its disruptive or the child is actually unhappy or losing confidence etc. If they are happy and non-disruptive (just not making much progress) then let them get on with it in the classroom....they might just be waiting for the next big step forward.

If they are unhappy or disruptive then fine - a different solution is needed.

I guess it just feels like pathologising perfectly natural behaviour.

Sitting in a classroom with 29 other kids and being quite and learning all the same stuff together at the same speed isn't 'natural' or 'normal'.

That you can train most kids to adapt to that is interesting and useful, but really doesn't mean there is something wrong with those who don't adapt.

ITs the setting that a distortion, not the behaviour of 5 yo who don't adapt well to it.

And I strongly feel classrooms should provide for all 5yo, and HE shouldn't be forced on anyone.

If they weren't so slaved to league tables, schools almost certainly could cater better for children who 'struggle to focus', but in the current system the needs of the government/school far outweigh the needs of actual children.

That's very interesting M3lon. Unfortunately it seems as if my child is being extremely disruptive and is certainly bored and unhappy. At home they say they hate school and hate learning. They find it overwhelming, too many people, too noisy. They have switched off from reading where preschool they were interested and switched off from writing or drawing. Saying "I'm stupid" repeatedly.

I agree with what you say about league tables etc. I don't think this particular school is high stress, its a lovely diverse and friendly place with a great community feeling.

Iris I'm sorry to hear that. That certainly doesn't fit the 'okay to leave and see if it sorts itself out' category .

OTOH, you've presumably got 6 weeks to wind down, recover, rebuild, desensitise etc, and a lot can change in 6 weeks at this age.

I do agree with you there m3lon, but the mainstream classroom setting is the standard. This is why home education can be absolutely the best thing for so many children, but its quite a commitment, and I really dont think people should be forced into it.
For what its worth, my daughter does an online school and is thriving. One of my sons, ive recently had to remove from his mainstream school as they are barely even trying to meet his needs, but i will fight for him to get into a different school before resorting to home schooling, because he is very sociable and wants to do school. , and my other son was homeschooled for the best part of a year before i got him into a SEN school

I think its an actual crying shame that so many parents are forced into homeschooling their kids with additional needs because of the way the school system is, and with all that that entails, when really it should be far more straightforward to get the child an appropriate education. After all, most of these kids will end up being expecte to work and pay tax like anyone else and pay into the system, which cant even be bothered to provide a suitable and appropriate education for a significant amount of them as children

bran I feel we've all been sold a bit of a lie...mainstreaming is better for SEN...but then we will undermine all of that by pulling the funding from under schools.....

This combination seems to produce a great deal of children who's even slightly non-standard needs don't seem to get met.

exactly

Sounds quite a similar profile to dd2 who is very bright but also very very dyspraxic. I'll be honest - although very placid and desperate to comply - she hasn't has the greatest time in school and year 1 particularly has sucked until I dug my heels in and they started supporting her sensory needs and giving her alternative methods of recording her work more (she still writes some work to support developing those skills). Since she started using a combination of laptop and iPad (there's a fab app called snaptype pro where you can photograph an worksheet and tap and type anywhere on it, and clicker docs is pricey but a brilliant child level word processor) and she's become much more engaged and happy with school.

I very much went into things with the angle that we have a very bright child here who we're starting to lose and it's going to be so much easier to keep her on the right track than try to get her back later - she's at a very small infant school with a good record on SN... Lots of professionals have commented it's a good job we had switched schools (first choice was not working out for dd1) as our previous choice would have been completely wrong for her.

Hi Pantsy can I pick your brains about the technology? Your DDs situation really does sound similar (other than the placid thing ...) and you are only a year ahead of us so ideal trailblazers. What laptop and software is your DD using with the iPad? I will look at clickerdocs and snaptyoe pro.

She uses either one of the school laptops (but we had trouble with the class teacher this year who didn't want to be bothered basically so this wasn't happening a lot), or she takes her own iPad in every day and uses Clickerdocs (pricey one this one - it's about £30 which is expensive for an app but about as child proof a word processor as I've found - no "finding a funny button and making it do something random") and Snaptype Pro on there to do her work (she has a cheapo bluetooth keyboard she leaves at school but tends to use the on-screen one to be honest) and then prints it out at home. Not the ideal state of affairs but we found more cooperation from the class teacher if we did it all that way! (Roll on next year when we have a fantastic one!)

We could have tried the voice dictation route as well but she's a bit young to master it, and also has verbal dyspraxia so unclear speech. She also has a really cheap recordable postcard and quite often will record a sentence to play it back again and again to help her scribe it without having to keep it in her head while trying to remember how to form her letters and not plonk them all randomly on top of each other... going off the page... down the table leg...

We only really started getting joy from the school with technology toward the end of this year when I put my foot down as her self esteem was getting battered and she was sobbing about "my letters won't stay on the line where I put them!"

Thank you Pantsy My heart goes out to your DD, it's so wrong for children to have such horrible experiences. I'm looking into the ipad + clicker + snaptype combo. I've got a fairly basic tablet and we use 'teach your monster' and some other things.

What have you done about security/parental controls/insurance?

It's insured (ironically I'm the one walking around with a tablet with a cracked screen after I dropped my own personal one) and I have screen time set up parental controls on it blocking in app purchases and stuff (as she plays on it as well). Should be a lot better for us this year as the new class teacher is our amazing senco who really is on the ball... Then we hit KS2 where they're on laptops loads anyway!

Hi OP - what type of area are you in? Some rural schools have mixed year groups with very small class sizes and teachers are used to providing different tasks for individual pupils because there can be big variations in ability.

My DC, one of which has SEN, went to a school like this with around 35 pupils spread across three classes. They were open to flexi schooling and often took children with additional needs from outside the catchment area. At one point DC3 was in a class with only 7 pupils which had a teacher and teaching assistant too so there was very intensive support for each child.

I can’t see how gone schooling would be an option. With the additional needs of your child they really need someone who knows what they’re doing. Also, if they’re bored at school because they are bright then they will need s really challenging curriculum. Would you be able to provide that up until the age of 18?

*home

Do you have any autism resource bases? You need to interrogate the LA as to available provision and then cast the net wider if that doesn't work. I couldnt home ed and there's no shame in not wanting to. The only thing I would say is in some cases a short term intensive home programme, such as an ABA programme, can help. When I was an SEN Officer we had a couple of kids on dual placements -half the week in school and half on ABA. It actually worked well and the kids went on to full time mainstream school, obviously still with support. This was about 5 years ago.

We're in a city but I'm wondering if, despite rather complicated family circumstances, we should consider a move.