To wonder what is happening in my DS school?

[Mrssalvatore123]

I have a 5 year old son. He was born at the end of August so even though he has just turned 5 he is in year 1. Lots of his class mates are turning 6 so he is the youngest by nearly a year to a lot of them.

School keep asking us in for meetings as they suspect he has ADHD. The reasons given are that in school he is easily distracted, quite tactile with staff and fidgets a lot. He is apparently behind the rest of the class with his phonics. Apparently he struggles to build relationships with adults and other children

At home there is no evidence of this. He pays attention in his extra curricular activities, he is mostly well behaved, he can write short sentences and reads his school books at home well. He loves doing “homework” tasks and telling us what he has learnt at school. He has a group of 5 or 6 good school friends and is regularly invited on play dates which he behaves well at.

School say his behaviour is good but he has all the signs of ADHD and we must get him assessed.

After the school first had us attend a meeting we were worried and took him to the doctor who said they could see no signs of ADHD. He was just young in the school year and nothing to worry about! They also said the school have a route to follow for assessment and this is not the way.

We had a call last week and had to attend another meeting with the teacher today. They stressed we must push harder with the doctor to start assessment for ADHD. We asked for examples and were told again that he needs extra encouragement to pay attention and that he fidget in class and is behind in phonics.

He has just turned 5.

I don’t want to be the parent who dismisses things but I’m at a loss. Do I keep pushing for an assessment? If he had ADHD would we see signs at home or in his other activities? My gut is that he is just little and if he had been born 2 weeks later he would be in reception.

AIBU to think the school could be wrong here?

Thank you all so much for your replies. I really appreciate the support. To be clear I am 100% going to work with the school. It is a lovely school and both children are very happy there. I have requested another doctors appointment, but I find the route confusing and also the fact that we as parents, extended family and other care providers/ activity staff have not mentioned anything.

He can spell short words like cat, dog, and, the, etc. He write neatly in short sentences such as “the cat and dog go” he is comfortably reading phase 2 but he does still blend some words out loud rather than in his head but that is progressing week. To me that seemed about normal for a year 1 starter and certainly one who has just turned 5. I wish I could be a fly on the wall and see what actually happens in the classroom.

Not RTFT but my Feb born DS showed ASD signs at school. I thought they were totally wrong at first! They were right, I was wrong.

Not sure whether all schools have the same route for assessment but where I am (Greater Manchester area), the GP doesn’t have any involvement in an ADHD diagnosis. The school are supposed to refer to the pathway themselves (which usually entails a classroom observation before they’ll even accept a referral) then you go on the never ending waiting list for assessment. In our area they won’t accept any referrals for children under 6 (and in year 2) as so many at 4-5 display adhd type symptoms which can just be normal behaviour. I also baffled as to why the SENCO isn’t involved - the SENCO should be leading on this. The process could differ depending where you live but I thought it was similar everywhere. Someone else also pointed out the ‘symptoms’ have to be present in more than one setting ie school AND home. So if you didn’t identify symptoms yourself he wouldn’t even be accepted onto the pathway. I think school are jumping the gun here massively x

I wouldn’t be prepared to waste any more of my GPs time until they can be bothered to get their own SENCO involved.

If the teacher has identified areas of need, the SENCO is the FIRST STEP, not rushing to try and get a diagnosis!

The SENCO would then observe, put plans in place where needed, the make adaptations where needed. That may be all it needs.

They should then see how the extra support goes for a while, reassess regularly. Call in an Educational Psychologist if required. If extra support on top of what they are already doing is felt to be needed, the school can apply for an EHCP to secure additional funding.

At this point (at least a year from now) it would be more evident if there were a need for a referral for diagnosis. In which case the SENCO is the one to refer to CAHMS for assessment, not your GP.

This is not something your GP can help with. They are not in contact with the your school, they don’t know you child at all, on what basis are they referring? Heresay? No. It’s done through the school that knows the child. Because they need to provide evidence of what they are seeing to support the need for an assessment.

If the teacher won’t even involve the SENCO then that to me says that this is a problem with this particular teacher. Speak to the SENCO directly yourself. They should be meeting his needs now regardless or any pending referral or not.

I think it’s a waste of everyone’s time and your emotions worrying about a referral for a diagnosis at this point.

You can just imagine it - GP makes a referral to CAMHS, CAMHS send questionnaires to the school and home, SENCO gets them and is like ‘who? I’ve never even been asked to look at this kid, no one has mentioned any problems to me, we’re not doing anything different with this child’. Parents fill out there forms and say no concerns here either!’ CAMHS will say bye! Come back when you actually have a problem!

The teacher is being beyond ridiculous.

This is the route for most of not all areas.

The main reason being, GPs have no idea how you child is doing at school, what they are doing or not doing. They don’t know your child at all. In order to justify the referral they would need to speak to the school to get that information.

So it was decided to cut out the middle man and have school refer directly. Makes far more sense.

Hi , being a summer born child may take a few years to catch up with older children, this is not uncommon.
He seems to be comfortable with cvc words dog , cat etc and high frequency words from phase 2, which is a good sign that he is blending correctly.
Phase 3 (normally also taught in reception) is much trickier as you have digraphs and trigraphs and need to realise which 2 or 3 letters make one sound. This can be a big step up from 1 letter = 1 sound.
Also different graphemes can make the same sounds or one grapheme can make different sounds.
English unfortunately is one of the most difficult languages to read and write due to the evolution of English spelling.
I make phonics games for teachers , home educators and parents who would like to give extra support. I don’t know how to get these to you though. I assume I can’t share my website on here.
Can I message you directly or is this not allowed? I don’t know if this is possible on here, but if we can message directly I can send you some helpful games for free.

Any way there are lots of ways you can help at home in fun ways and drip feeding reading and spelling into everyday activities is really useful.
He will get there. Wishing you all the best.

I dunno, kids birthdays are spread evenly throughout the year

You might have only one or two children born in July/August out of a whole year though, then maybe one in September, a few in October etc. They aren't evenly spread in the way that you might have equal birthdays in every month. My DD was the only one with a birthday in her month at her last school.

Nope tell them the Dr disagrees with your observation if YOU feel there is an issue YOU need to get him assessed at YOUR school

It costs them money to call someone in for assessment my secondary school paid out about £600 for an assessment and the child was off with covid that day

In her class of course

@Mrssalvatore123 if you follow this link, www.nurseryresources.org/pdfs/EH7_Profile%20Exemplification_INSIDES_B&W.pdf the ELG exemplification this has lots of examples of what each area should look like for a child who is at the expected level of the end of Reception. It’s for the old curriculum but the exemplification for the new curriculum isn’t as clear unfortunately!

@makinganavalon please do you mind sharing the name of the podcast. I'd really like to listen to it.

@Rinoachicken

Excellent post.

Unfortunately teachers have little training in Sen needs so wouldn't know what the child is presenting.
Then senco are often just co ordinator s waiting for someone else to diagnose and tell them what to do.

@TwoProngedFork
Sure it's revisionist History podcast, this episode called outliers, revisited.
My husband got me to listen to it as we are both born in late August and our DD is late July, but turns out things are different in Scotland so my lo will be 5 when she starts school, not just turned 4 as we were in England.