Heartbroken and totally let down by education system

[Amatueuragonyaunt]

I'm after advice (and a bit of a vent). Ever since the start of the COVID fiasco, my two children (then 5 and 8 years old) have been totally failed by the state sector. My daughter is bright, but was not being pushed and was losing self confidence because of a lack of feedback and attention, so we moved her to a selective independent school where she is now thriving. The finances were (and are) a stretch, so we left our DS in the state system with the plan to see how things went and then move him at the same age as we moved our daughter (10). However, his needs are at the other end of the spectrum. It became apparent to us during pandemic home learning that there was some issue going on, but it took a further year before the school took it seriously enough to commission an assessment and another year after that before we got the report. It turns out he has severe dyslexia. This came as a both a surprise and not because we had suspected something, but generally his school reports were good with just a few weaker areas. Anyway, fast forward a few months when a load of interventions have supposedly been put in place - we don't feel confident that he's making much progress and we're aware of other children in the class with severe behavioural issues which were taking up the TAs time in entirety (so no support for anyone else). As such, we brought forward our quest to go independent and arranged taster days at a local non-selective school with good SENCO provision. Our boy loved it. However - here's the rub - the school won't offer him a place because he is more than two years behind the other children in that class. Needless to say, he's feeling pretty despondent about it, but what I'm fuming about is how his current school let it get that bad and not even tell us. Everything that has been put in place for him has only come about because we forced the issue and, when we were doing it, we were made to feel like we were overreacting and we're even told that actually our son was a bit lazy. This was before the report came out. This is an 8 year old who has been turned down for entry at a non-selective school that we are prepared to pay for because he is too far behind his peers. How is it that we have to send him in taster days just to find out how bad things are? The fact it's all come to light in a way which has left our son utterly gutted is the final straw. We didn't see it coming so couldn't manage expectations. We now have a situation where one child is flying and getting tons of opportunities while the other is completely shafted and there seems to be nothing we can do about it except give the current school a rocket (and what difference will that make?). To say I am fuming is an understatement. Anyone had similar or have any words of comfort or advice?

PS - the current school is supposedly 'outstanding' according to Ofsted, but it's not worked at all for our kids.

I'm not surprised you feel so let down.

If it were me, I'd book a meeting with the head and senco and explain the situation, asking what they will be doing to help your DS catch up.

In the meantime, could you get a tutor to spend time with DS in the hope he can progress sufficiently to be offered a place at the independent in a year or so? Perhaps search for a specialist tutor who has experience in working with children who have dyslexia.

I had similar with my severely dyslexic child. We gave up on the state school when they were 10 as by then the school had not even done an assessment or promised any accommodations. We did a private assessment and then put them in an independent Montessori school and got them a tutor to give them cognitive training using the Linda Mood Bell method.

Montessori schools are highly regarded plus they have a teaching method where multiple years can be in the same class and the children work at their own pace from their own level. It allowed our child to catch up while being in the same class as their peers.

The tutor taught our child workarounds for dyslexia as well as boosted their confidence by explaining how dyslexia is different wiring of the brain and they also were quick to praise their talents and intelligence- dyslexia is linked to high intelligence. This was much needed as the old state school had done the same message of you’re thick or lazy or both with a dollop of if your parents read to you more 🙄

Long story short, our DC did catch up. It took two years to catch up and then after the third year, they were ahead and showing their potential. They’re now getting a first at St Andrews University. So your DC is 8- you have time. There is no point trying to fix the current school so they can help your DC. Keep looking for what your DC needs. Perhaps what we found- a Montessori school and a tutor using Linda Mood Bell to boost literacy skills and confidence will work for your child too.

It’s almost like

1. schools are massively underfunded
2. there are not enough TAs to support children with extra needs,
3. there are not enough special school places so those with behavioural needs are disrupting classes and taking up teachers and TAs time,
4. Finance for SEND and CAMHS have been slashed so children have more mental health difficulties

all these things mean that children are falling through the cracks every day. I have a new 9yo child in my class that can’t access reception level work and I have no other adult in my class. I am trying to teach him to count to 10 and to sounds out basic phonics and at the same time teach fractions and parenthesis to the other children in the class - who are also at various levels of understanding. It’s ridiculous - children are suffering, but no one in the govt appears to care.

Can you get a private tutor. That combined with interventions put in place by the school made a massive difference for us. As reading age improved interventions were removed, but we funded a diagnosis ourselves and pushed for some level of intervention to be added back in. The teacher wasn't actually doing a lot of what she was supposed to be doing, but the TA was great. Reading age is still a bit below others but not as much as 2 years. The private tutor has been in place for 4 years and due to covid is now virtual. She is great and has a great relationship with my child.

Yes, all of this.
And be aware that in many areas the criteria for getting an EHCP involve pages of evidence which take months to obtain ( ie asking for things to be tried for 6 months before moving to next step)and once they are written can take many more months/years to be processed .
I had meeting recently with the Ed Psych for a particular child who made a list of steps the school needed to follow ( in front of the parents) and all the steps required 1:1 input from an adult. If there had been a class TA then maybe they could have found time to implement strategies such as typing lessons, occupational therapy etc once they had the training to do that, but in most classes there is only the teacher, who can't do that stuff while teaching 29 other children something else. Their attitude was that until those steps have been implemented and tried out and no improvement seen, then we can't move on to the next step, recommending funding for additional support!
I work in a fantastic school with caring staff but we cannot supply 1:1 support for any but the most extreme cases. I hate saying cases, each one is a child who needs help. There are simply not enough adults to go round. We are struggling to provide enough adults to supervise SATs properly next week, we need additional adults to allow those children who need extra time and/or breaks to have that adjustment. Our budget is in deficit, we can't afford to get enough supply staff even if there were sufficient available... it's not the school who has let down your child but the government. Do lobby your MP about this.

Spend the money on a tutor?

Also it's a shame so many pay-to-learn schools won't accept children who have fallen behind, and desperately need the teaching the parents are willing to pay for.

It makes no sense and smacks of the school putting 'results' before children.

HI OP

My personal story was the school I was at missed the fact that I couldn’t read or write at 9. At 10 I got moved to a specialist school (complex ND and was at the time categorised as having “learning difficulties” due to all my issues) and was reading at a 13 level by the age of 11. The first book I ever read was by John Grisham.

The point of my story is that you can quickly catch up given the right understanding of your kids need. Finding someone understands dyslexia is key. I would use the money for a tutor and put pressure on the current school and look at moving him to an indie in a years time.

YANBU but your DC is experiencing exactly the same poor education opportunities as every other child in the UK. The majority of parents can’t afford to pay to send their DC to private school.

There isn’t really a meaningful test for dyslexia that can done before the age of seven. School budgets are so tight that SALT and EP access are extremely limited (two children per term at our school). The system is broken and there aren’t enough resources.

"we're aware of other children in the class with severe behavioural issues which were taking up the TAs time in entirety (so no support for anyone else)."

TAs are usually funded for particular children and are not class TAs.

would the private school consider taking him out of cohort? placing him1 year behind his peers.

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all so true. Unfortunately all children are suffering. My children re older and some of their friends have never sat exams and they are 18 and have now been thrown into university exams not knowing what to,do, how to study me what support to look for.

The pandemic have a lot to answer for!

But surely, even if the school didn't have the money to diagnose and support, the teacher would have picked up there was a problem and were falling 2 years behind rather than sending out positive reports.

generally his school reports were good with just a few weaker areas.

You have managed to diagnose that a child is behind in their age level. I guess you're not sending out reports to their parents saying that everything is good. And, unlike you, the teacher of the op's child does have TAs in the class so isn't a solo adult.

Is it ever the fault of the teacher/school and not the govt?

i wouldn't be surprised though if the private school primary children are working a year ahead.

You are not at all unreasonable to feel so let down.

Keep communication open with the indie school and ask them if they will reassess for entry a year later. Throw the fees you would have paid for that year into specialist dyslexia tutoring and occupational therapy to support your DS to learn key skills to recognise and manage his additional challenges. With the right support like this, I should think it will be quite likely that he will catch up sufficiently that they are happy to admit him second time around.

there are some specialist dyslexia schools - have you looked for them?

I teach and have a child who is severely dyslexic. I knew that there was absolutely no way he would get any support at secondary school and bit the bullet and went private. You need a school with a dyslexic unit not just the nearest private school. We had to move for this.

I have a mixed year class of 30. Some are EAL, some have varying SEN, many are from dysfunction homes, some have hearing and visual problems and then there is me! On my own, exhausted, frustrated and overwhelmed. The classroom is no where near what is was when I started teaching.

When I eventually got a Dr’s appointment, she wasn’t sure so sent me to a specialist. That doesn’t happen anymore in education; you’re on your own with absolutely no specialist support. The classroom is also a merry go round of teachers in and quickly out of the school, leaving whilst they can. I’ll be on that merry go round this year.

In our school we can 'suspect' these sorts of issues eg dyslexia even in reception but the local authority has made it such that we can not even put chn in the waiting list for assessment until ks2. Did they not assess him internally as below or well below in literacy on end of year reports?
The reason sen provision is great for chn in the independent sector is they go private for assessments and are allowed to quickly.
Ĺet alone the sendco at your state school probably had other needs that were 'worse' than you son, for want of a better expression and I'm sorry that sounds so heartbreaking in relation to your son.

By all means meet the sendco and class teacher to find out what they will be doing now supposedly he has an ehcp and therefore funding (otherwise who is funding his extra work outside if what they class teacher has to provide for the class). I can't remember from the OP but do you have an ehcp with funded hours? The adults in class are probably due to other children's funded hours, plus a little class based time. Your sendco is probably going to have to collate evidence from other agencies and spend a long time applying/fighting the local authority (who interestingly approve and set how many hours your child will need and know how stretched their budget is)
If you do not have one I would write your own with some support from sendco as that will move things quicker.
Sometimes you can blame the system and the funding from the government and the schools hands are genuinely tied.

From experience, his previous class teachers were probably well aware there was an issue but had to wait until he was outside the remit of 'just a bit behind' and that 'everything had been tried internally' before they could move foresrd....sounds like a full 24 months of internally paperwork proving he needed extra support, got the support and still had no change (remember winter 2021 when lots of schools were blighted by abscesses and therefore interventions might nit have been done as LSAs were covering other areas well that would have added weeks on the timeline)

Apologies for the long delay but I'm sick of schools baring the brunt. You clearly have some extra money - I just never get why people won't just do private assessments,do the state ones and complain its taken too long. Advocate for your son and spend some money. It is not the headteachers fault the system is underfunded but I'm sure they will apologise and show you what they're doing as teachers everywhere are doing. I think it's really obvious when they nhs has its budget removed but not so in the education sector)

I'd also add do you really want that particular school?
they clearly they don't want your son or any other child that remotely needs differentiated learning or an extra bit of effort. Sounds harsh but they clearly don't know what to do when they're not perfect carbon copies of middle class children.

What suggests that if you get him working at an age appropriate level and thus into the independent that he would continue that trajectory of progress. They are literally telling you they cant deal with mild SEN like dyslexia.

Perhaps looks at more Inclusive provision with staff who are prepared to teach to the individual child.

"the school won't offer him a place because he is more than two years behind the other children in that class."

But that makes sense no? For them to say no. And even for your kid. Imagine being in a class where everybody is more than 2 years ahead of you in everything. Talk about soul crushing

But what I dont understand is that you blame his former school for not having flagged he was so behind, but how is it that you never picked up on that? Wherever i live you can see what your kid is supposed to be able to do at a certain age. And with homework it would become very obvious too right. So you know exactly when they are behind.

So how come you don't put some blame on yourself as well instead of pointing fingers at school. ... plus you seem to have a bit of extra cash. Why didn't you get your son a tutor before??

I don't believe them.

If that private school was benevolent and not results driven they would take your son and work with him to the best of his ability.

At 8 years old there's no such thing as being 'behind' it's an artificially constructed barrier to keep your son out.

Find a better solution which will nurture and boost your son's confidence.

Another possibility might be to ask them if they will admit him into the yeargroup below his own age cohort. Is he summer born by any chance? That might close the gap enough for them to cope.

But pp who said it might not actually the right school does have a point. The non-selective indie around our way isn't really well set-up for learning difficulties. They specialise in the "nice but dim" and generally very sporty and/or creative offspring of the wealthy who can't pass the challenging entry tests for the competitive academically selective indie schools, but generally don't have specific additional needs beyond being not that bright. If that is a similar target market then it's probably not the right place for your DS, who may actually be exceptionally bright and doing a huge amount of extra work to have been doing as well as he has in the context of his additional challenges. A dyslexia-focussed specialist school may have a much better way to release his full potential.

Hi my dd had a similar experience in primary. It was only because of home schooling in lockdown that I realised she was massively struggling with reading and spelling. School denied she had any issues and just said that verbally she was fine and was a day dreamer!

My LEA don’t fund assessments so I paid privately for a dyslexia assessment and unsurprisingly she is dyslexic. She is also very intelligent and had switched off from school as she thought she was stupid so the diagnosis was a help for her self confidence.

I would recommend taking your ds for a visual stress test from a specialist optometrist. Having coloured lenses really helped to improve my dd’s reading speed and reduced her mistakes. Since we started 3 years ago her reading speed has improved from 70 words per minute with 8 mistakes to 122 words per minute with zero mistakes. She also has poor visual convergence so has coloured varifocal glasses with a prism. The glasses help the words to stop moving and blurring on the page (common in dyslexics).
The assessment has to be repeated yearly as the brain adapts to the colours and it starts to be less effective. However the glasses are far better than coloured paper or overlays as she can read off the board/computer etc

The school paid for a licence for IDL which is a spellling and reading programme and this did help her to improve her spelling and she did this at home instead of reading homework. She completed the free dance mat course for touch typing and had her own chrome book in class at all times.

I act as a TA at home for homework, I help her organise her work and I am always there when she is doing it. She obviously does the work but I am there to discuss ideas, and she uses a laptop for most of her homework.

She is now in year 7 at a faith school, it is a smaller supportive environment and she is doing amazingly well. She has caught up on her reading, but is still spelling at an 8 year old level. The laptop helps with that as spell check picks up mistakes. However her grades are really good and it looks like she will be top set in most subjects next year.

I hope some of the things we have tried will be helpful for you. I had to push lots and sort things out myself as dd wasn’t a behavioural issue in class they simply didn’t pick up there was an issue. The primary were very apologetic afterwards and did try catch up groups but to be honest I think the glasses, technology and looking at ways of chunking down work at home and strategies to help (I’ll read out homework etc) made the biggest difference.

You'd be better to get this moved ti SN section to get very good advice. Dyslexia is hard, and most schools fail dc with it. You need to wake up and smell the coffee,

I was failed by primary for ds1, but I'm a totally different way. They refused to accept he needed help and didn't put anything in place. You are going to have to start fighting, hard. Email Senco. Politely demand that things are put in place.

Hire a dyslexia tutor. Our lovely town Facebook group, has one that advertisers. She is lovely and all who have used her said she made a big difference. (Two of my friends are using her for Year 9 children).

If you don't attack in now, it coukd/probably will get worse. He'll slip more and more behind. Then by the time you get to Year 10 - start of GCSE's, he might be seriously struggling.