To ask your experience with DC struggling in primary

[SarahLdn740]

I feel like a complete failure and honestly what I am hoping for are some stories of a similar situation that got turned around.
My DS is 7 (a July baby) and in year 3. He loves school and tries so hard that it literally breaks my heart. He is good at reading (didn’t use to be, which gives me hope that other things may also catch up), but otherwise he has “below expectations” grades in his report for this term for everything - maths, literacy. The teacher says he understand the concepts but when asked to work independently he struggles, gets distracted, isn’t able to check his work, runs out of time, sometimes doesn’t even try to understand the task. They do tests to check progress and he was near or at bottom of the class for everything.
he is very articulate and sociable, albeit perhaps less mature than the girls and boys in his class (if you can speak of maturity at 7, but you probably know what I mean): but I can see that he’s slowly catching on to being always last academically.
tescher does not think he has dyslexia at this stage but we are signed up for a test just in case.
has anyone had a similar experience and what happened in later years? I just want him to get through the schooling system ok to be honest. I will accept whatever challenges we may have and I know there is much worse that can happen, so I am grateful for what we have regardless. But I do worry.

hoping for some mum wisdom and hope, although don’t worry about sugar coating it.

Your child is young in his year group. I always suggest to the school to focus on what they are good at. Does he do stuff outside school? What does he like to do? My lot loved water sports eg sailing, art and music. It keeps them going when other stuff they find boring.

Try and get him moved to the year below if you can. Lots of summer Born's do go with the year below now. Look on Facebook page flexible admissions for summer Borns. I think age 7 it won't be too late to do this. It may take a bit of a battle but might be worth it. Otherwise, he is still very young and he may improve over time. It's good that his reading is ok and he's articulate.

One of my DCs struggled with early primary . He was " held back " a year which was very upsetting as his friends were then all in the class above . He was very messy ( particularly with wriiten work )and his speech was a little delayed. I spoke to the head teacher and he was moved up to join hid peers the term after . He gradually caught up and was " average " by the time he left primary . He now has a Bsc and Msc and out earns everyone in our family .

• written work

My experience may not be your experience but yes, my DS really struggled at primary. below expectations for everything. Bottom of the class. Had friends, but never really settled. School were sort of helpful, but it took a while for them to think this was an issue.

At about that age we figured out he had Sensory Processing Disorder and had many dyspraxic markers. He had occupational therapy which helped. But it wasn't enough and he kept getting further behind. Again, school was supportive, but only up to a point. They weren't proactive and tended to take a "yes well, it is what it is" kind of approach.

By the time he started Year 7, he was far behind and we knew problems were more severe. It took the year, but he has now been diagnosed with inattentive ADHD and is on meds. Which are helping a lot. We did not know that inattentive ADHD was a thing - we thought the inattentiveness was due to his sensory processing issues.

I wish that I had got him on the meds earlier. I am glad that we have managed to do it now while there's still time for him to turn things around at school.

How is his coordination? Does he hold a pencil normally?

DD really struggled in lower primary and also had coordination issues (was late to ride a bike, couldn't catch or throw a ball, struggles with laces, etc). The school initially assessed her for dyslexia but she was given the all-clear so we went down the dyspraxia assessment route. She was diagnosed with dyspraxia and had 2 years of fairly intensive OT, doing several different programmes. As a result she went from writing 3 words in an hour to actually completing work. She's now 20 and on a uni course with very high entry requirements, although currently on year out due to anxiety and mental health issues as a result of the pandemic and lockdowns.

My child is also in year 3 and aged 7. I spotted the signs when she was really little. Have a look at this post, it is all about how parents spotted the signs of dyslexia in their own kids. It includes success stories. You are not alone:)

https://www.dyslexicmum.co.uk/help/how-to-tell-if-my-child-has-dyslexia-top-10-parents-stories

Thank you for this, I’ve just read through. I have to say, very few of these are the case for him, but I’ll keep an eye and he will go to the assessment. To be honest, a dyslexia diagnosis would be absolutely fine with me, I am not dyslexic but my dyslexic friends from school all turned out way more successful than me!

Thank you. I know we might not be as lucky as you, but your story made me well up yesterday because of the hope it gave me! I know I’m pathetic but very grateful that you shared x

Thank you. Where did you get your child diagnosed, did you just schedule an appointment with a child psychologist? We are doing the dyslexia assessment and I wonder if they would tell us if anything else along your lines could be the case.

Well done! No, he seems very coordinated physically, however holding the pen/ fine motor skills has always been a bit weaker than his classmates. Will have a look. Hope your daughter gets through it ok - what a tough age to be locked down :-( at least my son had no idea, but sounds very very tricky for a teenager.

@SarahLdn740 For the Dyspraxia/SPD we saw an occupational therapist. My top ti here is find one that also TREATS children - a surprising number only do assessment and diagnosis which I think is pointless - you want them to then be able to help your child manage the issues that are identified.

For the inattentive ADHD, we went to a child psychiatrist. You CAN do this as young as 7 but we actually did see one through the NHS at around that age and he was completely and totally useless but to be fair, I think part of it was that DS was young and it was hard to pin down the issues.

OT and the psychiatrist were all done privately. The school DID refer DS for council-funded OT but they were not too helpful - he wasn't severe enough for them to step in and has they agreed he didn't have dyspraxia, they wouldn't/couldn't support him.

@Vuurhoutjies Hi, can I ask what sort of things improved once you child started on medication? My daughter is in year 6 and is on the waiting list for inattentive ADHD, I assumed that once she gets her diagnosis that we probably wouldn’t go down the medication route as she is not hyperactive kind. She as always been below academically, and also needs more support in home life than the average child of her age. She also struggles socially. I’m not sure how she’s going to find it when she starts high school in September.

DC is an August baby, the youngest in the year group, yr 4 now. Reading has always been very strong but anything needing fine motor skills has been behind peers (handwriting especially). In the last few months a lot seems to have ‘clicked’ and we’ve seen improvement across the board. We do additional bits at home to practice writing and have encouraged playing instruments to develop those fine motor skills. I’m sure we’ve been lucky but I suppose my point is that some kids just take a little longer 😊

We only figured out inattentive ADHD was a thing in Year 5 or 6. And we put off doing anything about it for a while as we didn't want to medicate. It took DS asking us to explore medication options to get a bullet up our ass (well, DH was the anti medication person so as soon as DS expressed it himself, I leapt into action).

The main difference with medication is that DS finds it a bit easier to focus and concentrate. In Year 7, he got endless codes every day for being distracted for not getting on with things for missing things etc. for example, he is at an iPad school - the number of times he would not manage to get his iPad open and on the right page were uncountable. The teachers mostly knew he wasn't being annoying on purpose, but nonetheless, it drove everyone crazy and even with them being lenient, he still got into trouble a lot.

At his first secondary school parents evening, the feedback we got from eery single teacher was that getting DS to start a task is a real challenge and that in a 55 minute class, he is losing up to 20 minute of work time as he faffs about. He wasn't distracting others because he's not hyperactive and he's not loud etc, but he just couldn't get himself together. His executive function is poor anyway (possibly combo of SPD and ADHD) and it's just a nightmare.

Similarly, homework! In year 6, they used to get a homework booklet that had to be done over 2 weeks. Each section would be given a time estimate for how long it would take - eg the SPAG would be an hour, literacy 90 minutes, maths 1 hour. I remember saying to his teacher in despair that this didn't help me at all because from when we started trying to get DS started to when we did the first question could take an hour and then everything after would take ages too. That continued into Year 7. Now he manages to do his homework in roughly the right amount of time. (Our next job is to work on the QUALITY of the homework ).

even with sports he likes taking his medication if he's got a match on a weekend as he finds it easier to concentrate and stay on task and less likely to be distracted.

I have heard people say that once their child ws medicated suddenly they really did well academically. Im' not sure that we're going to see that level of magical success, but even just after 3 months we are seeing improvements. His targets at school are quite low as they're based on Year 6 SATS and Year 7 assessments, but he's already meeting or exceeding those targets for the "easier" subjects. His first report in November overall saw a small, but notable, improvement on his year end report for Year 7.

Good luck. I think it's a huge journey getting on top of all this but it is worth it.

My DS was a late Aug baby and had a variety of speech and language processing difficulties. Very long story short, we ended up moving him to an independent school and also moved him down a year, paid for learning support (from yr 3 to yr 11), worried a lot, had one really crappy Ed Psych report where they suggested he should "work with his hands" (laughable for him) and cried when necessary. He's now an adult with a professional qualification and has done incredibly well to get over/work around his issues. He still can't write a beautiful, complex paragraph to save his life, but he can do his job very well indeed.

Honestly, the biggest difference I saw was at adolescence, as testosterone really helped him, as he was so sensitive and shy before that...it seemed to give him the boost he needed and he's not looked back. Still has his moments of low confidence, but he's gone through so much that he really has accumulated some mental resilience, and I'm incredibly proud of the wonderful, articulate, empathetic and vastly kind man he's become.

My son was the same at that age, I done 10 mins of English and 10 minutes of Maths work with him a day. His handwriting was terrible (still is) and rubbish motor skills like can't do Lego. Anyway he's at grammar school and predicted As for all subjects.

I really think some kids just learn better 1 -2-1 he hasn't got dyslexia but if I didn't put in those extra educational methods, he would of continued to be underachieving as its tough learning in a busy environment.

@Vuurhoutjies thank you for responding. You son sounds like he’s doing amazing and it’s great to hear that medication can help with inattentive ADHD, I hope I get to see these little improvement with my daughter but sadly the waiting list is that long she’s unlikely to get her diagnosis till maybe year 8/9. I’ve heard if we was to pay private then we would also have to pay for meds if we was to use that route, I had only come across the ADHD inattentive type maybe 2 years ago myself ( my brother as the hyper kind ) and although it described my daughter very well I decided not to say anything in hope the school would pick up on it to which they did and referred her at the beginning on this year, I’m also one of them anti meds like your husband but I would be open to the idea if they will help my daughter.

My daughter sounds very much like your son, she has very little concentration and no organisation. She also won’t do homework and isn’t bothered about the possible consequences until the time comes of it having to be handed in. My main concern for her at the moment is definitely her lack of social skills.

I am 99% sure that I also have it, but at the age of 34 I don’t see the point in trying to get myself a diagnosis and don’t feel the need to have confirmation on something that I already know and more so because I don’t like the thought of taking meds, I also struggled in school but as I wasn’t like my brother ( hyper ) I don’t think inattentive was really picked up on back then. X

We are currently paying for the medication, but our GP does shared care so once we've been under the psychiatrist for 6 months, and the meds are stabilised, we can get the medication via the NHS. We will still need to pay for 6 monthly reviews with the psychiatrist as the medication may need to be tweaked etc.

I wasn't anti medication to the same level DH was. BUT, while part of me really wishes we'd figured this out sooner and started medication sooner, I ALSO think that it's good that we tried all the other things first. The interventions in the classroom, the tips and tricks etc. Because medication isn't a magic bullet so all that other stuff is still needed. Going straight to meds isn't the answer I don't think but it might well be that at some point, it IS the right decision.

Something the doctor said that really stood out for me was that ADHD isn't about how severely you have it it's about how severely having it affects your life. DS is a smart kid, he's hard working and resilient. But if you looked at his results at school you would not know any of that. ADHD has hugely impacted his life and was starting to affect his confidence. Now that is less of a factor. But he still has to put the work in.

I wonder if you can pay for some 1-1 tutoring? Just to boost his confidence and have that focussed attention.

DD is a bit younger and does ok in school but seems to struggle with reading and cries at times because the work is too hard (year 2). She's winter born.

It's a large state school and there are challenging children so I pay once a week (one hour) for a tutor (qualified retired primary teacher) just to read, write, do some basic maths. She loves it! Loves the attention and the work they do together.

I tried to do this myself but she seems so much more receptive to the tutor. I'm hoping it'll increase her confidence.

My son was always behind in early primary - very day dreamy, immature, struggled to make friends and a bit of a fish out of water. His handwriting was illegible, couldn’t ride a bike until he was 9 and found groups of boys hard to navigate. We considered if he had ASD, ADHD, dyspraxia etc - he seemed to have some traits but just not enough. It’s as though he was nearer that line than average but not over it IYKWIM.

Then suddenly in year 5 he woke up. Stopped dreaming in lessons, his reading took off and he just suddenly got academic work. He had a lovely teacher that year who took a different approach to previous teachers. Told him in no uncertain terms that he was going to finish work or he would miss play time but also really praised him. He transformed almost overnight.

He graduated last summer with a first from Durham. I would never have believed this when he was in year 3.

When in reception our elder son’s teacher told my husband and me that he had a disconnection in his brain. He’s 34 in January and I still remember the terror that caused me. He was constantly in the bottom set until junior school and all I wished for was for him to be average.
At secondary school he attained the highest A levels his selective school had achieved and was consistently one of at most three students vying for top of his year at his world leading university. He’s now an extremely intelligent and successful GP with a lovely wife and two wonderful children.
Children develop at different rates and schools expect all children to hit the same targets at the same time which isn’t what happens.

Thanks for the lovely reply , OP. I know all children are different, but I do think children mature academically at very different rates and some of the brightest primary children average out in later childhood too .