Wibu to pull my daughter from certain classes

[PepaWepa]

My daughter's year 3. I wrote a post recently regarding ADHD.. to cut a long story short, I've been bringing ADHD up to the school since March 2022 but have been dismissed and ignored with it. At parents evening recently, looking through her books, I noticed her English book was simply full of negative, demotivating comments regarding her work. I enter the parents evening meeting, and they start by telling me how good she is at English, with reading level age of 11 and reading comprehension age of 12.
So I asked about the comments in the book, and they go on to list all the signs of ADHD for why she's not finishing her work etc etc and receiving such comments.
I haven't been able to let it go since, I'm absolutely fuming that they've let her struggle and even more so I'm devastated that my daughter is being left to feel shit at recieving such negative comments in a subject she is so highly capable at. She's so sensitive and I have noticed more recently that she gets frustrated and embarrassed now when she's not able to do something right first time. I feel like all of this has to be contributing.

I want to pull her out of her English classes until they accept and support her properly with an ADHD diagnosis.

To add as I think it's relevant, I also have suspected ADHD, and was expelled from a school age 14 following an incident in English class re me not finishing my work on time. I won't let my daughter face what I had to go through.

@PepaWepa I think you might be overreacting. you don't say what kind of "negative comments" are in the book so it's hard to know whether this is a real problem.

The school is praising her verbally.

Schools often provide WWW and EBI after pieces of work. WWW (what went well) and EBI (even better if) tell the pupil what went well and then give them feedback to improve. Does your school do this? If so that is normal and other schools will be the same.

Assuming she is just being given EBI feedback, then this feedback is how pupils improve. If she is not getting enough work done in the time then they do need to tell her (and you). Otherwise she will think that slow pace is acceptable, which will affect her whole education. Also year 3 is a step up from year 2; expectations are going to be higher.

Stay on the nhs pathway - it will prob take forever as do so over subscribed (use chose and book anywhere in country to get shortest referral time) - if she ever needs meds or mh support - a nhs diagnosis and access to camhs / psychiatrist will save you a fortune. And being ‘in the system’ helps.

in the meantime - beg, borrow or steal (joking but you get the point - somehow find the money) to get a decent private neurodevelopmental assessment . (Not just adhd - someone looking at the whole picture not just a yes or no to one diagnosis esp. as co-morbidities are so common) Use someone recognised in field / who also works for nhs . The sooner you know for sure what you are dealing with - the sooner you will have a report with recommendations and strategies that you can take to the school and ask them to implement.

ask senco to get her assessed by Ed psychologist- if she is academically able they will resist this referal - schools often only get x amount of referrals to the La Ed Pschyologist and they will prioritise the least achieving / most acting our children. Not fair but with limited resources it is the way of the world. Push hard for why she needs this assessment. I would again also look to pursue a private Ed psych assessment as information is power and will help you and the school to help her.

ask senco to put her on special needs register and ask for regular meetings with targets etc to support her around time management / concentration etc if the adhd is affecting her completing work.

personally I would not stay at a school that I feel are not listening. Moving one of my children with sen with the best thing we ever did for them as the previous school would not listen (even though there was reports coming out of our ears as they had a statement - now EHCplan.). They treated her terribly and ignored all the specialists recommendations / they didn’t want a child like mine in their perfect / high achieving school. I moved her to another local school who embraced her and did all they could to help her to learn and thrive. Sometimes you have to cut your loses and go elsewhere as some places you are just banging your head against a brick wall.

try parent parent ship (SENDIASS ) at La to get parental support with talking to school / going to meetings.

sos sen and ipsea are both superb sen charities - both websites have copious amounts of info on their re sen law / how to get support and both have helplines you can phone. Both gave me amazing advice (was a while ago as mine are grown up now - but they helped us so much)

no one cares for your daughter like you do. You have to be prepared to fight for her - not by being rude - but by being calm and assertive - asking for the right things and following up to get them implemented.

e.g. On camhs waiting list for assessment? Have you told them you will happily take a short notice cancellation. Are you calling them regularly to ask where she is in the list? Have you highlighted if she is deteriorating in anyway (e.g. if self esteem plummeting or behaviour getting worse…) no one else will push for things in the way you can. school will have countless children they have concerns about and 1 senco can only do so much chasing… you can be her greatest advocate by highlighting concerns and asking for support for her.

sen Suoport is meant to be based on need not diagnosis but we all know a diagnosis tends to make schools sit up a bit more than vague concerns. Currently you have no diagnosis - pursue one. But also highlight concerns - don’t go on about ‘suspected adhd’ - they will discount you as it is only your opinion. (However right you may be). Highlight your concerns with ‘time management, staying on task, messy hsndwriting, blurting out answers in class…’ whatever the concerns are - name them - if and when a diagnosis comes you can agree then it is part of ‘adhd’ but for the moment ficus do let in what she is struggling with and more importantly how and what they are doing to help her.

Does she have a different teacher for English? I don’t understand why the negative comments would be there only in one subject. Her ADHD wouldn’t be noticeable in just one subject (I have a child with ADHD).

What do you consider a demotivating comment?

This is what I'm increasingly seeing at work with younger colleagues. Their lack of resilience is ultimately making them very unhappy because they feel they have a "right" for everything to be as they wish but the real world isn't obliging. So it's a vicious circle.

I think there are a rash of issues to address here

1. Your own diagnosis and experience - you need to separate this from your daughters and deal with it yourself and not conflate the two
2. The ADHD - OK you spotted it first, the school were slower (more evidence based perhaps?)
3. English negative comments - poor and should be more balanced - HOWEVER the outcome has been a recognition of ADHD markers and possibly steps towards sorting a diagnosis. SO in some ways by highlighting things the English Teacher is with you on the assessment of your child. I would feedback about the comments and the impact you think they are having but also recognise that they have been the source of the schools eyes being opened and build on that and get them to stand with you to get other stuff sorted. I would try and use the English Teacher as an ally, but still feedback objectively the impact her phrasing of the comments has had.
4. You need to drive the school to come up with a plan for DD for recognition of her issues and struggles, a diagnosis process, some support.

You need to keep yourself strong and objective in this and unemotional

A few things jump out at me about your posts OP. Your daughter is excelling at English because she hyperfocuses on reading and it appears your concerns are because of comments you saw in her book, not because of anything she expressed to you. In my opinion it would be terrible and damaging to pull her from a class she's performing well in - her results will be her source of confidence in school not the feedback! By removing her from that class you would be taking away what is likely her sole motivation and dopamine source for school academics (knowing she is better than peers at English).

I have ADHD - I also excelled at reading and it was my passion at home, which led to a passion for writing stories at home, which increased by base level comprehension and ability in most subjects (but especially in history and languages). However, I struggled with some aspects of school (i.e. I never once handed in homework, I often handed in coursework late, I daydreamed through lessons and I revised for exams in truly last minute fashion the night before, I never finished an exam in my life and would normally only complete 80-95% by the end etc.).

I excelled at other aspects: I was a complete perfectionist when it came to coursework, exams and school work and critical teacher comments marking my work were motivating since I was a perfectionist and lacked motivation from natural dopamine due to ADHD so needed dopamine from the stress of urgent/missed deadlines or criticism about my work that I had high expectations for. I left school with 10 A* and 4As at A level.

My love for reading/writing carried me the whole way through school. What also helped was that my parents created a home environment for me to excel at my interests at home. They never made me do homework/schoolwork so I had a place I could completely switch off and stop masking. I was also allowed to stay up all night reading (another ADHD thing) and had read the classics such as Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice by the age of 10. When I was your daughter's age I was obsessed with a PC game that gamified writing stories - and my parents let me play this obsessively after school for hours. This led to me writing proper chapter novels by the time I was 11 (not that I completed any of them in true ADHD fashion)!

What I would do is focus on creating a home environment that allows her to focus on and excel at her interests and improve her writing. Keep pushing for that ADHD diagnosis but by making all this fuss to the school she'll likely feel under pressure from you.

What makes you think things will improve with a diagnosis? I would look for a different school to be honest.

I'm interested to see why you jave ignored all the comments suggesting it would be a good idea to speak to your daughter and encourage her to completer her writing at school.

Parents are quick to want school and teachers to help with anything and everything but will never take on any criticism whatsoever of their children.
This is one of the reasons children have such poor resilience in school and life.

You are doing your child no favours here at all and will be in danger of being one of those parents who will always blame the school no matter what.

Why are you refusing (despite being asked MANY TIMES) to give examples of these 'demoralising' comments??

How will you go about this. What will she be doing when the other kids are doing English? Will you pick her up from school and look after her in that time. What about other subjects that involve written work? Also primary school timetables are a little more fluid than those at secondary- so pulling out of a class may not be easy!

I will also add that the school seem very negative about your DD’s work. What sort of school is it? DS wrote very little in primary school - no negative comments and often quite sweet responses to what he did write. Maybe you should pull her out of that school and move her to somewhere more forgiving!

She’s excelling in English. Let the teacher continue doing her job which she is obviously doing well at. Of course you can’t just pick and choose which lessons she attends. Her English lessons might not always be at the same time each day/ may change due to other things going on that week. How is it feasible you just collect her at any time of day for one hour? Will you educate her during this time? Take her out completely if you think it’s that bad but don’t stop your daughter having access to the full curriculum because of your issues.

I'm not ignoring them, I have said I would prefer to speak to the school. But I've done that on many occasions and they simply do not listen to me.

You are doing your child no favours here at all and will be in danger of being one of those parents who will always blame the school no matter what.

I'm not blaming the school 'no matter what'. I've had a genuinely bad experience with them. Once of my first incidents of this was my daughter coming home with a red card saying she'd fallen and hit her head. I asked her about this, and she told me another girl had pushed her. So I spoke to the school and they told me that my daughter was 'play fighting'. My daughter is an only child and has never, ever had a 'play fight' in her life. She's not that kind of child. It later emerged the girl was a bully and did this to a lot of children, so they lied to me.
A lot of the comments here are questioning me over how I'm dealing with the school, not taking on board the fact that that I've said multiple times how genuinely awful they've been about everything, really.

The only evidence you have that the comments are demotivating is your reading of the comments and projected possible feelings. You haven't discussed it with your daughter, and she is excelling in English.

Long story short, stfu, stop moaning and let the teachers do their job.

Re your example above.

Both of those things can be true. Your daughter can be play fighting, and the girl could also be a bully. They aren't mutually exclusive events.

It's a very small, Christian village school. I have felt on many occasions that this plays a part.

And yes it's very much the lack of good, positive responses which I feel would be more helpful alongside pointing out the negatives.

My daughter does not play fight. Never has.

Do you watch her all the time every day?

I've lost count of the number of parents who swear their child wouldn't do something until they see the cctv of them doing it.

My daughter does not play fight. Never has.

your daughter never does any wrong does she? It sounds to me like you’re a reactive and aggressive person who doesn’t listen or take personal responsibility and wants to then blame everyone else for the consequences. Is this what the social problems you say you have, are?

I really don’t understand when parents say their child’s school is awful, make teacher’s lives miserable because they’re so unhappy about everything and constantly complain yet continue to send their children there.

Why not move her to another school? Why are you sending your daughter to a school you think is awful? Does she not deserve better in your eyes? For the sake of staff and yourself, move her. (She can still see her friends outside of school and she will make new friends - it is not uncommon).

You have been asked numerous times to give examples of the comments. Why are you refusing to do so? Several teachers have asked, in order to give you some insight into the style of marking.

Yes do this, but be prepared to be checked upon.

A friend’s daughter started school refusing, so her parents took her out and home schooled her, but they didn’t, and lied about it.

The council took charge and sent her to a type of local approved school for school refusers, where they collect you from your house every day.

And this is why I'm ignoring certain comments.

I know my daughter. She does not play fight. I don't need to repeat that. She actually doesn't really like being touched by other children.

Find another school if you're not happy with that one.
There's no provision for schools to allow parents to withdraw their children from core subjects - only certain provision such as RE. You can carry on all you like about challenging rules and regulations but that's an unassailsble fact. Your alternative is to home educate. You can't access the social aspects without the obligation to engage with the core curriculum.

They won't release her as you demand, and it will result in them not letting you into the school building during the school day because you will cause a scene. This is all or nothing - either work with the school.or withdraw her.