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'm afraid I can't help unless you give an example of the comments. I teach Y3, so really am hoping to help you! We also do a lot of verbal feedback in Y3, as it's much easier for the children to act upon.

Has your daughter said she's upset by the comments? Apologies if you've already mentioned that.

How will pulling her out of English lessons help?
How will she succeed with her English GCSEs without any lessons?
This makes absolutely no sense to me.

If you want to help your child, get her on the pathway to being diagnosed. The school can’t do this for you

Schools don't generally allow volunteers to help in the same class their own child is in, although in rare cases they might make an exception.
OP your best bet is to do some research yourself into teaching strategies for children with ADHD.
Do some work with your child at home (short focused sessions) and when you find something that works, you can advise the school - If you have a good relationship with the people who teach your child.

The most important thing you can do for your DD - is to step back and step up so that you can see and then strategically provide the optimum social and emotional foundations and environment for her to feel emotionally calm and stable so that she can stay as emotionally regulated as possible to build sustainable friendships and do her best academically.

You need to proactively provide a positive, peaceful and calm emotionally regulating environment - so that she is trusting of her school and community.

This starts and ends with you. Read up on autism/adhd adapted environments and supportive behaviours and incorporate them into your daily life moment by moment. Is there unresolved childhood trauma in your background? You need to work on yourself first so that you can best support your DD.

It seems she has an excellent opportunity with her village school and the close community - maybe you need to look a your own social anxieties and relating style that may negatively impact her integration socially and leave her anxious with poor self esteem. Try to get some support for yourself.

How will she succeed with her English GCSEs without any lessons?

The OP just wants her to have a happy life rather than an educated. And does not see that happiness coming from getting a job doing something she lives or going to university or being exposed to knowledge.

Presumably she's so wealthy that her daughter won't need a career or want to do anything with her life.

OP, I don’t think you’ll get anywhere with this.
The school just won’t do it.
Saying “there may not be but I will just do it anyway, I would face whatever comes with it” is fruitless as the only thing you’ll have to face is then saying “no.” What do you mean by “I’ll just do it anyway”? Just do what? You can’t force them to withdraw her from English if it’s against their rules.
I know you’re away they won’t happily do this, and you say you’re willing to face any repercussions that come with it, but there won’t be any repercussions as they just won’t do it.
You say you’ll take it higher but again, anyone higher is not going to be on board with this. Removing your child from a core subject is just not going to happen.

Removing her from English isn’t going to happen. So instead you have two options:
1- Find another school for her
2- Make an appointment with the Head and discuss your concerns, discuss the English book comments and all your thoughts and feelings on it. It does sound like the school haven’t been very supportive but you need to work with them to find a solution and insist on it. But removing her from English and capping her education in this way is helping no one, least of all your daughter.

The school, according to you are awful but you won't move her because she has friends. You do know she can keep her old friends and make new friends if she moved.
If you hate the school so much and claim they are so awful why are you subjecting your daughter to that environment? Using friends as an excuse is a shit excuse. Sounds like you can't be bothered to change schools and just want to slate her current school.
You can't wander in and out of school to get your child, imagine if all the parents started doing that for various lessons.
As you won't accept the sensible suggestions of either moving your child or homeschooling then you will have to abide by current school rules.

It's quite well known these days that lack of support of ADHD and Autism in childhood develops into a BPD diagnosis in adulthood in women. It's something I'm obviously conscious of considering the statistics.

Thank you for your helpful comment. I just don't want to take her away from her friends and the stability our little community here can give her. I'm glad to hear your son is now thriving.

I would recommend working on your own issues quite intensively alongside this referral for your daughter. You don't think you're projecting but a change in mindset might help you work better with the school.

My doctor told me that the reason I was able to succeed in life in certain aspects (i.e. excellent results in school, just about survived uni and professional training), where many with undiagnosed ADHD would have struggled is because my parents created a relaxed home environment and put no school pressure on me. Parents are often the ones that tip the iceberg and cause put stress on their ADHD children.

@LateAF That's a really interesting insight and definitely holds true in my experience. Thank you.

OP, you need to stop reacting and start working with the school more constructively. Taking her out of a core subject, even if it was possible, would be a terrible thing to do and not at all in your dd's best interests. You need to think instead about what support your dd might need to stay focused on her work and then work with the school to try and find ways of implementing that support.

The aim here is not to teach your child to run away at the first sign of difficulty - that will just reinforce any perceptions that she is no good at it. The aim has to be to teach your child that it's OK to find some things difficult, but that there are strategies that can be implemented to help tackle those difficulties. In your dd's case, she needs support to learn strategies for dealing with her inattention effectively. Not easy at all, but it is essential to help kids with adhd to develop good coping mechanisms.

If you feel that she needs more positive feedback to help her stay focused on her work, then that might be a conversation to have with the teacher, but you need to do it in a positive, constructive way. Not a knee jerk reaction about removing her from English classes, which thankfully, you now seem to have accepted.

You say you're not projecting but honestly, it's hard to see this in any other light. I think your previous negative experience with school - and particularly with English as a subject - will have inevitably shaped your relationship with dd's school and your response to the perceived issues. That's perfectly understandable, but you need to take a step back from it now and focus on building a positive relationship with dd's teachers. This is your chance to put right any old wrongs by ensuring a different outcome for your dd to what you experienced in your own childhood, but you will only achieve this by working with the school in a positive and constructive way and by not allowing your angry inner teen to decide that you don't give a shit what the school thinks. You have to give a shit because this is your daughter's life and you owe it to her to do things differently. It's brilliant that you are so determined to advocate for her needs, and it will really help her to have a supportive parent on her side, but you have to do this in the right way.

Thank you for your helpful comment. I just don't want to take her away from her friends and the stability our little community here can give her. I'm glad to hear your son is now thriving

Yes I can understand that, that wasn't much of an issue for us, but had he been really settled socially at his previous school it would have been a really hard decision. I hope you manage to sort something. We are looking at some maths tutoring (as that's what he's struggling with now) not because I care about SATs, but to try and help build his confidence in the topic, he's struggling to engage in school as maths doesnt interest him, which then means he falls behind, feels self conscious and it becomes a never ending cycle, I'm wondering a little extra support outside school might build his confidence to manage it better in school.

It won't be possible. There is no way a school would allow a parent particularly an adversarial one into a lesson.

This would not be acceptable. Wouldn’t happen. I would actively resist a parent working 1:1 with their child in my class. Reasons being, it’s not fair on the child; they need the boundaries and routine of school and home, mixing the two together won’t work. It wouldn’t be fair on the teacher, who is trying to teach 30 children and has a parent watching their every move.

Anyway, regards marking, obviously schools have different marking policies, mine for example, I would tick the LI if the child has achieved it, demonstrating where in the work. Sp in the margin for spelling and write no more than three spellings out. Presentation would be mentioned. Vf would be verbal feedback. There may be a question on how to progress/challenge the child.

It is not feasible to take her out of a core subject though, it would not be accepted by the school, she would end up missing out on crucial learning, that will impact her moving forward.

What exactly do you want from the school?

• your daughter is happy with friends
• she's doing fine at school work to the expected standard or above
• they've told you things she could improve upon and that you can work on at home.

What precisely do you want them to do?

Also, are there local parenting classes available, particularly around helping children learning at home and adhd, that could teach you specific strategies to help her learn to concentrate

What precisely do you want them to do?

If OP is to get an ADHD diagnosis she will need the school's support, so taking her concerns seriously is likely the start.

Just to be more supportive and understanding (although this thread hasn't really given me much hope of that).

I've brought this to their attention before, so they were aware it could potentially be an issue but don't seem to have taken that into consideration at all. The very things I've mentioned to them, which have gone ignored, have now been brought to my attention that she's also struggling with in school. If they are as supportive as most people on this thread suggest, why has this happened?

they've told you things she could improve upon and that you can work on at home.

They didn't actually tell me and had no intention of bringing it up until I did. It would have carried on going unmentioned by them if I hadn't brought her book into the parents evening with me and brought up my thoughts on it after them doing nothing but telling me the general numbers on how she is doing. They mentioned nothing that could be improved on until I questioned that English book.

You can't pull her out of English classes.
You can't go in to class and be her TA.
The End.

For more helpful advice, see many of the very useful posts but you don't seem to be taking them on board.

Honestly just do everyone a favour and take her out of the whole school. You sound like a nightmare.

I don't think that would be a good idea. I doubt if the school would allow it.

You need to be more specific with the school. " be more supportive " is meaningless.

She's meeting the expectations. So they are only going to raise things if there's s major concern.

However, you raised some concerns, they discussed them and explained what she could work on.

The teachers have been completely normal in their approach

It doesn't at all. Many are misdiagnosed and as BPD is subjective and usually given to those with trauma to say their brain is the issue not their experience then I am skeptical of all PD diagnosis.

Tbh people like you are a nightmare. There's been many helpful and positive comments on this thread which have been bypassed due to me trying to justify myself to people like you, and those intent on insisting my daughter must have been play fighting for example, disregarding the fact that I know my daughter, and I am the one who has dealt with the schools attitude the past year and 9 months. It would be sad for your child to encounter difficulties and not only be dismissed for them but also to encounter so many people with unkind thoughts like yourself when trying to seek help.

It does, actually, due to the trauma received in childhood by the very types of people commenting on this thread. I can only assume you don't have any direct links to that community.

Hiya, just curious as to where you heard this regarding BPD? As far as I was aware it is just a case of misdiagnosis between the two being common due to a couple of overlapping symptoms, there are bits that are similar (impulsivity being one of them) but they’re quite different things. Happy to be corrected but just curious as it’s not something I’ve heard and I’ve had my fair share of discussions with professionals on both these issues as a patient?

It's very well known, experienced and discussed by those who suffer with it.