Should I take this further or is it an over reaction / being too sensitive.

[Tiredandworried2]

Hi could I get some truthful advice on whether this is now a point where I need to intervene / put in a complaint or whether it’s just “ an over reaction “

Daughter year 6 has a physical disability, she also is autistic and had speech / communication delay. She is unable to write due to Weakness on the right side of her body. She can write a short amount but is messy and not for very long.
She has a laptop from her EHCP from OT recommendations to complete her work.

The last few weeks she has been really unregulated after school and crying in school, can’t get her in every day, being sent home for head aches and being removed from classroom due to “ misunderstandings with her teacher “

These misunderstands are as followed

Incident 1 - daughter came home in a state because her teacher was doing grammar sats sheets with them which they insist she does by hand. He was talking to the whole class when he wrote an example of good and bad handwriting. When daughter does write her handwriting is messy and he pointed to the bad handwriting and says we don’t write like this because we are not babies.
Now this was directed at the whole class but did upset daughter because she knew her handwriting was that of what he called baby like. I managed to talk to daughter and calm her down and didn’t address it personally with the school but encouraged daughter to talk to a member of staff about how she felt which she did - that staff member spoke to the teacher about maybe understanding language that he uses - I did touch base with the senco behind the scenes.

Incident 2 was a week after - doing a D&T lesson they were designing a poster and daughter had asked if she could draw something specific and write something specific in which he responded to her with “ yes as long as it doesn’t look babyish “
Hence daughter having a panic about continuing in case it looked babyish because her physical hand issues. She was removed from class. - again this was addressed with relevant members of staff.

Incident 3 - was a week later ( today ) her 1-1 was going for lunch and it was English so left her laptop out so she could complete any work that needed doing, after 1-1 left the teacher came over and closed her laptop and moved it so she was unable to write the learning objective. Immediately 2 kids shouted at the teacher to say that she needed her laptop ( go figure the kids understand 🤣 ) he reacted shocked to the kids and placed the laptop back on her desk but Still closed, at this point daughter didn’t know what to do so sat there until her 1-1 arrived back and then was removed from class being upset.

am I know at the point where this needs to go further ?

Get it sorted asap.

YANBU, teacher is being a dick.
An EHCP is a legally binding document, ask if the teacher has even read it.

I would arrange a meeting with the headteacher and raise all these points.
If she's in primary school does she have same teacher every day ? If so , then he should know about the issues your daughter has and be inclusive and understanding.

The man is out of his depth and a fucking idiot. Time to go higher

Definitely take this further, you are not being over sensitive at all, he is in breach of his contract

Yeh same teacher but only started the beginning of this year but was present for all training sessions. It’s so relentless at the moment evenings at home have turned in to a nightmare and the battles to get her out of bed in the morning is painful 😣

He sounds terrible; your poor daughter.

The writing aspect of school is really getting to her, she is actually very academically able and a very well behaved student but I don’t know what is going so wrong !

she obsesses over this pen license for example so we know she uses a laptop for the past year after an OT assessment … can write short amounts but it is messy with a pencil, actually writes slightly better with a pen. For when she is doing small worksheets they encourage her to do it with hand - I am fine with this but she has not got her own license yet and it is something that she talks about every single day because she was told everyone would get one by Xmas of year 5 but she didn’t and still has not. Teacher told me verbally she can use a pen but she won’t because she hasn’t got an official pen license like everyone else 🤣🤣

so again we discussed this but still no pen license so I think because she was already feeling a little inadequate about the whole writing thing due to this everything is so heightened about her writing and she is clearly just not coping with it.

This is awful. He's bullying her in front of the class for having a physical disability.

Report him.

See I don’t think is the case and I don’t get this impression of him I just think for some really odd reason he doesn’t get it, the first incident was defo not aimed at DD but the whole class but the second incident was only a few days after he was told the babying hand writing was a trigger and then said it directly to her. She spoke to a higher member of staff about it who told her it was probably just a joke and some kids wouldn’t have got upset over it but some may and he may not have known you would have - something like this. This was confusing to me though because it was only a few days after he was spoken to about how the first baby comment upset her.

I think his more oblivious than anything.

OMG. This teacher is a BULLY.

Absolutely you need to take this further. I had exactly the same issue in yr6 with a teacher who told my physically disabled daughter she did not need the writing slope her physio gave her... it is SO annoying that the cannot just read what the professionals working with these kids say they need.

Confidence wise you absolutely need to sort this out and fast. He is absolutely killing your daughters confidence and it will take years for her to recover.... mine still struggles and is in yr11.

I would go into school. Insist on speaking to the head teacher and then insist on speaking to the class teacher and have him read her ehcp right there in front of you and then explain why he keeps taking her laptop off her.

I'll calm down jn a minute and come back with some more practical suggestions... this has made me mad!

If this happened to my child, he would regret the day he was born. And I generally try to stay on the same page as teachers and keep a good relationship.

I would start with the SENCO and arrange to meet to go through the concerns especially as Mr X doesn’t appear to be aware of DD’s needs and ask the SENCO to come up with a plan to support your DD with Mr X and make sure Mr X is aware of her EHCP and the support she is entitled to. If that doesn’t work, I would contact the head and ask he or she to look into it further.

Ask for a meeting with the teacher and headteacher. You need to make it very clear that he needs to understand your daughter's disabilities and make reasonable adjustments. Talking about her (or anyone's) work being babyish is inappropriate and not understanding that she needs to use the laptop is negligence. It's his job to know and to do all he can to enable her to do her work. You need to lay it all out for him and follow it up in writing. Then he has NO excuse for any further missteps.

Your poor daughter. His behavior is totally unacceptable.
Has she been diagnosed with dysgraphia? Frankly the pen license idea is also awful as ppl with dysgraphia really don’t have neat handwriting.

No she is the process of being diagnosed with right sided hemiplegia following sepsis 🙈

I don’t understand why you’re not more angry. This is a grown man bullying a child with a disability. You need to advocate for your daughter.

Definitely go into school and raise with the head. Personally I would take your daughter with you to the meeting, so she knows you are advocating for her, so she can share her own thoughts about it and so she hears what school are going to do to make this better. It is not ok. You may not want her there for the whole meeting but coming for some would be beneficial I feel.

My son never got his pen license either, he has ASD and sensory issues with pencils on paper, so his writing was much better with a pen, but he wasn't allowed one 🤷🏼‍♀️ I bought him erasable pens and sent him with those which he used.

Schools need holding to account for these things, if she is going to senior school they will share her needs with them soon and it's important that they get them right!

Pen licences are getting a bit old fashioned now. My DD has dysgraphia, but was given a pen licence by her lovely year 2 teacher who gave her a trial week with a pen, confirmed it helped and must gave ignored the full requirements that the school has for them. I think that would be a reasonable adjustment. The school did take the pen licence away each year and make it be earned back, which seemed harsh and DD was one of the last to get it each year. She left in the summer and apparently they've scrapped them completely and the kids all use biros.

I'd watch out for whether your DD's work ever makes it onto the wall, if they display work. My DD's didn't, I'm not sure if it's because it was typed most of the time. I found it disheartening not to see any handwriting that looked like DD's on display as I knew she wasn't the only child not to have their work shown On that basis. My DD didn't notice, but it sounds like yours might.

I have dyspraxia which means I still write like a baby at 46. And after more than a dozen words or so it gets so bad even I can barely read it.

I’m too old to care what anyone thinks now, but your daughter’s teacher was unkind and unprofessional. Children look up to their teachers and crave their acknowledgement. He should have known better than to speak so insensitively.

You can’t shame better handwriting into people who don’t have the muscle or motor skills to write neatly.

The three incidents sound to me like bullying when you add them all together. Once could be a slip of the tongue, three crass incidents involving your daughter is a pattern of unacceptable behaviour.

As an aside because you mention her handwriting and autism - if she does have dyspraxia it’s worth noting that a lot of people didn’t believe it was real until relatively recently. I was certainly told dyspraxia was made up when I was diagnosed 20 years ago. So if he’s an older teacher there may be a bit of bias there.

He’s bullying her.

If this was my child, I’d genuinely not be able to control myself.

Since you do appear to be able to, you should definitely take it as far as possible.

Well this is the issue !

I do believe if I went to said teacher and the same excuses are wheeled out to me as they have been to daughter I would lose my cool.
I have had a fairly good relationship with the school and we have not had any major fall outs since she started years ago
her first school was a diff story so I am nervous about ruining things because I struggle not to lose my cool.

You need to see the head. After that meet with the teacher again, but see the headteacher now.

Yeah, you’re me in these situations. I’d be slashing his tyres I think. 😄

I think I wouldn’t bother going to him directly, he’s never going to admit being unfair towards her.

Go higher, I think.

The teacher should be fully aware of all your daughters needs and be making regular and appropriate adjustments to his language and work including getting the pen license.