Thought on this? DS school situation..

[Miserablelittlesoul]

DS (9) lost 5 minutes off his break yesterday because he didn’t complete his work in time. He said his teacher wrote the questions on the board and he didn’t get to write them down in time before she had wiped them off. He didn’t tell her that he didn’t get the questions down in time. He eventually got the remaining questions from his friend and completed the work but still lost his break. He said the questions were difficult and he was stuck working them out. I should add I believe my son has adhd like me so I’m fully aware he may be struggling and not using his voice when he needs to be.

My concern is she didn’t ask him why he didn’t manage to complete it she just took his book away from him and didn’t ask no further questions.

Then the 5 minutes he lost in break she still didn’t address it with him?

this is the response I’ve had from her

Hi, no he did not tell me or the other adults in class that he was struggling. If he had, we would have given him the support he needed. I will pick this up with him today or tomorrow and find out which question he was struggling with. By the end of the lesson, he had actually completed the flashback which was the work I was talking about. Thanks for letting me know.

DH feels like she is fobbing us off, I hate confrontation but I’m fully aware I need to be supporting my son.

Thoughts please

I'm a retired secondary teacher, but I still do a bit of voluntary teaching in the primary schools where I'm a governor. The capacity of some children (without SEND, I might add) to waste time is quite astonishing - it's like a special skill they've honed!

Or the kid could just get on with the lesson a bit more quickly or ask the teacher not to wipe the board? Seriously there are 30 kids in the class and the teacher can’t be “differentiating” in all cases unless there is an agreement adjustment under the Equality act or really clear need. Remember there is no diagnosis here and in fact the child did get the questions and finish the work in the time given.

Also ADHD doesn’t mean that you need huge amounts of differentiation in most cases and certainly not to this level- which is most unlikely to be repeated when the child goes into work/ uni etc.

One of the many things I learned at school was that occasionally I was punished for things outside my control or not my fault. It was an important life lesson for me. I would have cringed myself inside out had my parents intervened.

Yeah I mean, I'm 40 and I remember board rubbers being thrown at primary students and a lot of nasty remarks (they weren't allowed to hit us then) in fact most of the teachers I remember were pretty horrible to us. A few nice ones but there was definitely a lot of aggression at all ages. There's a few niggles at my dds school but I've been pleasantly surprised by teachers these days as a whole.

Supporting your son does not mean shielding him from every event which displeases him on some level.

He lost 5 minutes so not even a lot of his break time and he didn't tell her what the problem was. She's given you a reasonable response and said she'll have a chat with him about it. You need to work on getting him to speak up. You can't be angry at his teacher for not reading his mind.
Does he really forget his homework/reading book or does he just not want to do it? Need to get him in to the habit of doing it anyway. If you don't start pushing him a bit now he'll be loosing a lot more than 5 minutes break when he starts secondary school.

DD had a similar situation a few months ago (no ADHD just a chatterbox) and she came home and complained to me. I don’t think losing 5 min of break actually addresses the situation but at the end of the day I told her next time she will remember to ask for help when she’s struggling. I would let it go OP.

I’m 50. Wednesday morning assembly the prefect lined up in front to whole school whispered in the head teachers ear. If it was your name whispered you walked up the front. If it had been a positive report whispered you got some house points, negative you lost points and usually a slap round the legs.

if you annoyed a teacher you’d be sent down to the heads office. Waited outside with other variously snivelling or defiant kids taken in one by one bent over and hit with a plimsol,

Another teacher would test the aerodynamic properties or board rubbers collection boxes, chairs if she took a dislike to the way you looked at her.

Schools are definitely not too harsh these days, they are usually making up for shit gentle parenting, I’d argue schools need to be a lot stricter

Perfect response from the teacher. I would drop it. There is literally nothing happening here.

Same. Wait till he hits secondary school, she'll be a constant feature, faced pressed against the window 😆

Eh? Fobbed off? Asked and replied.

Teacher states he completed the work, so what’s the issue? Next time he’ll get straight to it, won’t he?!

fgs drama over nothing!

He spent 5 minutes catching up on the work he missed? If he hadn't, when do you propose he does it? Or would you just email about him being allowed to fall behind his peers?

I swear teachers can't win these days.

It allows for a bit of flexibility as the boy needed to finish the work. And next time, if his mother stops interfering, maybe he'll work a bit faster. Unless everyone is already working at breakneck speed to finish the work on time, which is unlikely. Working slowly has consequences in life.

Are you confident that that child was doing his utmost to keep up throughout the lesson? Perhaps if he doesn't want to use some of his break catching up, he should focus on working more efficiently. Believe it or not, that will a long term positive for him. If there is never a consequence to anything, there's no incentive to improve, is there? And do you want him to fall behind the class?

My DS is now in yr 6 but last year he lost some of his break for not finishing his work, and had to finish it during the break time. He said that the girl he was sharing with had "lost" the question sheet and I said he should have put his hand up and told his teacher that. He hadn't done so and this was the consequence. I also explained that his teacher could not hold up the entire class because 2 children had not finished their work and told him that on this occasion, he just had to suck it up!

He has since gone on to pass his entrance exams to independent schools and is getting scores such as 49/50 in maths. He just needed to advocate for himself at an earlier juncture in a polite way!

If he managed to complete the “hard” work that he hadn’t “had time” to write down in five minutes then that suggests, VERY strongly that he was mucking about, not paying attention, not concentrating on writing the questions down when asked and generally not putting in any effort at all until he was faced with losing playtime. Hmmmm.

Support the teacher. Tell him to listen, do what he is asked to do , focus on his work and stop whining to you about the teacher trying to do what she is paid to do ie teach your uncooperative child.

"might have adhd" isn't a diagnosis of anything.

Support the teacher and tell him to get on with his work.

And here we have it, one of the reasons that teaching has become so unbearable these days.

Having to respond to endless ridiculous complaints from parents.

I swear to god teaching was a whole different ball game before parents had access to staff emails.

Oh for goodness sakes, the teacher has explained and actually seems quite nice.

What's five miinutes? It was a misunderstanding, lack of communication. Let it go.

No wonder so many teachers leave the profession because of parents.

It actually blows my mind that anyone would think that a teacher would have time for this complete non-event. How on earth would you imagine they get anything taught if they have to deal with this x 30 all the time?

If he had finished his work then why did he lose 5 minutes of break? It doesn't make any sense.

Anyway I don't think it's right to punish "slower" children for being slow. It's bonkers. So I think you should question that "method".

When it comes to your son eventually being ND I think you have to get assessment. It's not helpful for him or for the school that you say that you "think" he's got x in order for the school to sympathise. Do you know how many parents think their children are ND/gifted/special? Teachers hear that all the time. You need a professionnal evaluation.

Can you just imagine being a teacher having to pander to parents who "feel that their child might have ADHD"?
I really hope that the OP actually uses this thread to moderate behaviour.

You've pointed out to teacher what you think the problem is - other than try with the school SENCO and follow up with diagnosis - not fast at all - then not sure there's much to be done here.

My schools missed my underlying conditions - my DC despite us pushing missed theirs - but all properly diagonsed now.

I and they got told off for struggling - told off for not saying we were struggling and then often told off for asking for help.

Five minutes of break isn't that bad - he still got some. DD1 who did turn out to be dyslexic - despite schools saying no - used to lose entire break if she didn't get above 7 on spelling test - theyd' admit she was clearly trying very hard - knew we were doing support work in school and home - and nothing done in break improved matters - and even if she got them in test likely wouldn't get them right in any subsquent work- yet every week whatever we said or she did she'd lose entire break.

It's not unfair, it's literally the teacher's job to help the children learn which includes accommodating whatever is reasonable for each child.
Obviously in this case the teacher can't give one on one attention to every child but schools are obliged to support children appropriately regardless of any diagnosis.

It does sound to me like the teacher is glad to have the information, but they are not able to magically solve a child's problem any more then their parents can. OP, just keep the communication open, as the more (useful) information the teacher has the more then can help

If a school requires a diagnosis before they make reasonable adjustments to help a child, they are not meeting their obligations.

If a child can't learn in a class even with reasonable adjustments then they should have an echp which will outline how the child will be supported and it will be funded by the LA, which could be simply a 1:1 teaching assistant, or something more complex. But I don't think that's a question for the OP

He needs to be on a waiting list for ADHD assessment if he isn’t already. You can do this through a GP or pay privately and avoid a waiting list. You don’t have to go through the school.

Then I won’t be a question of who “believes” what. I would also speak to the SENCO.

Separately to this, I think the teacher’s response is quite reasonable!