To be pissed off with DS’s school (long post sorry!)

[TryingNotToMakeItWorse]

I’m really pissed off with DS’s school and not sure if I’m being unreasonable or whether I need to calm down before I make things worse for him.

DS is 12 and in year 7. He has dyslexia and quite significant problems with his working memory which were picked up during an assessment last year. He’s always struggled with school and remembering instructions, getting written work done etc. He’s not a child who never does anything wrong and I know he can talk when he shouldnt but there’s a bit more to it than that.

On Friday he came home and told me he’d spent the whole day in isolation. I had absolutely no idea this was happening and was quite shocked as I thought something serious must have happened for him to be put in there all day. Apparently it was because he’d had 3 detentions in a day.

I’d had a message from school about a detention so rang them on Friday morning to ask what it was for as I assumed it was for being late earlier in the week. He’d had an orthodontist appointment and I’d completely forgotten to let the school know beforehand, so I accept that was my fault. I dropped him off late with a note explaining why and when I rang the school they agreed to cancel that detention. The message I’d received only mentioned one detention so I had no idea there were another 2 involved as well.

The other 2 were apparently for talking in 2 different lessons. DS says he was telling other pupils to stop talking to him and that he got the detention for talking back, although obviously I wasnt there so I can only go on what he’s told me. I know he’s not always an angel in class but I do think there’s a difference between deliberately disrupting a lesson and getting into trouble when he’s already struggling to manage what’s going on around him.

What has really annoyed me is finding out he was put in isolation without anyone contacting me, particularly when one of the detentions had actually been cancelled. The school say the decision had already been made based on the number he’d received and the Head of Year apparently wasnt aware that the other detention had been cancelled when she made the decision.

I rang again this morning and asked to speak to the Head of Year. She told me DS has one of the highest numbers of detentions in the year, which was news to me. Apparently I should have been called in for a meeting about this before now but nobody has contacted me about it. I knew he’d had some detentions for not doing homework and was dealing with that at home, but I wasnt aware it had got to this point.

The reason I’m particularly upset is that school know about his difficulties. He was assessed last year after years of struggling and the report explains the problems he has with memory and processing instructions. His primary school were very quick to label him naughty and lazy and it took a long time to get anyone to look properly at why he was struggling. I was determined that secondary school would be different so I contacted the SENCO before he even started there.

I had a meeting with the SENCO early in the term and we discussed putting him into a smaller teaching group for some lessons because he was finding the work difficult. They also said he’d attend a supported homework club after school as he was refusing to do some of the homework because he didnt understand it. I was happy with both of these things and thought they were being put in place.

DS has since told me he isnt in the smaller group and hasnt been going to the homework club either. I emailed the SENCO last week to ask when this was starting and only got a reply today saying the smaller group wouldnt be available until later in the term. Nobody had told me this before and I’d been under the impression that the extra support was being sorted.

When I raised this with the Head of Year she said the school has expectations about behaviour and DS still has to follow the rules. I agree with that! I’m not saying he should be allowed to do whatever he wants because he has dyslexia. But I dont understand how they’re making decisions about his behaviour without seeming to consider the difficulties we’ve already discussed with them, or why I’ve had to chase up support that was supposed to be happening.

The conversation got quite defensive and I felt like she was trying to make it all about his number of detentions rather than answer my questions about the isolation and the support. I asked to speak to the deputy head and have now got a meeting arranged for tomorrow.

I’m worried I’ve made an enemy of the Head of Year now and that DS will end up getting watched even more closely because I’ve complained. At the same time I’m really cross that he’s been punished like this and I’m only finding out afterwards, when the school have known for weeks that he needs some extra help.

I dont want to be the parent who blames the school for everything and I do expect him to behave himself, but I also dont want him going through the same thing he did at primary school where he was constantly in trouble and his confidence got worse and worse.

Am I being unreasonable to be this angry about it? And what would you actually raise with the deputy head tomorrow? I want to get somewhere with the school rather than just have an argument, but at the moment I feel like I’m going round in circles.

Absolutely. All while the poor kid loses confidence. No matter how hard he tries he won't be able to succeed because he's too far back. He needs a personalised educational plan focussing on progress from where he is now, not where he "should" be year wise.

He sounds very much like my son, who has adhd. The impulsivity he displays is when he reacts to things going on around him, he finds it incredibly hard to switch off and focus. He also has problems with his working memory. In our case, medication helped massively, but schools are not great at dealing with behaviour that stems from something like adhd. I've always felt like they're rolling their eyes when I try to engage them in talking about additional support, and we've had to battle for literally everything. Things have finally settled for him, but a bit too late to help him fulfil the potential all his teachers know he's capable of. He'll pass his GCSEs, a couple of them really well, but others he'll scrape by despite having high MTGs.

We've always tried to teach him that adhd is a reason, not an excuse. When he gets behaviour points, we discuss with him what happened and try to help him develop strategies for managing his symptoms more effectively. This has proved more effective than battling with the school - providing the scaffolding to help himself. Some of that comes more naturally with age.

I'm sure you're aware but dyslexia is often comorbid with other forms of neurodivergence.

I'd tell him to suck up the punishment for now and make the conversation with the school more focused on working collaboratively to develop the tools he needs to succeed. A lot of it will come down to improved self advocacy and taking responsibility for the things he can control.

Hi, you seem to be only believing your son here, there are 2 sides to every story. High school is a big shock for them and they need to have consequences for their actions which they learn from. Stop making excuses for poor behaviour. My son has ADHD and year 7 was a nightmare for us. I won’t have him disrupting the class. He’s now in year 9 and has settled down

This isn't true. Children on the SEN register do not need an EHCP to receive extra support. Schools are, in fact, expected to put pupils who need extra support on their internal SEN register (and provide that support). Where an EHCP is useful is to provide funding for additional and specific support.

Learning for a child with a memory and processing disorder is not straight forward and impacts an enormous number of additional areas, like how much noise they can cope with in the classroom, mental fatigue etc. All these people delighted to crucify the OP over a few detentions really need to take a good look at what could be behind the behaviour - such as the lack of promised support and very poor communication from all schools involved. The primary school should have suggested an EHCP and they should have had a proper handover with the high school, specifying that this child has a learning disability and the extra support they require.

I think the school should have made better contact with you regarding the isolation. Especially as he is year 7 I would have thought they would want to emphasise this and encourage you to work with him at home on behaviour.

There are some things you are being defensive over. The talking in class. Your last post says he wouldn't want to put his hand up to ask for help as that would draw attention to himself, but surely by talking when he shouldn't be is also drawing attention to himself as the teacher then has to reprimand him (unless he likes this attention and things he is 'cool' and the others like this behaviour).

Also the homework club. When is it supposed to be? A lot of clubs take place after school and require the students to take themselves to it. Again if you think he wouldn't like an adult being involved then he needs to check these things himself.. would he really want the head of year turning up at the end of a lesson to take him?

Secondary school is a massive change and secondary schools don't have the time or sympathy to pander to children like primary do. There is an element of letting them make their own mistakes.

You need to work with the school rather than arguing with them. Have a meeting. Discuss what he finds difficult. But for most people the needs of the child need to be met in class, he will need to manage his behaviour so it might be the teacher needs to be aware he is slow at processing so might need to use visuals, have things typed for him or simplified, be aware he takes longer to do the task, go and repeat it verbally (however again you need to consider how he will feel about all of this and whether getting help will lower his self esteem as you now seem worried about that?).

You can argue this until you're blue in the face but the fact is that your son is misbehaving and you are excusing his behaviour. He has one of the highest number of detentions in his whole year group, but you're just glossing over that.

I would accept that he received all his detention for not meeting expectations ie homework and talking back and chatting.

Going forward though, I would say that the high number of detentions show that he is not coping with homework and while he is obviously not meeting the behaviour expectations he needs support understanding information and processing instructions. I would go in with the attitude of how can we work together to get him to where he needs to be.

My DS has a working memory problem. Working at what was p levels in year 7. It was a nightmare at school until they figured how to best support him. They put in place a recorded device with step by step instructions (he used headphones so it didn’t disturb anyone!), purple overlay and he got taken out of some classes with a couple of others for catch up work. It was a hard slog and the school were strict with their high expectations but the flip side was the support was fantastic. He ended up doing A levels there and came out with A and 2 Bs.

Gosh, people are harsh. There is some good advice on this thread from people who have walked in your shoes. I hope that you can extract the good and ignore those who just want to kick you when you’re down.

Can his father join you in advocating for him and help you both to keep on track with working with the school. It’s hard on your own.

Exactly - to receive differentiated support within the classroom and to receive a curriculum that's catered for their needs as best as possible within that. But they won't be entitled to any specific extra interventions outside of the classroom such as homework club or extra support in smaller groups- which is what the OP is aiming for.

The school’s duty under the Children and Families Act 2014 to make their best endeavours to meet a pupil’s SEN is not limited to in-class support.

As @roaringdragon says, support is not as limited as you believe. Of course it includes smaller group work and it may very well include subject specific or homework clubs, if the school believes this type of support will help. Depending on the local authority, there is also a lot of free support available, if only schools would avail themselves of it. Private tutoring tends to be paid for by the local authority (rather than the school), when it is specified in an EHCP. And it sounds like the OPs child would benefit from this. She's looking for help, not a wrap over the knuckles for daring to expect more than the bare minimum. Both the primary and now secondary are failing her child. This is having an impact on his behaviour. The two are connected.

The detentions aren’t working partly because he knows he can tell you they were unfair and you take his ‘side’ and not the schools.
He clearly does need support but he also needs to follow basic school rules.

Imagine: you've asked for silence. You need to correct a misconception and make sure everyone understands.

Stop talking.
No you stop talking.
Miss he's talking.
No I was just telling you to stop talking.
Sshhhhh, miss!!! It's not me it's him.

The minute you indulge children telling each other to stop talking, they start arguing about it and now you're waiting even longer.

Then there's the age old "I was just talking because I don't understand". We don't give children detention for not understanding. But to give you an example, just today I had a child who didn't understand. I observed that he didn't understand and that several others didn't understand, so I tried to pause the class to refocus and elaborate. This child would not let me get a word in edgeways because he was so busy telling me repeatedly that he didn't understand that he would not allow me to get a sentence out to help him understand.

Your child isn't in detention because he has dyslexia. He's in detention, and isolation, because he's not behaving well, and I'm saying this with love, you're not helping him by focusing your frustration on the school instead of sitting down to help him learn how to behave in a way they is conducive to learning.

Separate the issues.

Sounds like his detentions were for chatting / back chatting - nothing to do with dyslexia or lack of support. The one that was cancelled and not communicated is the main issue - it’s terrible that their internal processes mean he missed a day he needn’t have so I’d focus on that. The 2 others sound like fair game and you need to sit with him and work through how to stop this happening again.

Then, as a completely separate issue, you need to follow up on the support he’s not getting.

You have had some tough and unsympathetic responses here. For many Year 7 pupils, the transition can be rocky. They have secure relationships with the adults who work with them in primary, and those adults know them well enough to know how best to deal with any instances of rule breaking. Often in secondary the punitive approach is used as teachers don’t always have time to get to the bottom of the behaviours. As a parent, you know your child and understand why he has been talking. In an ideal world, teachers would unpick what has happened and look at how to support rather than punish, especially with new Year 7 pupils.

In relation to your son’s SEND difficulties, it sounds like he has struggled for a significant period of time. Difficulties with processing information will definitely mean that he is challenged by understanding rules and expectations and will then likely display what are perceived as ‘naughty’ behaviours. You need to be clear in your explanations with school that he will need support, understanding and explanations that are clear and avoid the use of excessive language so that he can understand.

In relation to the EHCP process, ask school if they have any plans to begin those Assess, Plan, Do, Review cycles in order to begin the process of applying for an EHCP. If not, ask if they have a SEND service within their local authority. Many LAs have this service, where advisory teacher’s with specialist areas visit pupils in school and offer advice and guidance on how best to support them. If your LA has this service, ask school to make a referral to the Specific Learning difficulties team. At the very least, school should have an Individual Eduction Plan (known often under different names) for your son, that outlines how his learning needs are being met.

Best of luck with your meeting. Make it clear that you want to work together with school rather than taking a ‘battle’ approach. They will hopefully be much less defensive this way and will look to work with you.

In relation to the EHCP process, ask school if they have any plans to begin those Assess, Plan, Do, Review cycles in order to begin the process of applying for an EHCP.

The school should be undertaking APDR cycles but that is not needed to begin the EHCP process. Despite what some LAs like people to believe, you do not need a certain number of APDR cycles before requesting an EHCNA. They are not part of the legal test.

If you can, change schools. Starting off this way with SEN kids it won’t improve.