Mixed behaviour/development and education concerns

[BringOnTheSunshine]

I will try to be brief: DS (6y) is in P2.

DS is one of the youngest in his class and is really struggling educationally and socially at school.

Throughout P1 we spent 2 hours per night on homework, not by choice, feeling we were not getting very far.

DS struggled to retain phonics and blending was impossible. He was able to read some words but forgot simple words even after frequent repetition.
From one page turn in the story he would forget "and" or "stop" etc. His behaviour in school deteriorated very quickly and we had our first red slip before christmas, (he threw a crayon and which hit another child, didn't throw it at the child but not the point). I was phoned twice 1 = he cut another childs hair, (didn't realise the other child cut his hair until he was home but don't think the teacher had noticed) 2= he cut a hole in his trousers. He was no longer allowed to sit with classmates when using scissors or use scissors unless supervised. We had monthly phone calls with the teacher and he was started on a behaviour chart. The school felt he was immature compared to his older classmates and felt things would improve by P2.

At the end of P1 he was able to write a simple sentence of 5 words but couldn't blend and though he progressed slowly through reading books, still had the same difficulty remembering phonic sounds and words.
P1 teacher was passing along that he needed firm guidance in class to push him to complete tasks.

He started P2 in August and we are no further forward. We spend 2 -4 hours each night working on his homework. He tries hard, sometimes ends up in tears of frustration because he can't remember a word he knew the page before etc. I asked for a meeting with his teacher after the first month to find out how he was getting on and express our concerns. The teacher said she would spend till Oct holidays observing him. He attends a session with deputy head once per week along with a group who are struggling. The teacher has asked for another 30 min session once per week to work on writing/reading. He was given a behaviour chart again...which has since stopped!

He can explain what task is being done, give answers and solve problems verbally but struggles with writing. He wrote a whole page of random repetitious letters when asked to write about a topic. He will sit staring at his work for an entire lesson...not disrupting others...just doing nothing! They have sent incomplete work home which is a nightmare on top of homework.

He tells me he is not good at reading/writing and it is too hard. He hates school and thinks the teachers don't help him. He also said that he doesn't bother telling the teacher when other kids push/hit him as they don't believe him!

We are on his third red slip so far since August. His behaviour is getting worse at school and we are really at a loss. I have had two calls from the deputy head. 1= to complain he had been swinging his lunch bag in lunch line...not attempting to hit anyone, swinging it around and over his head and to inform us of restarting behaviour chart. 2= he had created a behaviour chart for another pupil who he felt needed one due to disruptive behaviour in class.
The third slip was posted yesterday asking us to arrange a meeting to discuss his behaviour. He had pushed passed a teacher in the lunch hall and ran past another teacher with his arms out and hit her side. Both of these were intentional.

Ds is a sweet and loving boy. At home he is a boistrous, bundle of energy, loves superheroes, being tickled, playing jokes, runnning about, playing with friends in the village. Being 6, he has his moments of being too rough..usually when playing and getting carried away rather than random hitting. Though he has pushed or hit his sister (3y 11mo) and is aware this is not acceptable etc. He is helpful and will tidy up toys etc and help his sister/play with her.

He has a routine, is in bed by 8pm, he gets affection and praise and correction/time out as needed.

Negatively, he is seen as too loud, (he has a loud voice rather than shouting IYSWIM) and is a fidget, needing frequent reminders to sit still, focus on tasks etc. He shows, (I guess), the usual 6 year old cheekiness and attitude.

He knows...can verbalise... that the behaviour is wrong. He is aware of consequences for good/inappropriate behaviour.
We have both spoken to him regarding his behaviour and he has lost Wii time. (he was given his first wii games this month for his birthday and loves it) and is aware that he will probably miss the school trip to the pantomime.

DH is concerned that the behaviour is related to his frustration about class work. DH is Dyslexic and we have mentioned concerns about ds being dyslexic to the teacher in previous meetings. The teacher said formal assessment wouldn't happen until he is 7.

We are all tired, frustrated and utterly fed up....I include the teachers in this!

Poor all of you.

First off I would say I am very surprised at a primary school that feels it necessary to call or write parents because a child swung their bag around in a line or ran down a corridor and bumped people. They seem a little disproportionate in their responses, to put it mildly. Your son feels he is failing educationally and behaviourally and that is not a good thing for a child so early in their school career.

Secondly no primary school child should ever have to spend this long on nightly homework; he must be exhausted and totally POd at having too (as must you),

Whilst many children struggle to a degree with phonics etc. your DS's difficulties seem to go well beyond that. He sounds as if he has some kind of learning diffiuctly; perhaps dyslexia/dysgraphia or a problem with short term memory or both. I think your husband is absolutely spot on in what he says both about the reason for his struggles and why his behaviour is unsettled.

I would say to you to have your meeting with the school but instead of focussing on the fact your son is 'badly' behaved (and personally, as a teacher I do not think he is!) I think you need to be telling them to look at the root of the problem which is his struggle to read and write. No-one likes to be put in a situation every day where they are failing and that is what is happening to your child. He is being repeatedly 'punished' for his struggles by having work sent home. It is time for the school to take steps to provide him with an educational assessment; 6 is not too young for this. If you have the money you could go private. And frankly, even if they cannot/will not formally diagnose until he is 7 they can still put the strategies in place to support a dyslexic child. They must have some kind of special ed. teacher. To suggest he should be left to struggle until P3 until he gets diagnosis and support is ridiculous. Children who fall significantly behind compared to peers often never close the gap. It is simply wrong to take at attitude towards your DS and the school need a kick up the arse. If they won't give proper support I would consider changing school. A child with suspected dyslexia should not be having to spend hours doing incomplete work and homework every night like this. It is not educationally beneficial to him, where as there is lots he could be doing that would be. Good luck.

I'd also be very, very POd at him having to miss the school trip to the panto. That is a seriously disproportionate reaction to the behaviours you have described. How the hell will the poor boy feel seeing everyone else go off on the bus and him being left behind. It is bloody disgraceful. He is not a danger to himself or others. He is not disruptive to the education of others. He is not dangerous and, from what you have said, he is not incapable of focussing and enjoying the experience. That would make me very, very angry as a parent. It is not necessary and I cannot see how the school can possibly defend that action. Every day is supposed to be a fresh start and to say at this point in the term he is likely to miss such a huge event in a few weeks is giving him no incentive to behave and is condeming him as a failure. How must he have felt hearing that news. It is disgraceful.

what the others say, your dh is right. i would start playing serious hardball with the school and wanting to know why they arent meeting his needs. do a tenth of what you are doing at home, do the everyday fun stuff and sneak learning in.

if your son is dyslexic, dyspraxic or just young and demotivated and frozen in the face of the work there is time for him to catch up if he is engaged by school. i tried to force some hw through yesterday, tears frustration and no learning or love... incidentally my dh couldnt read a word until over seven, he suddenly caught up and accelerated past peers once he had strategies to manage dyslexia.

your ds sounds lovely, your school limited and failing in its duty.

He has had eye and hearing tests and both are fine.

Trust me when I say none of us enjoy any part of the homework. We always start with the intention of getting it all done so we can play/relax/get dinner etc but it rarely works that way.

We know it is not working but feel pressurised to keep pushing him.
DH has hellish memories of school but he clearly remembers being ignored by teachers as the "difficult/slow/trouble maker" and he didn't complete school. He is scared of the same happening to DS so feels he has to push him. The concern is if we stop all work with him, then how will he progress at all!

The teachers words about ds: "never met a boy like him" They are also at a loss. She did not feel the behaviour chart was any use as his behaviour in class is ok. He just produces very little/no work. He has had moments of refusing to work which results in being sent to the head teacher.

They feel he is capable of more than he is doing but don't feel he requires educational support. I am at a loss as to how I make him work when in school....

Regarding the phone calls, I am fed up frankly. They have zero tollerance of any physical violence/threat etc. They have a yellow warning/red action slip. Red slips come home and are signed by the parent and returned to the head teacher. They also loose golden time at school. The ruls is if they have 3 or more red slips per term, they loose out on the school activities. They haven't told me yet that he can't go to the pant...I am just expecting it as it was mentioned at the last meeting we had.

They want us to work together to resolve behaviours, which is good. But I honestly feel like they are starting to single him out. We started sitting in the car after dropping DD at nursery to watch how he behaves in the lunch line and playground. None of the children were doing anything unusual for a group of kids their age. There was shouting, a bit of bumping and shoving, bag swinging, throwing the ball so someone had to run after it, kids picking up other kids to prove they were stronger etc. Why phone me about ds swinging his bag.....like other kids do without anyone telling them to stop...to "nip that behaviour in the bud" The call about the behaviour chart he made was frankly odd. No ds should not have made and given it, but he didn't understand what was wrong....the teacher explained to him and that should have been the end! no, they phone DH to discuss this innappropriate behaviour and express how serious it is...even mentioned it as bullying behaviour! To be very clear, the teacher states he does not verbally/physically attack other students or disrupt their work. We have watched him at play time and he plays like every other kid, running with friends, (mostly girls), playing with toys etc

We feel like we are failing DS and I am struggling between telling the school to get a grip and sobbing quietly.

I believe they assume that his behaviour/attitude is the root problem...and he can't be bothered doing the work. We have spoken to them about his work at home, the struggles, tears etc...I wrote a list, (very anal) about the specific reading/writing issues/patterns and they are unconcerned. They said by p3 things even out!

That sounds absolutely awful for you and your DS.

He seems to have serious dyslexia-type issues, both difficulty in blending the sounds to form words and difficulty with remembering sight words, and it sounds like this is is the root cause of the behavioural problems, rather than it being the other way round as the school seems to be implying.

It must be nigh on impossible for him to complete tasks if he hasn't mastered the building blocks on which those tasks are based. No wonder homework is taking so long but, if it is, it does not seem to be appropriate homework.

You are definitely not failing your DS, but it sounds like the school is. Even if they do not completely understand the nature of his difficulties, they could certainly be offering a little more empathy.

2-4 hours of omework each night???? I assume yoi are exagerating, but still.

My dyslexic DS was not diagnosed until he was 8,5.

If I think how much we used to worry and strughle I feel quite guilty, 6 is still so little.

I have found that using a kitchen timer, and NEVER doing more than 30 minutes of homework a day to be a life saver. Those 30 minutes do not include syropping or dawdling, the clock is set when his brain is" switched on".

This seemed fair to him, and to us, and if he did not finish any set homework n the 30 mins, I would write a little note to the teacher. Sometimez he had written maybe 2 sentences that were illegible, but if he had tried his hardest, and it was the best he could do, we just accepted that.

He has been mrpoving bit by bit. Reading is the first step, with literacy, so some reading practice at home ( with the timer) is very useful.

We had our DS assessed privately in the end, as the school was hesitant as it costs them money ( which they don't have).

Six is still really very very young, do not put to much pressure on is my advice.

My DS did not write seperate words until he was 8. At age 6 he was hopelessly behind ( dramatic sats said he scored 2 years below his age for literacy), but with steady regular help he has been able to close the gap bit by bit.

Don't give up, it is only the beginning of his education and you do not want him to end up hating books and school.

Ah, just read your second post, we had all that too! In y1 and y2 I constantly had the " mrs chandon, can I have a word with you" mainly about him not paying attention or not trying.

With hindsight I am sad and upset that I believed the teacher who said that Ds was simply not trying hard enough. She said he was not dyslexic, " just a bit (2 years) behind and not trying hard enough. The dyslexia diagnosis suprised her, but it did not change her view of him, she kept saying he was " an enigma" and had not seen another child like him. I could tell she found him very annoying, she treated him as a nuissance.

The test showed that he has "processing diffuculties " ( difficult to follow a string of instructions, so if I would say go upstairs, brush your teeth and get your coat, he would get the " upstairs" bit but then stand there daydreaming.)

like your DS, he was a normal happy sweet boy, who just did not get on with school. He was and is also quite yoihg for his age.

He is 10 now andwith hindsight I wish I had given him a bit more space to just be a little boy instead of all this stupid pressure...

I would stop all homework except 10 minutes reading.

The evening is for relaxing and enjoying his family time not slogging over work that is plainly too hard for him.

Is there another school nearby that might be more excepting that all children are different and develop at different rates.

I see a life time of school hating and school refusal for your poor Ds.

I think you need to book an appointment with the HT and SENCO to discuss how they are going to help your Ds.

I cant believe the Teacher has "never met a boy like him", bless him. She sounds nasty

Replied before I had read the entire thread, but agree with everything in adoptmama's posts and her advice on tackling the school.

While a formal diagnosis of dyslexia is often delayed until 7 because some difficulties can just be down to immaturity and do sort themselves out, the school should still be adopting strategies to help your DS on a daily basis.

I think you must stop even attempting to do that amount of homework. A small amount of homework addressing his difficulties is probably a good thing; spending an entire evening struggling with homework that is far too hard is just wrong. He will just end up too tired which further impacts on his difficulties. It is also re-inforcing the negativity he already must be feeling.

He clearly does need educational support and if there could be something appropriate in place, you could spend a short while re-inforcing this in the evening. The school can't say on the one hand that they have 'never met a boy like him' and on the other that 'things will even out by P3'. Either your DS's difficulties are unusual and he needs a lot of extra support or they have had lots of children at his level in P2 and they did improve by P3, but they really can't have it both ways.

And, regarding the behaviour, they really do sound way over the top.

...and sitting still all blimming day for a 6 year old boy ( or girl) can be a real challenge! Don't get me started on that. Kids need activity, they cannot sit and concentrate for 6 hours a day. Did you ever see the Gareth Malone programme on literacy and boys? he took them out to build dens etc, yet their reading improved.

Another thing I did was starting DS on more sports and fun activities. All day at school makes for a boring day! Really, why can' t they do more sport? Even running aroind outside, or throwing a ball would be good

< getting wound up now>

Dd3 has been to 2 schools, the first was similar to how your sons school sounds.
A bums on seats school

Her current school is not like this at all, the children do an exercise every morning and after lunch. They swap classes for different subjects.

They access their own equipment during lessons so that they are moving around.

Dd3 actually does more work since she has been there and is much less frustrated at the end of the day.

I sent Dd3 to the original school because my other 2 girls went there and it was our school.

It was totally unsuitable for her and they were totally unwilling to change their approach for my child. She was a square peg in a round hole

Now she is a square peg in a rectangular hole Its not perfect but its a whole lot better.

Thanks for all your replies. I think we need to clear the air at school. I will phone tomorrow and ask for a meeting with his teacher, deputy head and head to work through everything.

We haven't started after school activities this term as we were planning to re start in Jan once he had settled at school. Last year he had gymnastics, dancing and kids zumba Mon Wed Fri.

I think we will have to make some big changes to stop his dislike of school growing. hmmmm, whats first?

First ditch the hw slog, zumba instead sounds fab:) let the school take responsibility for making him happy. They will have learning mentors, circle times, aspects of the curriculum that he does find fun. Part of being a teacher is finding the fun, the interest and building on it. Repeating exercises that are too hard or incompatible with his learning style is torture. They need to take responsibility for boosting his confidence and making him happy.

I teach and spend half my time arsing around with my classes, ofsted would sack me on sight of some of my more eccentric lessons. The other fifty percent of time I work the classes hard and demand full focus. My results are outstanding with every group- the arsing generates good will, a lovely atmosphere and great engagement so then the pupils want to work hard. Teachers are only measured by pupil progress, your son's teacher is failing him.

Haven't read all the replies but just had to say 2 hours a day homework after a full day at school is wrong. Agree set the timer and do no more than that, whether it's completed or not.

Your poor boy, the school sounds awful. Phone call from the head for swinging his bag! Ridiculous. He's six, what is it, the stepford school.

Your ds may well have learning problems, but school are making it worse.