Can any primary teachers tell me

[Cattitudes]

What actually happens from the school's perspective, the parent perspective and the child if they absolutely refuse to do any work? School are piling on the pressure, he is completely refusing to even look at the work, we are stuck in the middle so tempting to type it in for him .

In case it is relevant- yr6, completed yr6 Maths and English curriculum for 11 plus so not learning anything new, anxiety, very recent bereavement, is engaged in educational pursuits all day, just won't touch school work. Won't zoom school friends but seems generally fairly happy in themselves and with older siblings. We are both full time wfh.

My DD is in year 6 and did her 11+ last November. You son sounds like he may have passed a super selective grammar though (DD hasn’t covered all of the year 6 curriculum - we’re Bexley though so not super selective).

If he’s passed a super selective and the school aren’t providing appropriate work it’s no wonder he’s bored.

I would just get him to send in photos of the learning he’s doing and ask him to write a small explanation of what he’s learned

This shows engagement in learning which is what matters most.

Hi. I am an education welfare officer and while I would absolutely support schools to contact families not engaging, and provide some encouragement and help to remove any barriers, I can tell you it is absolutely unenforceable by law. So ultimately nothing will happen.

Personally I would give him stuff to read that he enjoys and is a bit of a challenge, and there are online maths platforms etc- just let him do work and learn new things on there. In 'normal' times the teacher probably does provide stretch work, but at the moment with everything going on I would try and find stuff yourself, or say to him can you find x things you would like to learn about this week and go from there. If the school challenge you for him not doing the work, just tell the truth.

Being forced to do work that isnt level appripriate is damaging.
Would we complain about a child in a wheelchair not walking? A child working below age given work too hard is soul distroying and results in them switching off. We have had to plan our own work as the work from school is too difficult by far. The school have been supportive through.

In OP case the work is too easy. So to use the example above would we force a child who can walk to use a wheelchair? Work that is too easy is just as damaging as work thats too hard.

Just keep evidence of what child is doing at home. Tell the school that you wont be expecting child to complete work that he has already proven proficency at. But would welcome work that will match his level and enable him to reach his potential. In the meantime he will continue to pursue alternative academic work at home

We give them a log of everything that he is covering but what they really want is evidence that he has practised two different ways to learn how to spell because.

That’s not year 6 level. The conjunction because is a ks1 objective.

I’m surprised they’ve got time to chase up a child who’s providing large amounts of evidence and learning logs of secondary school work.

Sign him up with Atom Learning for more challenging work -- it's responsive to abilities. I'd ignore school work (sounds like a waste of time) and take charge of his education.

@MrGruWeLoveYou

Hi. I am an education welfare officer and while I would absolutely support schools to contact families not engaging, and provide some encouragement and help to remove any barriers, I can tell you it is absolutely unenforceable by law. So ultimately nothing will happen.

Thank you. Hopefully if we meet one of your colleagues they will be as understanding. He says he wouldn't do any work in school but obviously what an 11yr old says they would do at school and whether he actually would refuse to do it we don't know. He has only once had a problem with a teacher, and he generally will work for them even when the work is boring. I think he will be challenged in his new school. He knows that teachers are stricter at secondary. I don't think he will be awkward for them.

I think that the anxiety though is too much for him. He would in no way meet a CAHMS threshold and I think (hope) that when life starts up again he will come back from it all. Right now he is focusing all his anxiety about not seeing friends, not being able to take part in extra curriculum activities, not going shopping, not going on day trips, death of grandparent, anxiety about starting secondary, anxiety that one of us will be ill, sadness he can't go to museums etc. All these issues he focuses on one thing that he can choose to do or not do. To be honest I would prefer him to focus those thoughts onto something that will be irrelevant in six months than something like food or his body. Hopefully in six months many of these issues will be irrelevant left behind with the platform. Fortunately we know what he will be using in secondary school and it isn't the same.

The other thing everybody can improve on is English. I would set him writing assignments on different subjects. Plus history, geography or classics projects.

@Flipflops85

We give them a log of everything that he is covering but what they really want is evidence that he has practised two different ways to learn how to spell because.

That’s not year 6 level. The conjunction because is a ks1 objective.

I’m surprised they’ve got time to chase up a child who’s providing large amounts of evidence and learning logs of secondary school work.

To be fair that was from last April and the school's position was that it was revision and needed to be accessible to all. I can totally believe that there are children in his class who need to learn that and fully support the school in prioritising their needs.

My DD went to a bog standard comp (still does, we don't have 11+ in our bit of England) and is gifted. Fortunately, she was also leaps and bounds ahead in her maturity so could understand the need to demonstrate basic learning before being able to do the challenging bit. What also sounds a bit different is that the school differentiated and challenged at every turn.

Because a child is gifted academically, this doesn't mean that they don't struggle at the emotional level of their peers.and a recent bereavement will impact things further. Do you have local bereavement support?

I work with a lot of children facing huge challenge and one of the biggest things a parent has to do is encourage a child to do things they would prefer to avoid because this is a life skill they must master. I'd try and work with the school so that you can evidence the learning that is taking place and perhaps take a different approach to the easier work. Can he demonstrate how to teach the basic stuff to a child younger or less able than him? DD did this a lot in class and took a mentor role for some subjects so that she could engage with the material in a demonstrable way but be thinking about it more laterally from a teaching perspective as opposed to a learning perspective.

The anxiety around things will be making things difficult right now and I think it's okay to think about mental health support as a focus, in whatever way that works for your DS.

I can’t help with the school’s perspective, but DS passed his 11+ last year and immediately disengaged with primary school and that was before the first lockdown! He’d already covered the curriculum and once he knew what his next stage was, he just wanted to move on to it. So i think there’s an element of normality here. He’s perfectly engaged this lockdown in his new school, after a few days of getting used to it.

I'm surprised his school have declined to differentiate his work, surely this is the root of his disengagement? If he's Y6 but helping his sibling revise gcse material, he sounds unusually bright and I think the school should therefore differentiate for him?

If you want to keep his place until he returns in person and you're concerned the school will exclude him (but they surely can't if they haven't been differentiating?) - then perhaps just make a brief record of each educational tasks he does each day ie list out the revision topic he helps with or a subject he debates, and submit the list to the school as evidence of his learning.

Unfortunately his school is the only one which has barely acknowledged the bereavement. They are definitely aware of it but it is never acknowledged as mitigation. Pastoral support in the other two schools are falling over themselves to offer support but his siblings are fine and don't feel the need to talk about it. Even when we raise it with his school the impact is just dismissed, which is sad for him.

Thank you for your perspective LadyCatStark it helps to consider it as normal behaviour too. If he was in school in normal times he would have been mentoring younger year groups and I have little doubt that he would have trundled through yr6 a little bored and ready to move on but essentially compliant.

You say he will work when challenged and then that you can't force him to work as you have busy jobs. I am sure you will disagree but I have actually heard this many times as a justification from parents as to why their child won't work. I have known many children whose parents think they are incredibly bright and that this is why they don't and won't work. Often the result is a child who may have lots of potential and have done OKish in primary but tends to struggle and under achieve in their exams they won't knuckle down to work that they deem to be boring or unnecessary or they think they know it. You won't want to hear this but you need to be tougher with your ds. He needs to learn some self discipline and this starts with you ensuring that he sticks with it. If he is so genuinely gifted; the work should be over quickly but you are actually not helping him in the long term.

@cansu as I have repeatedly said the reason he won't work is a series of bereavements, the most recent one less than a month ago and anxiety about covid which is partly due to a medical condition and he has focused all his stress onto the only format in which school will accept work. Not saying it is a great reason but with waiting lists for therapy really long he will probably be back in face to face lessons long before he gets to the top and hopefully by then he will be feeling less anxious anyway.

Fortunately us having busy jobs does not usually interact with him doing work because there is this fantastic invention called school, where we send him most days outside of pandemics and he always does the work set, however easy or hard it is using this amazing technology called pen and paper. Beginning to wonder whether his teacher is stalking me because she won't acknowledge he is grieving either.

Anyway thank you to those who have answered my question and who have some empathy for my son's situation.

Would he be willing to teach himself something new - so a language, coding or pick a topic to research, read some classic literature? So he is still using his brain - and hopefully the progress he makes might give him something positive to focus on?

You say in your first post that he seems generally fairly happy. I am not your son's teacher. I knew you wouldn't like what I said!

@cansu your comments are not helpful at all. What’s worse is you sound like you are a teacher - I think you need a course in empathy! Some children are suffering very badly with anxiety right now, just like adults are. Not all children have the tools adults do to move on with bereavement, etc. My child suffered terribly in the first lockdown and there is no support, even the helplines are blocked. The only way is to go private and even then there are long waiting lists. We waited three months.

I have plenty of empathy! I gave an alternative point of view. Of course I could say that the OP should let her ds off doing any work. If she thinks he is too unwell to work then that is completely different and he shouldn't be doing any work at all whether it be harder or easier. That isn't what I understood. Of course any suggestion or hint that there might be another way to look at things on here is shot down instantly and I am now told I need a course in empathy! I will refrain from offering any alternative viewpoints.

Will he do other work? Like working through stuff on Khan academy, bbc bitesize or something? watching documentaries? Art related YouTube tutorials? You need to make sure he’s getting an education but he doesn’t need to do anything school are setting. I hope he settles back into school well and for your bereavements.