Can my 5 year old repeat Yr 1 ... At wits end ...

[WhoKnew2010]

I have posted before about my DD (6 end May). She's v behind in reading (abt a year apparently) and is v slowly making some progress in (fab) reading recovery. I still can't see her coping w/ Yr 2 though.

At school, though never at home, she falls asleep a lot and is often sick. Shes not a brilliant sleeper, sleeping thru 50% of the time but never awake for long (gets into bed with me). She craves adult attention (middle of three) and her Dad and I separated amicably a year ago, now 50:50 childcare, one week each. When she's sent home she comes to me bc I work from home a lot.

Bc of the tiredness and the sickness (which happened today for the first time in a month, it's mainly the falling asleep) school keep sending her home so she's missing an est 15% of the week, less when it's entertaining end of term activities ...

Our GP is fantastic (an an ex-paediatrician) and can find nothing wrong with her. Is repeating tests and writing to the school. There doesn't seem to be a medical reason and she's hard work but not tired/sick at home.

Dd is happy talking abt school and has a few friends. Teachers (job share + LSA) are fantastic and have a tough job w/ a class of 30.

Repeating a year seems one practical solution - can this happen? Any help/ideas really appreciated.

Assuming state school - no, not a cat's chance in hell. If school agreed she could learn with year 1 again nextyear, but officially be on year 2's register, she'd still have to move to secondary at the end of year 5.

Private you'd have more luck. Can school take mre of a hard line with her, wake her up if she falls asleep, not send her home if she seems ill? Is it attention seeking behaviour - she wants some one to one mummy time and being sent home from school is the easy way to achieve it?

I lnow GP has paed experience but I would ask for ref to a paed

This is already impacting adversely on her education and you need to be eliminating conditions such as narcolepsy, epilepsy, even diabetes for eg

It may be possible - it has happened in our school, but we have mixed classes (small school) so that makes it easier I think, as if you don't want to go private for secondary, they do usually have to skip a year later on.

Repeating a year is not the answer, there is a lot of very negative research on it. Is she on school action or school action plus? Does she have an IEP?
I would also press for a referral to a paediatrician to check out medical issues.
I would also ask what strategies they are going to use next year to help her.

Being a year behind at reading isn't that far though, and could be quite quickly caught up.

Hi thank you all ... though those are tough answers (and v much appreciated for that). Will see if I can get pads ref. No chance of going private. Will ask about IEP/school action, thank you, am v new at this.

My hunch is that she's not a natural reader/writer and that it's attention seeking (at school from LSA/teacher & at home from me) and that this is a vicious circle if they keep sending her home. When she's sick they have a stronger argument of course (except that the often insist on the day after as well even though no evidence of sickness/tummy bug/anything when she gets home).

Oh dear. Thank you. I'm really grateful.

It sounds really hard. Just to say my son did the reading recovery in Year 2 and caught up completely with reading. He still has problems with writing too and I am looking into private tuition with that. It sounds a bit like the sleeping problems could be adding to all this but don't know.

it's not unusual for children in yr 2 to suddenly 'click' with reading and get it virtually overnight. and there are a lot of children who are in your dd's position in y2, honestly.

i would definitely push for a more hard line approach by school. they wake her up and get her to go outside and run around, or run an errand with a partner to the office.

(is she really asleep? is she is always so tired that she sleeps/ goes for a nap when she gets home, or does she miraculously wake up once you collect her? i might also be tempted to go fetch her if she 'falls asleep' but if she is wide awake at home, take her back to school again. and def don't mkae the coming home bit fun. mummy is too busy to spend time with her if she tired, and if she is tired she needs to sleep in her bed, so you are there if she needs you, but no real attention iyswim )

i have to say i find it slightly odd that they don't catch her before she actually goes to sleep and give her a job to do that will prevent her getting comfy, tbh!

that said, i think you need to sit down with xp and decide whether this custody arrangement is working out for the best for her. does she 'fall asleep' more when she iat xp's house for the night? so that she gets to see you? is she better when she is coming home to you in the evening?

have you sat down and discussed her sleep patterns at xp's house?

the two of you need to get together and give her lots of reassurance, but let her know that you are both going to be really firm. you love her lots and lots etc. it's great that you have a good relationship with xp, and hopefully in this sort of forum (with you both together and singing from the same songsheet etc) she might open up a bit about what's going on. quite normal for her to need reassurance if she isn't seeing you for a week at a time unless she pulls a sickie, i would have thought?

does she have camhs or any play therapy as a result of the break up?

Oh do get her adenoids and tonsils checked! Does she snore? If she does she might have sleep apnoea, and so be tired during the day, and of course be finding it hard to learn. I heard a radio program on this last week.

Has she had her ears tested? A lad in my DS's school was thought to have learning and behavioural problems but it turned out he had severe glue ear and didn't hear well enough to know what was expected of him and switched off. Once this was diagnosed he got back on track fairly quickly.

Whoknew, there would be no advantage to missing a year at all, in the extememly unlikely event of the school considering it, all it would mena is she would have to miss out on a year later on. She may have to go to secondary school without doing year 6, for example, or eve n if she was allowed to enter secondary school a year late, she would miss her GCSE year altogether, and her final year of school would be year 10.

Each uk child is allocated a certain number of years of education, you cannot claim more.

Good luck, it sounds like a wearing situation.

It sounds mean, but can you make coming home so boring that she decides not to?

No cuddles, Tv, etc, bed in the dark if not well enough to be up, school work in isolation if she does want to be up?

Best wishes

Definitely don't keep her back a year - I doubt they'd let you anyway. Do the school think she has a problem? If not, then I'd say try not to worry and trust them to get her there, just keep a v.close eye on it all.

Sleep's often a habitual problem - we have it too and a lot of what you say sounds familiar. My DS finds it impossible to go to sleep and then can wake 4/5 times a night. He's a lot better now (Yr3), but tiredness makes learning v.tough imo. I used to keep him at home often if he was too tired, esp. in reception, but still a bit in Yr1. I just used to tell him he had a temperature, as that way he didn't think school was optional.

My son suddenly clicked with reading and writing in Year 2 and is totally fine at school now and is doing really well academically too. He's still useless at sleeping (was awake 3 times last night), but his stamina's much better so he copes okay now.

I'd suggest what another has and thats to look at the option of play therapy or CAMHS support. My DS struggled in year 4 as I had serious health issues and he obviously was worried about me and what was likely to happen in the future. He saw an art therapist for a term and it worked a treat.

Judging by what you have said, it sounds more likely your little one is in need of extra TLC right now but I could be very wrong and she may have a medical reason for the sleepiness. My DS had glandular fever last year (he's now year 11) and constantly fell asleep in class. His reports were filled with teacher remarks on how tired my lad appeared and it took about four months for the glandular fever to appear in its fullness. A year on, he still falls asleep in History which coincidently is his least favourite lesson.

Repeating a year is an option in exceptional circumstances. My cousin repeated year 2 and stayed with that year group until he left school. To hear a child now has to move up from year 5 to year 7 is a bit of a shock! Such an important time both physically and emotionally. I know of a child with Aspergers, who was held back a year at key stage 1; but then the junior school refused to continue this and the child was utterly miserable. The mother was a complete nightmare, yet she must have been extremely worried about how her son was coping. The situation was intolerable for the family and the school and ended with the child moving (with his age range group), to a special school. I hope he found life easier there.

Keep the faith with your DD. She's got 2 caring parents who'll help her through this blip in her life.

I'm so sorry to have missed these really helpful and supportive replies. For some reason I thought the thread was done and got distracted by kids + interview for new job, neglecting MN, tsk.

It turns out, as you can imagine, that you were all right, she's been awake all week by being bribed with a treat at the end of the day if she can stay awake. With a lot of practice + tlc she's even learned to spell one of the words on her spelling list this week - dance - I only tried one, but she's got it.

I think TLC, keep an eye on any poss health concerns like ears/adenoids (thank you mummytime/network, hadn't considered either of those) and persuading school to wake her up if she falls asleep again. I think they are now finally convinced it's not a medical concern.

madwoman - yes, you were right! - she was faking at least a bit it turns out. The teacher was taking a photo to prove she was sleeping and DD asked her abt it later. Wise teacher now much more sceptical of how tired she really is.

asiatic - yes, I ignored her as much as I was able to last time and she complained about being bored - cue, school's so much fun isn't it.

smee - that's really encouraging to make such a leap in a year.

Thank you all so, so much. I will bear the play therapy/CAHMs support in mind Mutteroo, really useful to know about that,

thank you all so much. both for the great advice and for the support.