Had a pretty awful meeting with dd1's teacher this afternoon. She is way behind her peer group (Yr 2) in reading, spelling and maths - probably the least able in her class.
She has always really struggled with school - she has SEN as a result of birth trauma and recurrent ear infections which were mainly language based. Her IQ always came out at average, though. At first the problems seemed to be mostly centred around her social skills and maturity which were pretty poor. The academic achievement was definitely a lesser concern when compared to making friends and being able to cope with the school environment. She's made brilliant progress socially. According to her teachers she is a very popular member of the class and all her class, even the rufty tufty boys are terribly protective of her.
This is all well and good when she's 7.5 but what about when she's 15 and behind everyone else? There is such a focus on academic achievement now, pretty much to the exclusion of everything else. Don't even know why I'm posting this. Just needed to get it off my chest. It seems that every other child is doing perfectly well and no-one talks about the children who aren't. Feel free to tell me to snap out of it and get a grip.