ds doesn't listen at school. Issue with teacher. Please help!

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Hi

Our DS is in yr 1. He's 6 in March. He is a lovely, kind and mostly very well-behaved little boy. However since the start of yr1 his teacher has kept telling us that he doesn't listen, his mind wanders, and he keeps 'doing his own thing'. She has kept him in at break time and told him off a few times as he could't answer a question she asked him, or because he is fidgeting on the carpet. Her comments about his behaviour are really really worrying me. She says we have to keep reminding him to listen and focus, but I can tell him that until I'm blue in the face at home... he won't necessarily remember 4 hours later when he's in class.

On another level, I just don't think she likes him very much. I know that sounds pathetic. Her comments about him are just so contrasting with everyone else who as ever met him. I'm sure he must drive her mad but she is always so negative and snippy about him. I appreciate that not everyone is always going to think he's wonderful and it must be really disruptive for her lessons if he is being silly (her word for him).

Oh, his reception year was absolutely fantastic and he had a glowing school report. His teacher said that everyone that worked with him thought he was adorable.

He is on gold books and reads very fluently (so the penultimate box in the infant library). He is very articulate and has a vivid imagination. We've always thought he was pretty bright. I'm posting in here because you might have some previous knowledge, not because I think he's G+T. I don't... just bright.

Anyway, it's been suggested to us that maybe he is bored. Maybe his mind is wandering because it's much more interesting to think about other stuff than to learn a sound he already knows, or to listen to the rest of the class reading or whatever. His work is really good, he's writing lots of sentences, his maths is fine etc. So whatever is going on, it's not affecting his learning (yet).

Does anyone have any advice? I need to go and see his teacher or possibly the SENCO before this gets any worse.

Help!

He certainly sounds bored.

I don't know, personally I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that he is bored... Have you had his ears tested? His eyes? Many children with listening issues can have hearing problems, some have glue ear. Take him to GP and have that checked first. Same with vision - it might be a simple answer.

Also, some children just find it hard to focus on talking. You can do lots of listening games with him, from simple 'simon says' to 'musical statue'. Try to discuss it with him at home just ask if the teacher can give you a quick walk through the normal school routine and you can 'practice' it at home. Get him to be the teacher and you the pupil. It might reveal a few things. Or maybe the lessons are not engaging enough.

Personally, I find it not very productive to conclude that a child is bored if they don't listen or fidget. Lots of children achieve above expectation and have good behaviour.

"Personally, I find it not very productive to conclude that a child is bored if they don't listen or fidget. Lots of children achieve above expectation and have good behaviour." is something of a non sequitur.

Well call it whatever you want, I couldn't care less, but at least I am giving a bit of advice. Have you got anything to say to actually help the OP?

Thank you. Getting his hearing tested is one of the things on my list of things to do! I like the idea of practising at home as well. I've looked into listening games and looked up SALT too. I just wondered whether people on here had had a similar experience.

My daughter had glue ear and despite telling the teacher I don't think they got it until she started fidgeting and daydreaming. I had to say its because she can't bloody hear!!! Once they moved her to the front of class and made sure they were speaking to her face she was able to hear and concentrate. I'd defo say get hearing tested.

A good listening game is to draw ginormous elephant ears and go for a walk, and talk about everything you can hear around you - cars, airplane, birds, dogs barking, bells from a church, police car, whatever sounds you can hear. It encourages them to 'tune in' their environment. You can also have a 'sound bag' or box. You put in it all sorts of things that make a noise - shaker, whistle, rain maker, little drum, and you can blindfold him and ask him to guess the sounds. It's good fun, I do it in class and children love it. Another one is the 'hot-cold' game - sure you know what game it is, with a toy hidden somewhere and children walking around and you say 'X is getting warmer, etc.

How experienced is the teacher?
Is she negative & snippy about many other children (some teachers are)?

Lots of 5yos are dozy & silly, it shouldn't be that challenging for her manage.

Sounds like my son, only my son has a lot of energy so his behaviour is worse. DS has Sensory Processing Disorder, although I don't see anything in your OP that makes me think you son has SPD. SPD sometimes can be perceived by others to be simply bad behaviour. At his school some teachers love him some get irritated by him. It tells me more about the teacher than my son, frankly, specially as we were honest about his challenges and go out of our way to work with school, including pay for an OT to go to school 3 times a week to work with him in the classroom. It is a private school and we are in the US.

DS had his IQ tested recently, he scored high in the 3 subtests that measure cognitive skills but low to average on in Working Memory and Processing Speed.

Sorry I can't be of much help, it may be worth you researching bright kids and low working memory and maybe even SPD. Knowledge of the issues he faces help me understand my son better, even tough we still struggle getting a hold of his behaviour.

Hi

Thanks for all the help. I'll look into SPD. We did wonder at one point whether he was on the autism spectrum and I remember seeing SPD when I was researching it, as he was a hand flapper. He doesn't show any other signs of autism, but his hand flapping was legendary. This was about 2 years ago. He seems to have grown out of it now, but still has some quite unusual movements and responses to exciting situations. For instance when he is colouring something, he will pull the most extraordinary faces and his whole body shakes with excitement. If he's playing on the Wii, he leaps around the rooms doing a sort of dancing jig (there's no worry in our house that playing video games will turn him into a couch potato. I don't know how he has the energy sometimes). He also waggles his feet around if he's sitting down doing something exciting.

Anyway, his teacher is going to ring me today hopefully to talk this through. I spoke to a different teacher this morning (they job share) and she said exactly the same as the first teacher, so maybe I need to get over my feelings that the first teacher 'doesn't get him' and be a bit more calm about the whole thing. The the second teacher said he seems to be in a world of his own and rarely listens to what he's supposed to be doing.

I am now extremely worried.

DS2 has duel exceptionality (ASD and high learning potential - 98/99th centile).

Glowing report in reception but class 1 showed similar behaviour. He had hearing and sight tests then a whole bunch of SALT assessments, then OT, comm paed, EP, specialist nurse etc.

Ask your GP to refer to comm paed. They can test hearing whilst you can detail your other concerns.

Read the archives on the SN children board to get an idea of how ASD can present.

It is quite common that as the child makes the transition to KS1 (class 1) and KS2 (class 3) difficulties become more pronounced. Unfortunately teachers forget that a child with no 'natural' social desire to please can be made increasingly anxious by being labelled as silly or naughty.

Just a quick post to bring this up to date. I spoke to the teacher today. She said ds is distracted on Mondays and is fine for the rest of the week. She nearly had a fit when I suggested that I get the SENCO involved as she said ds is perfectly fine and is working really hard and doing very well.

I feel as though her comments about his concentration have been completely blown out of proportion and as soon as I had a proper meeting with her about it (not just notes in his link book and hurried discussions at the gate) she backed down and made it seems as though she there was nothing to worry about.

She said his work this week has been 'outstanding'. He is mildly distracted on a Monday, perhaps because it's the day after the weekend and he hasn't quite settled back in yet.

I feel relieved, but also very let down by her. She made me feel quite stupid that I had been the one to get het up and upset and that really there wasn't much wrong.

We're going to continue stressing to DS that concentration is the way to go on a Monday, but we're mostly going to praise him for working really hard and being so well-behaved and brilliant!

Thanks for everyone's comments.