Reception teacher not supportive

[singarainbow]

My DS is 4, he has a stammer and is under the SALT. We have to do one to one time every day with him to encourage fluent speech. We have an older & younger DD (7 & 1).

He is an august birthday and just started school in sept. We have gone against the grain for the school and opted to keep him part time, with 1 full day a week.(which we have just increased to 2). This is to allow him some quiet space at home to effectively carry out his speech therapy.

His teacher at parents eve has said that he is massively missing out on his education, because they do their numeracy in the afternoon (he does mornings), and he will have huge gaps in his knowledge when he enters year 1.

I feel really angry that she is so unsupportive, he will be full time when he is legally required to be (after easter) but until then, rather than offer help and give us the curriculum he is missing out on, or changing his numeracy to the mornings, she has written him off.

Its not like we keep him at home to go shopping!

What to do???????

I want to have a meeting and discuss it further but I also feel she is SO against him being part time, that it wont be that productive.

So he's only missing 3 of the afternoons? I bet one of them is golden time anyway.
That's awful that she's refusing to talk to you about how you can help him with his numeracy.

hmmm, not an easy situation to deal with. I fully appreciate your reasons for taking the approach that you have (good on you!) Such a shame the teacher's appearing inflexible = well worth the conversation imho, and try to put your (understandable) feelings that she won't co-operate as far to the back of your mind as possible, perhaps ask to include the SENCO as well, as in reality this is the reason for the action you're taking.
Another thing I'm a tad confused about. In foundation stage, the focus is surely on something we call "continuous provision" - so there is the facility to offer him some numeracy in the morning sessions, surely
I'm ks2 teacher, but unless I'm way way out in my understanding of what goes on, including my own children (one of whom is currently in reception too) then there's surely a misunderstanding re the numeracy.

Its not fair to expect them to change the whole classes timetable around for just your DS

If he is doing a full day then he is there afternoons anyway surely?

DTG - Of course I dont expect the whole class to change, but with the whole learn through play thing, it seems no-one has thought that maybe a teacher (or TA) could spend 10 minutes of a morning with him and a few others, could be a solution?

Apparently they don't cover numeracy in the afternoon he attended (he has yet to have the full second day yet).

Mrs Shrek, I have thought about SENCO, but not sure if its appropriate, its not like he has learning issues? (and also I dont want to go over the teachers head without talking first).

I am really scared of getting her back up, and DS may suffer.

If he's got difficulties with speech (I had too) then you can legitimately - and sensibly - involve the senco. It's not all about learning difficulties :) A key assessment area is "speaking and listening" - and if they need to be able to support him correctly to achieve the targets in this area, then surely it's sensible to get it right from the start? If you were a parent at my school I'd really hope you would be able to come in for a chat about it all.

Mrs Shrek, thanks for advsie about SENCO, and we will certainly consider it.

Cat, the SALT is very individual to him, and needs to be done in a very specifc way, its not just something that anyone can do, as he needs to be able to feel comfortable enough to talk freely (and stammer), and he doesn't do that (talk freely) with most people.

I appreciate that the school cannot be changed for DS, and I am not expecting it to. Before he started in Sept we spoke with the head who agreed to to the PT hours, and was aware of the reasons why.

If his numeracy cannot be covered in the morning, why can they not tell us what they are covering, and we can do it with him at home?

Thanks for all your comments, it helps to have other perspectives.

Cat, the therapy is very low key, in that he is to have no awareness of it even happening. We dont announce "speech therapy time", we just get him set up in a game that may involve alot of complex sentences, and go from there. He has no idea what we are doing, and we don't proactvley "work on the stammer".
Yes the teacher may be being honest, but the school has a duty to all pupils to ensure their learning needs are met, and at minimum she can give us the numeracy bits for the afternoon, and we can cover them.

all good stuff Cat, so surely it would be a wise idea to meet with the SENCO and see if they can fit it in too? Can't see why not, tbh. If this is the main reason for him being at home for the three afternoons, then surely there can be some sort of transition whereby school staff (once trained) pick up an increasing amount of it thus taking over from home? What d'you think singarainbow?

agree that by the same token you should be given maths work to do at home for this term, btw

Cat, I'm glad you agree
The SALT he is under is the areas disfluency specialist, and he has only been under her for about 6 months. It would be nice to have her go in and teach the school how to do it, and I think thats a great idea for the future, but as I said, for his specific therapy he has to talk - alot, and being quite shy (maybe because of his probs, who knows), he only talks that much at home..like all kids!!!
Even when we meet the speech therapist we have to take along ipod recordings of his speech, because he is very monosylabic with her, and therefore doesn't stammer. !
I really appreciate your input, thanks

Oh FFS reception 'numeracy' is basically counting to 20, singly and in 2s.

Thanks, thats 100% more than the teacher told us!
Now off to bed.........

It will be basic numeracy you can look it up online

Have a look at the Early Years:
nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/132713
and this is what they're building up towards for year 1:
nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/18687

almost off to bed...
thanks for the links Hystercial, will look at them tomorrow.
Now I am really going, once again, thanks to all.

I do understand why you have made the decision you have but I think whether byour request is reasonable or not depends upon what you are asking. If you are asking for a copy of the autumn term numeracy curriculum then that's fine (EYFS numeracy will be online anyway). However, if you're asking her to set work and send that home then that is a bit more unreasonable.

Another problem may be that EYFS numeracy is very practical based and to access it you probably need bits and bobs that they have in class such as washing line or stacking bears.

You can make a 1-20 washing line at home. Photocopy a simple colouring picture of something such as a dog or bear or bottle. Get your DS to write the numbers on the front. Order them on the washing line. You can muddle them on purpose and ask him to put them in the correct order or take one away and see if he can tell which is missing. Start with 1-10. Use pegs.

Get the Orchard toys game, Dotty Dinosaurs. He'll learn 2D shapes in no time.

Go outside and collect a bag of leaves. Sort them according to size or colour. Make a pictogram and ask him questions such as most popular etc.

Play dominoes.

Make a little game for number bonds to 10. Strips of card. Cut one diagonally, another zig-zag, another curly. Put one half of the bond on each side. Practise matching.

Sorry, this is a bit of a ramble. Hope it helps a little.

Thanks pinkjello, they are really useful tips that I will definatley use!

If he is under a SALT, then he should be on the SEN register at 'school action' - and if the SALT visits the school then he should be at 'school action+'

So, you definately need an appointment with the SENCO. He then needs an IEP (Individual Education Plan) which details what help school will give him. (They should be doing his therapy with him when he goes full time)

The teacher is being totally unreasonable. Legally he doesn't have to be in school. End of story. He is not missing out on much. She is just putting pressure on you.

Many kids come from overseas in R, Y1 or Y2 having never attended school at all. They fit in just fine...

Stick to your guns. But start to get a lot more clued up about SEN. Unfortunately you're going to need to.

That's really unfair of your teacher - as you said, he's not even legally requires to be in school until sept '11.

My friend was in a similar situation (late august DS) and she stuck to her guns and kept him on mornings only for the entire year.

oh and something else they did quite a lot at DS's school at that age was cooking - as if you think about it, getting them to "help" measure ingredients etc is practical numeracy!

play shopping with one pence coins. he can label things in the shop with price tags to 5 first then 10 then 20 and count out the right number of coins. simple to start then make it harder as he gets more confident.

play cafes. money here too and a good one for talking too. reading and writing menus, making sets of knives forks and spoons. how many do we need? counting cakes for teddies etc.

leaves-fab use languge like more/ less now i've found one more how many is that? long straight, curved, pointy, round, tall (trees)and for language crunchy/scrunchy crackly etc.

Take all the 'pictures' out of a normal pack of cards and teach him to play Pontoon for pennies.

Trust me, he'll soon learn to count and add up.

My concerns would be that he might find it more difficult to make friends with other children and indeed that he will miss out. If I look how much dd has already learnt since September (she is full time, school's policy is for children to be full time). I don't think in numeracy we are talking of counting to 20. To be precise, she currently does in her group (they are streamed: counting to 1000, adding and subtracting to 50, and simple multiplication (pairs).

I understand that you are in a difficult position, but you expect school to be very flexible and change things for just one child. This might be fine if it is a very small class but if the teacher has a large class (my dd is in a class of 25) then I think that it is simply unrealistic and you might be better holding your child a year back if that is possible.