Meeting in the morning to discuss IEP for DS...

[Valpollicella]

...who is in Reception. They've recommended it for him due to his concentration span, fidgetiness (not sure that's a word, but hey..) etc.

What kind of questions should I be asking and what should I expect from the meeting with the SENCO?

Thanks in advance all

(oh, background. DS is a July child, so one of the younger ones. Only been full time in reception for a month really, and that has included half term)

Hopeful bump...

They must set & agree with you targets to be included on his IEP.
Targets should be small targets that are measurable & recordable.
They must also say what strategies theya re going to put in place to ehlp him achieve them.
So for example if he has trouble sitting at story time, there is no point just listing "X to sit for story" as this does nothing more than they are asking of him now.

TThey must break it in to small chunks, say who is going to support him & how etc.

They should then review it with you regularly, at least termly i think.

Good Luck

dd's was very explicit in what they were going to do/say to help her achieve the targets.

Really helpful

Thanks both - very helpful!

I'd ask them to start with the problem that's causing them the most amount of stress first as it's confusing for a small child to have so many behaviour targets. He's still very young compared with the other children, boys generally don't mature at the same rate as girls aswell.

Sencos can be useful, reception is a very exciting year for alot of children though

I'd want to know what is so problematic about his behaviour that they feel the need to put a summer born boy on an IEP at this stage in the year . I'd want to know their behaviour expectations regarding very young boys in school, as I'd view fidgeting and a small concentration span as perfectly normal, and something to be worked on as part of day to day life in a reception class!

Well said swill.

Thanks y'all

Swill, thank you. I kind of did bring this up when the IEP was brought up. The fact that he needs some cajoling into doing some things seems to be the deal breaker

I do feel like we are being slightly forced into this all, but I am aware that DS will benefit from some support. So I do feel torn

I don;t want to have to set targets for my (young) 4yo, but have to...

Thing is, will be interesting to see the targets set...And how compatible they will be with our lives (ie DS has a combo of Nanny?Daddy/Me when I'm not at work childcare si it's all a bit all over the place)

For an IEP to be of any use it needs to have SMART targets (ie Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound)

Often IEPs fail on this.

So they pretty much need to say
'Do X Y times by Z'

It also needs to say what the school are going to do to help him - eg 'TA will do small group work with johnny 3 times a week and teach him social skills' or whatever. Without mention about how the school is going to help him the IEP is also useless.

But the main question you need to ask them is the hardest one - 'Does school suspect any underlying condition?, and do they think you should ask the GP for a referral to anywhere?'

This is obviously a very hard question to ask. But if you don't ask you might find yourself regretting this in a few years time....

'comapatible with your lives' - normally it's all about stuff for him to be doing in school.

While they should have on the IEPs ways that you can support him at home - if the problems are all at school there's not much you can do.

It is much more about what the school should be doing for your son, then about everyone else.

And ALL kids have targets in all subjects. It's just that these targets are going to be shared with you and will form part of his school record.