Angry with school – help me please

[abitofaflap]

I met my yr2 DDs teachers (job share) last wk re her reading. She?d been on orange books for nearly a yr, which she can read sometimes easily, sometimes hesitantly & reluctantly. DD also told me he she was having extra ?looking at things? sessions, I wanted to know why.

I was told that DD had been assessed ?last yr?.... ?being at risk?.... ?slight?..... ?visual delay?... ?visual processing?......?you should have been told?.

So Monday I took her to an optician. Could have cried 3 mins in, she was really struggling. Squint causing lazy eye/ shutdown, only made it to line 3 & 4 on the test. ? glasses, back in 3 months. Optician seemed agitated, squints better treated sooner than later (I?ve been googling - important before 7 /8 yrs - DD is 7 next week). DD is looking forward to getting her specs ? bless her.

Wrote to teachers, just the facts ? she will lose her place in text, miss out parts of / words etc. Wrote to HT - disappointed not to have been told until I asked to meet , requested that I be promptly & fully informed of all issues in future.

Wednesday ? yr1 & senco teacher calls me, at HTs request. Mentions ?visual perception?, tries to convince me that this is in no way linked to vision, doesn?t succeed. Admits I should have been told and seems genuine concerned about DD.

I need to keep a good relationship with the yr2 teachers & yr1/senco .....BUT inside I am FURIOUS..... edgy and hostile towards school.

I need to be sure they will tell me EVERYTHING in future. How do I do that? Should I request DDs school record or will this put them on the defensive? Was this a mistake or is it standard not to tell parents their children are being assessed & what the results are? Should I expect/push the HT to reply to me personally?

DH thinks that in DDs interest I should now shut up and smile sweetly, they will have got the message ? I?m not so sure... What would you do?

I think you are quite rightly upset both at the school not keeping you informed and at the fact that your DD needs help

I wonder how you didn't notice that she had visual problems or a squint before though

I would avoid being overly cross with school as there's nothing you can do about time that has past just about now and the future and it sounds like you have time

go to doctors and get a referral to a consultant paediatric opthamolagist (or whoever you need to see) - if you have private health cover use it - if you can afford it look at DrFosters and find a private consultant and pay them for initial consultation then transfer to NHS (probably about £150 to £200)

Thanks for replying. Was thinking of going to see GP, without DD though, don't want to make her anxious.

I started noticing her progress was slowing in school in Jan / Feb. She has a really nasty virus in December 09, maybe it weakened the muscles in her eye? Probably never know. Nothing was picked up at the eye test in reception but its not a proper eye test is it? Neither I suppose is the test that identified the 'perception' problem at school. Now I'm looking closely I can see the squint, more so when shes tired.

I feel really tense about school, I don't trust them to do their best by my daughter anymore and I wonder what else I don't know about what goes on in school.

tip - do some patch work with her to work on the lazy eye!

I have / had a squint and lazy eye (as well as long sighted / astimatism but thats another story!)

had an op at 3 ... mostly cured the squint but it is still slightly there when am shattered! The best thing that has ever helped me is ever now and again I will spend short amounts of time with the strong eye covered (used to do it all the time after my op) and slowly build up - basically force the lazy eye to do some work!

Sorry - no advice on the schoool front but wanted to offer a tip on the rest.

I'm annoyed because if I'd known they were concerned I would have had her eyes tested immediatley, she wouldn't have lost 6 months.

In Feburary at parents evening I mentioned that progress had slowed. I made appt in May to discuss lack of progess in reading - yr1 teacher could have mentioned it then, but obviously thought it easier to slap a 'visual perception' label on her.

I'm not a teacher, I don't know what is normal progression with reading. I thought it odd that she could write more quickly than she could read, now its all making sense.

So I should shut up and smile sweetly? What about the other 3 kids in the special sessions, shouldn't someone advise their parents to get their eyes tested?

I understand why you are upset, but I think you are a bit unreasonable to be so angry with your child's school. Did your dd not show any signs of struggling to read or squinting at home? I took all three of my children for a free eye test at our local opticians a couple of years before they started school, and dd3 was picked up immediately as being long-sighted, and has worn glasses since she was three. I also thought the eye test in Reception was a proper test though - I'm not sure why they would bother doing them otherwise. I'm sure your daughter will adapt well to treatment though, and I hope she makes good progress.

I think you need to take a step back. Blaming the school is unreasonable given that you or your DH didnt pick up on the sight problems either and you will have spent far more time with your DD than school staff.

Concentrate on helping your DD and work with the school going forward.

You need to go back to school and pin them down on exactly what they knew when. OP used the phrase "You should have been told" -- press gently on that one, why didn't they tell you what they knew? I couldn't let go of this either without more clarification at the very least.

FWIW, I used to (parent volunteer) hear children read in Y2 and I told a teacher that I thought a child might be dyslexic, I could tell that the letters were jumping around on the page for her somehow. I don't know the exact resolution, but that child and another of the very weak readers started wearing glasses about 18 months later (and the other weak reader suddenly took off in her literacy, too, I heard from her mother).

What I mean is that visual problems can be very hard to diagnose sometimes, neither parent nor the school can always pick it up.

I rarely take DC for eye tests, not least because I've had them play up in the past and deliberately give all wrong answers, that kind of nonsense!

I don't think you should worry that it's too late. I didn't get operated on for my (quite severe) squint until I was 8yo, after other treatments weren't effective. The Op was a complete success.

OP, I think people are being really very harsh here. It is most certainly the school's job to assess and nurture your child's reading/literacy needs, how are you an expert just by having given birth to her?

You should push push push for them to form a view, they may not be able to at this age but at least they can do more than fob you off.

It is most certainly not a school's job to pick up medical problems like this though -

and the OP needs to be able to divorce her reasonable frustration at not being told of their concerns over literacy earlier from the belief that the school is in anyway to blame for not picking up on a sight issue that the OP and father did not themselves notice - that is simply not a school's role.

It is quite normal for a year 2 child to not be reading yet and could be based on a number of reasons

It is not a teacher or school's responsibility and there is no point in being cross at them for not knowing there was a sight issue

It would be wrong of the school to form a view on this as they are not medically qualified. I dont remember any training to diagnose on my 1 year pgce.

I disagree with most of the posters here.

You have every right to be upset with school. If they had noticed she had a problem they should have informed you. They don't dx - they just tell you they have noticed something and suggest that you get it checked out. They REALLY, REALLY, REALLY should have done this.

Unfortunately 2 of my children have various mild eye sight problems, so I know more about the diff professionals than I would like to. And can I recommend the best professional to see next is a behaviour optometerest. These are the only people who will really look at if the muscles in the eye work together poperly, if she has a focussing problem, etc, etc.

The NHS opthamologiests have been no help at all to us - nor have high street opticians.

And to the poster who said why didn't you notice - it is very very easy to not notice. Espeically since she doesn't look at a blackboard from the back of the room at home. Not a very tactful thing to say, unless you've had this experience yourself and know for sure that it's always easy to spot at home.

oh I find that so wrong IndigoBell

I'm not into the blame game because there is no blame - so blaming the school for not noticing when the parent didn't (and the blackboard bollocks is just that there are many long-sighted requirements in a child's life - a parent has a one-to-one that the school rarely benefits from)

you put too much on schools, you really do

I think you are angry and upset OP, and looking for someone else to blame.
You should expect the school to raise concerns with you when they have evidence to back up what they are talking about.
As for schools being able to dx a medical issue that you hadn't picked up on...
That is your responsibility as her parent, eyes, teeth, hearing, general health.

I don't put too much on school.

I expect school to raise concerns when they have them.

They clearly didn't.

School is at fault.

Child misses out on highly benefical early intervention.

IF the school hadn't had concerns, then I agree they're not medical people, I don't expect them to look at everything. But in this case they did have concerns. The problem is not that they didn't dx - the very serious problem is that they didn't tell the parents that they had concerns.

How on earth can you find that acceptable????

She needs to find out what the outcome of the assessments was at the end of Y1, and if the school had decided to go further with it.
Problems could have been concentration, dyslexia, lack of reading practice, poor visual memory, a dozen other possibilities.
Or needing glasses.
You took her to the optician's OP?
How long since her last visit to the opticians?
have you had her hearing checked as well?

yes she should have been told last year whenever that assesment was - and the school has admitted that

and that is frustrating and upsetting as I have said

school is at fault

parents are at fault

yet you make it all the school's responsibility

I don't think the OP is cross at the school for not diagnosing the eye probelm she is cross because the did diagnose (not ure what xpertise thave they for this)that she had visual perception problems and arranged extra sessions to "help" with this but did not inform her parent that this is the case.Presumably it says on her school record that she has visual perception problems at what stage would they have told her that they had amade a diagnoisis of her child's problems

I also think alot of posts are being too harsh on the op (and i am a teacher!).

certainly, I think that the op will be beating herself up about not realising (we all would...guilt seems to be a natural part of parenting these days).

However, you cannot escape the fact that had the school informed you of the testing last year, then you would have gone to the opticians sooner etc..... They made a mistake. There are no two ways about it.

Schools do make mistakes too, even the good ones :). However, whats now important it where to go from here. I'm wondering if you should ask for a meeting with the senco, teacher etc to discuss this. Not so that you can get angry with them or have a go at them but so that you can find out everything the school know to your satisfaction and so that you can understand where things go from here.

I think such a meeting might help draw a line under what has happened and maybe restore faith in the school. I might also help you feel less shocked about what has happened and less worried for the future.

I think I can be fairly certain too that the school will not be making a mistake like this again...which is a good thing.

I think YANBU:

two staff members - the form teacher and the SENCO - said you should have been told before.

It is very important that schools do inform parents when they think there are issues impacting on learning. They clearly had formed this opinion some time ago about your DD, but not told you. That was wrong.

Move schools, or home educate then.
Feeling disappointed, angry, suspicious, FURIOUS, edgy, hostile, tense and untrusting is no basis to form a relationship on.

just as an aside i thought it was standard practice to get your dc eyes tested annually. They can be tested for free and the glasses can be free too. I take mine every year and last year they picked up that one of my dc needed glasses. I had no clue that if needed them ! Since getting his glasses his reading is great and his handwriting is much meatd

neater

Agree with Indigo about orthoptists. I really, really think you need to get referred to a specialist, preferably a paedeatric opthamologist who should see you in conjuntion with an orthoptist and give you appropriate advice on using a patch to help with the vision and improve the squint. When you have a lazy eye, glasses alone just aren't enough and you need to encourage the eye to work hard and improve the vision.

At 7 she's approaching the age when her eyesight will become fixed, so IME you need to be really aggressive about getting it sorted quickly.

A word of warning - wearing a patch when one eye is significantly affected is really, really hard and you will probably find that she struggles more at first. It is worth persevering though because the eye will soon start to respond and work better.

I can't understand why people think YABU - if school had concerns and were doing their own investigations you SHOULD have been told, no two ways about it. I don't want to sound scary, but at this age a delay in treating a lazy eye can have long term consequences.