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?

Good post Lydwatt.

I think the school made a mistake and the op is upset about it, and that is not unreasonable.

I hope you can get your dd the help she needs and that relations with the school can be mended - I would try and get the meeting Lydwatt suggested.

Agree you should have been told about the assessment and recommended to follow this up but think you may find that the squint and her issues with visual perception, processing etc may not be related. Does she seem to have any problems with other things (sport, balance, writing for example) ?

of course you should have been told about this earlier.

it was completely dafy of them to not rul eout any sight problems before going down the "visual perception" route.

you have every right to be angry. but you have to reign in that anger and sit down with them to make a plan for what is best for your DD. You need to find out whether the school has a useless set of policies for issues like this or whether they failed to follow their own policy.

Why wouldn't you get your dc's eyes checked regularly at the opticians though? All of my dc have been taken to the opticians regularly from the age of 3yo. It's no diferent from regular dental checks. That way, any problems like this would have been picked up on way before school age.

to be honest loudlass, I didn't know that is what you should do and haven't had my 5 or 3 year old checked....and I even asked the options 18 months ago what was recommened for regular checking.

they told me it wasn't needed at that age unless a problem was suspected...so i don't see that the op needs to be critised heavily for this.

abitofaflap I can understand you being upset but you have to remember teachers aren't doctors or opticians and don't have medical training to diagnose conditions that may or may not be affecting children. As a SENCO I usually suggest parents take their child for a sight/hearing test if they are failing to make progress just to rule out physical difficulties but to be totally honest I wouldn't have been particularly worried about a child who is confidently reading orange book band in Y1. If the school had concerns about her learning then yes you should have been told but even then they may not have mentioned a sight test as they are not health professionals.

I think some people are missing the point - the school DID identify that the OP's dd may have a problem with her vision but failed to tell the OP. Totally different to not identifying a problem at all.

No DaisySteiner the school identified that the child may have visual perception difficulties which is not the same as having problems with sight.
Children with visual perception difficulties may have:

* a poor sense of direction
* difficulties with organisational skills
* reverse words in both reading and spelling (eg. saw for was)
* difficulty understanding abstract maths concepts, particularly in the areas of shape, space and measure
* problems with comparative language (eg. taller than, shorter than, longer than)
* difficulty completing jigsaw puzzles
* problems with copying from the board
* problems with interpreting and organising diagrams, charts, graphs, maps and other visual methods of recording
* difficulties judging speed and distance
* difficulty with letter and number orientation
* difficulty with structuring and organising written work
    * a preference for a phonic approach to learning to read

which do not need the involvement of an optician and are not corrected by wearing glasses...

I have some experience in this area and agree wholeheartedly with mrz.

Just ignore those asking why you didn't notice this before - many children have squints that are basically not noticeable to the untrained eye. You are NOT at all to blame for not noticing!! And the school absolutely should have told you when they had concerns. I can totally understand why you're so upset.

Most people do not realise that a standard vision test will not pick this condition up in many cases.

As already mentioned, get her referred via your GP to a paedeatric opthamologist. They
will help her vision and help assess how it might affect her reading. IndigoBell's advice is great, although we've had a very good experience with the NHS. Your GP will take this seriously.

Go back to the school, tell them you are pursuing a diagnosis, and have them come up with a plan in the meantime about her reading and other schoolwork.

The school was totally in the wrong not to inform you, but they didn't cause the problem. You don't need to 'smile sweetly' - I think you're right to let them know how you feel - but you do need to build a good relationship with them, too. So encourage them come up with a workable plan, politely but firmly.

They screwed up, but maybe they can make up for it now.

Good grief!! I'm a teacher and just because I've had my eyes tested a few times it doesn't mean I'm qualified to identify squints in young children the school has not screwed up they should have raised concerns about the child's learning but health (and squints come under health) are not within the school's field of expertise...

Nobody is saying that the teachers shook have diagnosed a squint. But they should have told the op that they suspected VP problems. Poor communication IMO.

mrz - the child is doing small group work, or possibly 1:1 for 'looking at things'. The school have clearly identified that there is a problem.

(Not to mention that she has been on orange books for a while year).

Surely, as SENCO, you tell parents when their children are doing small group work for something?

Surely, if you personally had concerns about any aspects of a childs vision or hearing, you would tell the parent?

If the school didn't have concerns, than you are right, they're not health professionals, they wouldn't be expected to have noticed it.

But if they did notice something and did have concerns, how can you justify them not talking to the parents about their concerns?

muddleduck as I said the school should have discussed any problems the child was experiencing in school but suspecting visual processing difficulties isn't indicative of sight problems requiring a visit to an optician and usual recommendations to improve/correct the difficulty are things like post it box shapes, jig saws and spot the difference sheets ...

As I have said Indigobell the school was remiss not to tell the OP that they had concerns about her child's progress and she has every right to be annoyed but the fact that the child has since been identified as having a medical problem is a completely different issue.
I feel the OP and other posters are confusing "visual perception difficulties" with the fact the child has been identified as having a lazy eye/squint which isn't the same thing by any means as the head has already told the OP.

Yes, opticians aren't very thorough. They only test for a limited amount of vison problems.

We have found retained reflexes therapy and vision therapy have improved my son's visual perception problems and his seperate vision problems.

mrz - Do things like spot the difference sheets actually work? Compared to the therapy we've been doing (all involving various eye exercises) I can't see how they would work.....

Yes they do work for visual perception difficulty depending on the level of difficulty but wouldn't work for the OP's daughter's lazy eye.

I know you use Write from the Start and it has a large visual perception element included.

Thank you all for replying, especially teachers and those who have experience of similar problems.

I'm not looking for someone to blame, and I told the yr1/senco teacher that when she called me, her attitude changed immediately. She told me they would reassess at the end of term, I'll ask for another meeting then and will use that opportunity to 'gently' press about school policy on informing parents. Really I do think that all parents should be told if their children are having extra sessions for whatever reason and I am sure that doesn't happen at our school. But I'm going to focus on DD not changing the world in the short term

I'm going to go to the GP next week. I'm expecting the next few weeks to be hard when the novelty of wearing glasses wears off, I expect it will be hard for DD to adjust. I hope its not painful for her.

She's a bright wee thing really. She can read and I think shes done really well to get to where she is. Thanks for posting the 'visual perception' indicator list mrz, doesn't ring any alarm bells with me really. Her handwriting is really very good. However I will try to keep an open mind.

Thanks again.

I don't think you feel guilty for not noticing the lazy eye, nor should you blame the school. My DD has a similar problem. It was picked up at the nursery/reception eye test, after which she was referred to a paediatric opthamologist. It's hard to tell if you're not a doctor/optician, because without her glasses she simply just uses one eye: so she can see the TV etc, just doesn't have a broad field of vision or very good depth perception. It's really important that our DDs wear their glasses all the time, so that the weak eye can develop. Otherwise, although the squint can be cosmetically corrected with surgery, the eye/brain connection won't develop and they won't be able to see as well through that eye, which has a long-term effect on binocular vision. The tip someone else gave you on patching sounds a very good idea.

You will probably find that if the glasses really help her then the novelty wont wear off :)

I have decided that we will both take a day off when she gets her glasses this week. We wil go out and look at detailed colourful things, the school can file it under 'shove it up your a**e' / 'medical problems' - I couldn't care less.

Unfortunatley DD told everyone at her birthday party that this is what we are going to do...... Whoops!!!

I'm beginning to think that Michael Gove has a point. I trusted the the 'professionals' ..... they let me down.

Tell her to look at the leaves on the trees (if there are any left in your area) with and without the glasses.

If she is v v upset, tell her that when she is a big girl she can have contact lenses. I got them at 13 and still love them!

I didn't get my glasses till 11, my parents didn't notice I was slightly short sighted. I have never forgotten the excitement when I put my glasses on and saw the leaves on the trees all crisp and clear! Such a great day. Your DD will LOVE her new glasses.