Please help-I am desperate-long

[pink4ever]

Have had problems with ds1-age 8-since he started school. He enjoys it,trys hard but just doesnt seem to "get" learning.

I always suspected from his reports/parents evening that he was quite behind his peer group. However the school only really brought this to our attention about 2 years ago-primary 3 in scotland. They said he was really struggling with literacy/reading and that he would get one on one help from an additional needs teacher.

Obviously I was concerned about this and and was trying to do my best to help him at home-he has been a member of the library since he was a baby,we go every week,I try and encourage him to read,do extra work at home-to little avail etc.

I was then called back last year for a further meeting where we were told school was very concerned and that they wanted ds to see an ed psychologist. However due to demand we have waited a year for this to happen.

In the mean time ds seemed to be making slow progress-good teacher-and the last I was told he was roughly a year behind.

Now finally got an appointment with ed psych but went to meeting with dh teacher this morning and -sorry finally getting to the point-they want us to consider putting ds into the additional needs school-which would most likely be the same school he is now but a different building.

I am in bits-they want me to tell my ds that after being in mainstream school for 5 years he has to leave and go into a class with children with major social and behavioural problems-autism/aspergers/adhd etc. I am sorry if I cause any offence to those posters who may have children with these needs-not my intention.

I have already indicated that I dont think it is an option-please do not flame me for this choice-but ds is already aware that he is struggling and I think to remove him from all his friends and put him in a class with children he himself refers to as "special"-again no offence-would cause him lasting emotional damage.

Does anyone have any advice on how to tackle this with school?-is there an option where you can keep children back a year?-he is also quite immature for his age.

I definately dont think there are any issues with dyslexia/aspergers or anything like that-school just keep saying possible developtment delay?

Please help

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pink4ever - My DD is also 3 years behind. It's fucking awful.

Unfortunately she hasn't been offered a place in a special unit.

Don't be cross with yourself you've just had a lots of shocking news to deal with.

Can you at least look round the unit (take a friend?) to get a realistic idea what goes on there? Maybe most of the trained staff will be in the unit and not in the mainschool? By being there he can have the specialist teaching he needs.

You could ask about how the school manages such a move to make
it a positive experience for your ds.

Good luck with the ed psych. {hugs}

liz-they dont seem to have explored any other avenues though-apart from putting my ds in a group who get additional support twice a week for their reading-which seems to be slowly working.

This additional support unit is really only 1 classroom-sorry should have made that clearer in op-so yes my ds would be in with the dcs who have major problems.

Can someone please explain to me what exactly an ed psych will assess?-are they really just looking to label my ds?

indigo-apologies. didnt mean to ne snippy. Does your dd have any other problems or is it like my ds only in learning? Are your school helpful?

hmm , being sarcy to another mother of SEN kdis isn't very positive. Please take a deep breath and reread what has been posted with the intention to help. You looked around the unit 5+ years ago when you didn't feel it applied, but things change as will your perspective.

The EP will break down his IQ and compare that to his performance on the day (a snapshot) and maybe some of his classwork, then look at it relative to his peer group. Where there is a mismatch he/she will attempt to look further at the reasons why and how his strengths could be used to overcome the weaker areas.

Pink - no my DD only has dyslexia. No behavioural problems at all. She is just unteachable.

School are 'helpful' in that they're nice and kind and try hard. But they can't teach her.

They can't teach her. I can't rant and rave at them all I like, but they don't have the expertise to teach a child with the learning difficulties she has.

She's been seen by the EP and his only recommendations was we buy her a reading pen (electronic device thingy) to read for her, and dictation software. ie the EP didn't think she could be taught to read and write.

She is 8.

If you want your ds to remain in his current mainstream school then you have every right to ask him to stay and expect the school to meet his needs within his current classroom. It is completely reasonable to expect teachers to provide work for him that is matched to his current level of attainment. This is what would happen in most schools which did not "conveniently" have a special unit attached. If he has good relationships with his peers and does not seem unduly stressed by being where he is, then there is no real reason to move him IMO. Just make sure the school is doing what they should be in adequately supporting your son.

"But after 5 years at mainstream school how can you tell a child-sorry but your just too thick to be here?-again am not saying that to be nasty but I know
thats exactly how my son will feel." and where has your son gained that idea from?

I'm sorry you are going through this but it is abundantly clear from the language you are using that you are extremely prejudiced against children with sn, and that admitting that your own ds has sn and requires help at a level that is not suited to a mainstream environment means having to face up to those prejudices.

"dont see how lumping him in with dcs who have other serious problems-both educational,social and behavioural- will help him?." It will help him because he has learning difficulties and is clearly not coping in a mainstream environment. I'm sorry, I realize that's not what you want to hear, but if he already has assistance from a sn teacher and is still not coping then the next step is surely to be placed in an environment that is better suited to his needs.

He doesn't need to gain the idea that he is too thick to be in mainstream - he will already be aware of how far behind his peers he is, and that will only get worse not better. If he's not coping in y3 he will not cope four years down the line when he goes into secondary.

I know of children who have gone into sn schools at secondary level, and they have thrived there. If a child has learning difficulties it is just not always possible to maintain a mainstream environment throughout their educational life, even if you start out in mainstream.

In the meantime why don't you go and see your gp and get a referral to a paediatrician for a proper diagnosis.

EPs don't label kids. The only label they're qualified to give is dyslexia.

What they do is take a cognitive profile of your kid, ie what's his memory like (working, long term, auditory, visual), does he have slow processing, what's his logic and reasoning like, etc.

They can then use this profile to make recommendations to school. eg his visual memory is far better than his auditory memory, therefore it'll be helpful for him to see what he has to do not just listen to it.

But most of what they recommend is common sense, which any experienced teacher will have already tried.

indigo-sorry to hear that My ds also struggles with writing-he is a leftie-and other manual things such as cutting/scissor control etc. However I dont think he is dyslexic?-certainly never been mentioned.

I was told this morning that whil he is making progess-so not unteachable-it is slow and he is not catching up to his peers. But imo they are comparing him to the wrong peer group anyway-he is well over a year younger than some children in his class so its an unfair comparison.

Having read the link the other poster helpfully linked to-many thanks-I am now considering whether or not involving an ed pysch is a good idea?-seems to concern my worst fears that they just want to label children-do not like that idea at all.

Also will they ask intrusive questions about our home life etc?-really none of their business and certainly has no bearing on ds problems.

neolara - they can keep him in MS, and a teacher can differentiate for him. But the further up the school the less experience the teacher will have with teaching kids very basic concepts. So they won't be as good at setting work as a more specialised teacher would.

My DDs teacher has never taught a kid to read. Never. I really don't see how he's going to be able to teach my DD to read, when she needs a lot more help than average, and he doesn't even know how to teach children to read.

pink teachers don't tell me my DD is unteachable. They always, always tell me she is making progress and they are happy with her.

I'm the one who classifies her progress as so slow as to be unteachable.

She is in Y4 and is still on the same level she was at the end of Y1.

But, no, school are happy with her progress, and don't think she needs any extra support.

The EP didn't see me at all, so certainly didn't ask any questions about home life.

Please let your child be seen by an EP. Even with an EP report school will struggle. Why would you want to make it harder for teachers to know how to teach your DS?

indigo-that it terrible-poor you. My ds reading does seem to be improving. One of the strategies the school used was removing him from the oxford reading tree books and putting him onto the story street books. They felt this meant he wasnt being compared/or comparing himself to other dcs in his class who were whole levels ahead of him.

He does enjoy looking at books but will make little or no effort to read independently unless I help him. He does seem to struggle with the whole phonics thing-sounding things out doesnt seem to work for him?

'I am just really struggling to see how lumping my ds in with kids who have conditions such as autism.adhd etc will benefit him?'

Special schools (and units attached to mainstream schools) have a massively different staff to pupil ratio, so there's way more teacher time for the pupil - even with a class with children with behavioural disorders...a teacher is never going to be in the position of being alone with a class of 30 10 year olds while one throws scissors at her (that's happened to me in a mainstream primary school) there are always much smaller classes for starters and a lot more support staff.

The staff themselves are better trained than class teachers, they'll be much more aware of different teaching programmes and better at differentiation as they're having to do it to a much greater extent - which means that he'll get work which is much more suited to him and he should progress more than he would in a mainstream class.

I understand totally that you are upset and confused about the situation, but you are being massively prejudiced about special schools...going to a special school, but achieving better educationally will be much better on his CV than not achieving his full potential.

Go back to visit the unit, find out what the class sizes are like, what help they feel they could offer him, what mix of pupils they cater for and what ability level they're at compared to your DS (all special schools cater for different things, they're not all the same)

Once you've got a better idea of exactly how it is - then you'll be able to judge better what will suit him more.

Indigo's point about his self-esteem already being affected by being bottom of his class is a really important one to think about as well.

"But imo they are comparing
him to the wrong peer group anyway-he is well over a year younger than some children in his class so its an unfair comparison." no, adjustments are always made for summer-born children when doing the comparisons as to progress made. Every school class in the country contains children that were born from September one year to august the next year and that is taken into account when calculating the stats and figures. His current classmates are his peer group that he should be compared to.

I think the sad thing is our education system gets so hung up on reading. And equates not being able to grasp reading in early primary to not being able to learn.

We need to step back and appreciate there are many ways to learn and not all children pick up reading at the "normal age". If it is not made a big issue, and other ways are found to enable them to learn they may well pick it up on their own once the pressure of being a failure (in their own perception as much as anything) is removed. There are so many ways to learn that down rely so heavily on reading and it is sad that our system doesn't have space for those other ways to be used fully.

I was an EP before children so may be able to shed some advice on what an EP might do.

If I was asked in by by your ds's school, I would be trying to do two things. Firstly, I would be trying to work out what was causing your ds's difficulties, in particular whether he had a general developmental delay or whether his slow progress could be attributed to more specific issues e.g. language problems, concentration difficulties etc. I wold probably have done some standardised testing but would probably have been unlikely to do an IQ test. Secondly, I would then use that info to help the school identify strategies to accelerate your ds rate of progress.

Where I worked, I had absolutely no power at all in deciding whether children should be in mainstream classrooms or in a specialist unit and I would not have made specific recommendations. However, my report would have been looked at by a panel which took the decision and would have contributed to the decision making progress.

I've just seen that it's one class, in which case you want to ask about staffing levels rather than class size

tabulah-it isnt an additional needs school-it is a unit so one classroom with a mix of dcs from age 5 up to age 12-with a variety of different problems. So my ds would indeed be lumped in with dcs whom have far more serious problems than him.

With regards to him achieving his full potential-I want my ds to be happy. Even if this means he is never going to be a rocket scienctist-I can accept that-its difficult I wont lie. But I disagree that going to a "special school" wont impact on him negatively-that label will follow him for the rest of his life.

I honestly wouldn't worry about the whole labelling thing. Easy to say, I hear you howl at the screen, but not half as many people as you think are that bothered about it (except, helpfully, schoolkids).

My DNs were both SEN for three years. They've just gone back into mainstream and, honestly, we are all weak with relief they got the help they needed, as they're thriving and rather above average now - which would not have been the case had they stayed in the main classroom.

These days a lot of SEN provisions are temporary so I would concentrate on that too. Cheer up - this so isn't the end of the world. It's a shock, but take advantage of what you're being offered and realise it's not for ever.

wannabe-we are in scotland and it is a different system. Here there is one intake-august. My ds was born at the end of january-the cut of date for school starts is the end of february-so he is in fact one of the youngest.

cory-thanks for your kind reply. No the teacher mentioned that if we choose to put ds into add unit now then that will effect where he goes to secondary school-only 1 non ms in our area-so they not looking for it to be a temporary thing.

The label won't follow him for life - unless you're planning to buy ads in the broadsheets to that effect.

If you're not keen to make a big deal of it, just tell people he's getting 'a bit of tutoring' in some subjects. It's not anyone else's business but yours.

OP, I sense you feel a bit defensive about the whole thing.

Please try to go into the test with ed. psych. with an open mind. He or she is not on a mission to "label" people, he is there to help you find out how best to help your child.

My DS was 1.5 years behind in the y2 SATs. He was on 3 IEP's, bottom of the class at many things. The Ed. psych has helped us enormously.

Firstly, he was able to confirm that my DS had a high IQ, yet did badly at literacy. That he has very good non-verbal reasoning skills, yet is very poor at any task involving short term memory (eg he can't copy off the board). Some other things too. Anyway, it helped us IDENTIFY the problem, and then the school and I were able to come up a plan how best to help him. He is not a visual learner , apparently, and he gets appropriate help in the classroom now.

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Please OP, the school and the Ed Psych are there to help you. They are not looking to blame you or ask intrusive questions about your home life. They are not looking to judge you. You are all on the same team really.

Hope it all goes well tomorrow.

I should point out I would prefer to have a diffinitive diagnosis-if my ds was dyslexic.dyspraxic/autistic etc-I could cope. It would be upsetting but I would learn to live with it because thats what you do?

Its all this talk of development delay I am about as it all sounds so vague and too easy for them to label them just becasue they are not learning at the speed they think they should.