lack of understanding by teacher - am I being unreasonable?

[roundabout1]

Hi Its a long story but dd1 is 6 & just finishing yr 2. She has a strict teacher this yr who we heard horror stories about in earlier years at the school. My dd loved & thrived said teacher, loved the structure & the strictness until Jan. Since Jan she has been ill & only done 3 full weeks up til now. We are still seeking a diagnosis & the symptoms are very vague & glandular fever like although she has been tested for & it was negative. Dd says her teacher doesn't believe her & since having time off worries about school, about getting behind & getting into trouble. We have had a few meetings with school with the head & her teacher and on the face of it are sympathetic but when we have been trying to seek ways of making dd's life easier any ideas aren't really followed through. I accept that they are very busy & dd is one of a large class & don't think I am being unrealistic but I'm not too impressed. Last week after being told that dd was having trouble with her eyes & reading she was kept in one playtime for not doing her reading the evening before. She hadn't done it because she was unwell. This week I asked if she could miss PE if she was tired as she was struggling & I wanted to avoid her having any further time off through exhaustion. She wasn't asked how she was & no message had been given to the PE teacher so she was told she had to do it. There are so many instances of it. Have I got unrealistic expectations & am I being PFB about all this?

From the school point of view I understand why they're fed up of your DD only being there for 3 full weeks since January with no diagnosis. They have to report reasons for 'repeat offenders' being away and can get in trouble themselves if they don't follow these things up.

As for the PE thing, the message should have been passed on

I don't see how or why school should be fed up. Presumably your dd is quite unwell and you have been pursuing a diagnosis. Keeping her in for not doing reading and not communicating about not being able to participate in PE seems very unfair to me.

Also, following these things up for reporting should surely involve discussion with healthcare providers involved, not the teacher giving this child the impression she doesn't believe her or not following requests to make her life a bit easier.

It's not up to the school to be happy or fed up. They just need to do their job and be transparent if they are unhappy with how this is progressing - either stating they are unwilling to make accommodations without an official diagnosis or getting on with making reasonable adjustments (and communicating clearly if they feel any particular requests are unreasonable).

Given that she is unwell, she shouldn't be in school.

Being too ill to participate in subjects like PE and reading would make me want to keep her at home until she either got better or got a diagnosis and treatment.

It's gone on since Feb ? you must be beside yourself by now - can Doctors / Consultants etc shed no light ? poor girl.

Sympathy. We had similar situation with dd and waiting for diagnosis is horrible as can take so long. Dd used to have lots of problems due to staff not believing her and without diagnosis many of the staff didn't take her seriously. Even with diagnosis she still encounters staff who feel they know best - like the lunch staff who thought if they made her eat up her lunch she d put weight on never mind by doing this it made her ill the whole weekend.

Are you sending written information in to school regularly?

Also, it is important to get something in writing from the GP regarding what your dd can and cannot do.

My dd was very ill recently (for 5 months) and had to do a staged return to school. I emailed the office every week with a (very)brief update on her condition.

I sent her in with a written summary that she could show to every teacher if necessary. (Busy secondary school, poor communication between HT and teaching staff, and between teaching staff - - easier to just hand oveer the letter than try to explain the situation over and over to different people).

IME teachers rarely take any notice of anything a child says, so a written explanation the child can show is useful.

I hope you get a diagnosis soon. It must be such a worry for you, and her.

Ask your doctor to retest for glandular fever, I was told I didn't have it when I was younger but a viral screening when pregnant showed that I had been infected with it previously.

If she is at school, she'll be expected to join in with everything.

If she is not well enough for school, she, with some type of medical evidence, will need to do work at home or come in part-time.

Agree with Geaciescotland re retesting for glandular fever. I know you can get initial false negatives.

Thanks everyone - She is seeing paediatrician in 2 weeks time so hopefully then will be seen earlier.
Regarding being unwell & not being in school, if we left it til she was complete;y well she would have only been in school a few times since beginning of January. It is a very small school so communication should be quite easy. The head & her teacher have been kept up to date with the situation & the office staff get told how she most days when I take her in (after I've sent her in to class) It seems to have got increasingly worse as this term has gone on (the lack of communication etc) the teacher does seem to be increasingly unsympathetic. At least in Sept she will have a new teacher & hopefully with some sort of diagnosis we might have more say & hopefully at last a letter from the gp.

I would expect much better communication amongst staff regarding a child who has a long term illness. It does indeed seem that they aren't being very sympathetic. Also I can't believe a 6 year old is punished for not doing reading at home - what happens to those children who aren't supported with their homework, it would hardly be their fault if their parents hadn't read with them, would they deserve punishment too?

Mrs Brollybrook - I know, my dd's friend's parents don't read with her at home and she stays in at playtimes sometimes to catch up on her reading. It's only a few times a week as the teacher doesn't check reading every day. I understand it's to make sure children do do their reading, what annoyed me was that my dd is a very keen reader and until this struck was reading through all the books at a very fast pace, so it's clear that she values books & reading.

Agree with the previous posters who say get a recheck for EBV (glandular fever). DD got it last May and her first check, at the GP, was negative. It was only when she was admitted to hospital that they confirmed EBV. We ended up being admitted to rule out a whole series of illnesses, some more sinister than others. I think we were 'lucky' in that DD recovered about 1mth after diagnosis.

As an aside, I have heard that EBV can cause ME (chronic fatigue syndrome), which may be worth investigating.

Six year old punished for not reading at home. . that's not right. Doesn't sound as if the school is being very sympathetic to your DD. I would go in and ask for a meeting with the Head and explain things. They should have some sort of policy in place to deal with a child who is unwell. Like attending part-time or getting work to be done at home.

Are you sure being kept in a playtime was a punishment for not having read at home? I, and many teachers, often use some of breaktime to hear children read, do an intervention, do a quick one-to-one assessment, etc. In an overcrowded timetable oftn it is the only way to get it all done. If a child doesn't get the opportunity to read at home, for what ever reason, we try to compensate for that and hear them read in school more often, usually at the beginning of playtime or lunchtime.

As for your child thinking the teacher doesn't believe her, that is her perception and may not be exactly how it is. You say you've had meetings with staff on how to make your daugher's life easier, what sort ideas have you come up with. You are concerned they aren't being followed through. It might be worth meeting again to check everyone is expecting the same adaptations and that they are feasible.

As a child I missed almost a term through glandular fever... took nearly two months to get a diagnosis. One of the side effects, often forgotten, is lack of concentration and focus which often manifests as tiredness, also I was off games for the next half term on my return... and this included ballroom dancing (I kid you not!).

You might find it helpful to print out this advice from GOS and show them to her, explaining that you are currently treating her illness as Glandular Fever until advised otherwise.

Communicating to office staff about your dd's health won't necessarily get passed to the teacher, you need to communicate directly to the teacher - with lots of updates as the situation changes!

Also, are you sure the playtime thing wasn't because you had said no PE? If she can't do PE then she can't be running around at playtime so maybe she was told to stay in and just read a book?

Abigail - the class is expected to do reading at home every night. The teacher I think only checks the reading diaries a few times a week, I suppose the reading at playtime isn't so much a punishment but to make sure that the children do do their reading. My problem was that my daughter always does her reading, sometimes only a page but always does it until recently when she's having problems with her eyes, so it seems a bit harsh. After the summer hols if we are still having problems I will be on top of it a bit more. I think I was assuming dd would improve & all would be back to normal soon.

latte - that link is great thank you. Have just looked at their info on CFS/ME and it sums up my dd to a tee.

lee - The playtime thing was defintely to do with reading, dd is encouraged to be out at playtime so that she doesn't feel left out as school particularly are concerned she will be isolated from her peers. What we had done earlier with E was that she got changed for PE and perhaps did 5 mins at a time but with lots of resting between. Short bursts of activity she is fine with most days. I probably assumed they remembered this was the case before rather than explaining it in full. It is difficult to get in to see the teacher in the mornings, after school you can though. The office are ususally very good at passing messages on, its a very small school so dd's classroom is next door to the office. Next term if we are still having problems I think we need to have another way of passing communication on between home & school.

I can see that it's tricky. All schools are different in the way they communicate. What you need is a daily letter that can be inserted into the register so the teacher has to see it every morning and if a different teacher is teaching in the afternoon, they will also see it. That doesn't get round passing info onto the PE teacher though. Generally I would think teachers would be loathe to rely on a child that young saying if they feel able to do an activity.
Hope it resolves soon.

roundabout - just a comment on your daughter's illness. If she is febrile have the doctors ruled out Stills Disease (Juvenile Chronic Arthritis)?. My main symptom was fever, although mine was adult onset. The consultant remarked he had some patients with just fever and no arthritis. My friend developed another febrile and unusual illness, Familial Mediterranean Fever as a child and it was not diagnosed until her 20's. If the doctors put a label on it, the school is likely to take it more seriously (unfortunate but true).

Hi Roundabout,

What strikes me most about this is that your DD's emotional, health and educational needs are not being met (whether 'perceived' or not, she feels judged by those caring for her at school), simple instructions are not taken seriously enough to be followed and she is (I presume) being left uneducated by the school whilst she is too poorly to attend.

Although your DD's school are on the face of it 'working with you' at the moment, it doesn't seem like enough is being done to ensure she is still being educated. Has the school put you in touch with the local Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator yet? (the special educational need being that she is often too poorly to attend school)

I would suggest you make contact with your Local Education Authority too, they will most likely put you in touch with an Education Officer. The Local Education Authority has a legal responsibility (oddly the responsibility lies with the EA not the school) to ensure every child in their area receives an adequate level of education, it is the Education Officers role to advise the parents and school of how the Education Authority can best meet the needs (they can also unlock funds to help support needs). If it is a small school they may not be aware of what support is available.

I was a very poorly child I missed a lot of education due to long stays in hospital - sadly those gaps were never filled, I spent my whole school life feeling like a failure because I was always running to catch up with my peers - I failed secondary school and my teachers would always report 'Cat has so much potential, if only she would concentrate...' it wasn't the concentration, it was little things like I didn't know the formula, so would spent a large part of the lesson trying to work out how to make the sums work (for instance).

Education is so very important. There are means to help your DD catch up at home or in other environments that allow her illness to be accommodated for, with adults who understand that DD may need a nap or her eyes can't read today so they will change the lesson plan.

Feeling stressed about school will not help DD get better, but missing it will have a marked impact on her future - it is the EA's responsibility to find a solution that works for her - but you will need to push them and keep pushing (funds are short).

I hope things get better for you both soon.
Mrs RC

I'd also ask for a blood test for Lyme disease. DD had very similar symptoms, even down to the vision problems, and although I had to push the GP very hard to do the test it came back positive, and she must have contracted it in this country as she hadn't been abroad. She had a couple of months of antibiotics and is now completely fine. Good luck.

Sadly, I have been in a situation where my own dd's illness was not believed and this was despite a firm diagnosis and reams of paperwork. And no, it wasn't just her perception: dh and I heard it too, and so did SS (called in by the HT) and the paediatrician, who went in to speak to the school (the paed was so shocked that she still remembered it years later). Even after the paed had explained at great length how her condition was causing severe chronic pain, the only question they could come up with was "how can we know that she is in pain?"- that is, how can we know she isn't lying about the whole thing?

I thought the most revealing comment was the one her HT let slip once during a telephone conversation to me (unfortunately no other witnesses, then): Yes of course we accept corydd is ill but you can't expect us to be happy about it In other words, it doesn't matter that you are telling the truth and that your dd can't help yourself- we will still feel hard done by because we care an awful lot more about our statistics and our chances of getting an Ofsted Outstanding than we do about the wellbeing of an actual child.

My advice to you would be to keep the moral high ground at all costs and to maintain a constant paper trail. To ring every morning your dd is ill, to send in a note every time she returns to school, to send a copy of every medical appointment to the school, to write them regular updating letters- and to keep your own copies of every single piece of paper. And to keep a diary of everything that goes on regarding your dd's illness. And of any unhelpful comments made by school staff.

Hopefully, you will never need to use it, but if you do there is nothing more reassuring than having your paperwork in order.

Hope your dd recovers soon.

mrs rochesters cat - thank you that is most helpful. When dd has been off all we have been given is reading, no worksheets or anything. It is made harder as we never know when she will be back in so tend to go from day today as she is up & down. I know children that are off with a broken leg for example do get worksheets & stuff. Dd is bright so they have said they have no worries about her academically but surely they should still be giving her work. I feel rather silly now not to have pushed getting work sent home but at the time it's not the main priority but now is seems glaringly obvious. Dd although bright lacks confidence & so the lack of attendence will have a huge effect on that I feel. Thanks for the info on the LEA, I feel so ignorant of all of this!

post - never thought of lyme's disease - thank you

beingfluffy - dd rarely has a fever, she did when all this started but after a few weeks that subsided, it's one of the few symptoms she doesn't have now!

cory - what a horrible experience you have had. I hope your dd is doing better now. Thats a good idea to send in a copy of all medical appointments etc & updated letters. I'll defintly do that. Thank you.

Thought I would just update dd was at hospital on friday, they think it is a "post viral illness" & will probably never know exactly what triggered it. They are blood tests & testing kidney & thyroid function among other things. Thanks goodness we have 6 weeks off school, she did manage a full week last week apart from the hospital but has been shattered since. We were told to regulate what she does so rather than have lazy days & then when she's feeling well having a mad hour on her scooter to have brief moderate exercise every day. Easier said than done though!