DD ending Reception (4.10) all emerging, what to do?

[MummytoMog]

DD is a late August born, with a significant speech delay (didn't talk until three at all, now speaks atypically with limited comprehension of complex concepts), glue ear, social delay and difficulties with attention. She has been on School Action Plus since she started nursery at three. Her transition to Reception from nursery was carefully managed, with a plan in place, a meeting to discuss beforehand and the same support worker in place in both settings to do her one on one support. We haven't had a meeting at all since an April one to update her IEP, no discussion of transition and her teacher has gone on maternity leave with no real handover to her stand in (DD's nursery teacher, so at least well aware of her difficulties). We were already a bit anxious about how she was going to cope outside of the play based curriculum, and then we got her report. She got one expected (for physical co-ordination, which must be some kind of token as she's incredibly clumsy bless her) and the rest were all emerging, with a comment from her teacher that DD had not attained the level expected of a child entering Y1 and that although she had made progress this year, it had taken a great deal of structured support.

Leaving aside how totally super that made us feel about DD and her long term prospects, am I wrong to think that if they feel DD is so very behind, we should be considering (as I asked them to do repeatedly last year) keeping her back a year? Her emotional development is essentially about a year behind. She is very slightly ahead of her three year old brother, who she interacts with perfectly well, on speech and social communication. She is reading stage 3 puddle lane books, but is on 1+ ORT. Can't really decode at all. Good with numbers, but non-compliant at school. I'd rather she repeated than struggled with Y1, but DH suspects they won't let her. What could we ask for (other than a discussion on what support they are proposing to put in place for Y1) to help her make this transition? We do a lot of reading at home, and some writing/numbers.

Mummy, no expert comments but I would if this was my child possibly hold her back a year. how old is she?

seeing my sept born, develop in the summer after reception from low reading and poor writing..I can see how she has benefited from being one of the older in the class....mine started to blossom just shy of 6th bday.

I think with your dd it would also do her own confidence wonders.

i think you should 100% decide what you want then fight for it, hopefully someone along soon with more proffesional take on things.

I am not sure you would have any success trying to hold her back without more information about the reasons for her problems.

obviously the speech delay and glue ear go hand in hand. The social delay and difficulties with attention as well as not understanding complex concepts (do you mean a receptive language problem?) are presumably different? (sorry I am not very up on them. my daughter has an expressive language problem and possibly a receptive language problem too but just waiting for that to be assessed in August).

I suppose my question is WHO has she seen. Has she seen a community paediatrician with respect to the overall picture, not just her ears or just her speech and language development but everything considered all together? Has she actually seen an educational psychologist? does she have a statement or equivalent? how do the school know if they are giving her enough support or the right type of targeted support?

If you can prove that her problems are having enough of an impact then you might have a case for holding her back. of course the problem then comes with can the school accommodate that as they will have already offered all the places for R this year. You would also need to check out what would happen at 11 with transfer to secondary school because some areas might insist she goes back with her age group and then she would miss out a whole year.

I suppose the question I would ask is 'if your child was in the year below, would she then progress in line with, and at the same rate as, the 'average' of the year below'? If so, then it might be worth fighting for.

If not, and she would still need significant support even in a class with children a year below, what do you gain? She will have to progress at some point, and if support is needed, then it might as well be support offered while she remains with her age peers than support still needed in the year below IYSWIM? Better to fight for her to be given the support she needs to progress well from her current level in her correct class, in that case - and it may well be that there are others in the class who are also 'emerging' at this point. It's a bit like September born vs summer born - there are usually children born in every month, it's not as if a summer born enters a class in which all children are a full year older.

The process for being deregistered and placed in the year below is not straightforward, is usually used only for the very significantly disabled (tthe 9 year old working at the level of an 18 month old who i taught 'out of year' comes to mind), and musty be agreed throughout all phases (including secondary) up front so no ears have to be skipped at 11.

She saw the LA ed psych at 3.4, when she was still almost totally non-verbal. He announced after ten minutes with her that she was on the autistic spectrum. We didn't necessarily disagree with that, but more with his reasoning and total lack of interest in what we had to say about her. Anyway, she was and is on school action plus and seen by SALT so a diagnosis wouldn't have allowed to access any more assistance and we declined further assessment. We saw our own EP about six months later, who was firmly of the opinion she wasn't on the spectrum but might have ADD. One of my brothers has ADD severely (with an accompanying learning disability) and while I recognise some of his traits in her, they're also very similar to those of younger children and her attention is definitely improving steadily.

I think she would progress at the same rate as the younger cohort, by an accident of birth grouping she is the youngest in her year by nearly six months (all the others must be in the other reception class). I think my issue is largely not tht she is just young for her year but that she is young for her age too. But I don't think they would agree if it is as difficult as you suggest. They don't think she'd get a statement, she doesn't need as much support as she did at all. But the thought of her struggling for the next four years is awful. She's not aware of it now, but she will be soon.

She does have a receptive language delay, which is rapidly improving especially as she has only had one acute ear infection this year.

At this point at the end of reception, with half your daughter's issues, we had an IEP, seen the educational psychologist, seen an occupational therapist, and had a referral for assessment.

This is precisely why it's crazy to make kids do formalised learning at just gone 4.

If I were in your shoes, I would be looking for a really good Montessori-type setting that goes to age 8 or more if you have one near you- somewhere where your little DD can develop at her own pace rather than to the drum beat of the school and its ridiculous adherence to the NC. Your DD doesn't need this. She doesn't need to know she's essentially "failing" from the very start of school. Far better for her to feel confident in what she can do rather than measuring against all the things she can't do at the moment imo.

It is much easier in the independent sector to have your child placed out of year. Honestly if you could in any way afford to do it, I would be looking at finding somewhere else for her. UNLESS she has very specific needs that would truly be best met in the state system, because most independent schools are worse at catering for those than the state system. You would have access to a far greater range of services through a state school. If you think that she just needs to "catch up", then I'd go Montessori or the like.

I wouldn't panic... go and ask for a meeting with the teacher and possibly the year ! teacher... ask how they are going to support her and her needs. If she does repeat the year (almost impossible in the state sector) what would she gain? Would she then keep progressing at the 'normal' rate if she did repeat?

and agree with duchesse about private school special need support - plus the fact private schools cannot access services whereas state can

If this was a child who was a bit 'immature' for their age but progressing at he same rate as their peers then repeating reception might be a valid option.

But that doesn't sound like that's the case from what you've written. She sounds like she has some specific issues that aren't to do with maturity and are causing her to progress more slowly, even with support. I don't think repeating a year will help in that case. There is a danger that she will end up repeating the year, but just end up at the bottom end of that cohort instead.

We've asked for a meeting next week with the usual suspects who do her IEP each term. When she moved from the school nursery class to reception we had a meeting and a plan in place to assist her transition, which did go quite smoothly.

DH and his mother/aunt (both primary teachers) think it's a bad idea to keep her back and that she will catch up, and it does sound like it would be almost impossible. In which case I think it's reasonable (given they've identified so many areas in which she is behind) to ask exactly what they are going to do to support her. The school she is at co-ordinates special needs provision across out local authority, and is actually normally very on top of this sort of thing, which is why I was disappointed we weren't given more of a heads up on how poorly they thought she was doing (we were quite pleased with her progress actually) and more of a plan for her transition to Y1.

If you met her, you'd think she was only just four, but pretty normal for a just four year old. She's tiny, still in 2-3 and 3-4 clothes, and actively prefers to play with younger children like her brother. She is able to regulate her emotional response much more successfully than six months ago (tantrum central) and is capable of holding a conversation on an abstract topic, which would have been unthinkable six months ago. If she had been an early talker we would have thought she was an aspie, but she wasn't. My cousin, who is a speech therapist specialising in children with ASD, thinks she may be on the spectrum, but there's a lot of contradictory facets to her, which make it unclear. We think hyperlexia (obsessed with letters/numbers/words) but who knows.

What duchesse said ^^

have you considered applying for a statement?

you said that the EP thinks that she might have autism. what is happening there? are you under a developmental paed? If not I would get referred asap.

If she does have ASD, then her problems won't simply vanish but she will probably need support at school in the long term.

We haven't, simply because the school don't think she's likely to get one now (although they were keen when she was three), I've had two contradictory reports from EPs and I'm unsure of the value of getting a third bearing in mind the general unpleasantness of the process and I don't believe she'll get any more assistance than she gets now (SALT, one on one for a few hours a day at school and on School Action Plus) if she does get a statement. My experience currently is that the more she is involved in the system, the more her school see it as an opportunity to lower their expectations for her and fail to push her to achieve. I suspect if we did push for a formal diagnosis, then she wouldn't have any educational targets at all, other than turn up and be pretty and quiet. Which she can manage quite well already.

Ds had massive receptive language delay. Standardised score of 57 ( normal range 90 to 110). We kept him back a year in reception. His receptive language score has come up to normal over last three years and he is now sitting about average in class.

The Ed pysch explained it to us at the time as being the same as sending him to a school where they spoke japanese. His language ability was such that initially he was working completely on non verbal cues. Once his scores started to improve he came on in leaps and bounds.

I think you need to consider carefully how your Dd learns, it will most likely be visually. Maybe she loves words and numbers because they are not verbal. Make sure the teacher is checking each time that she has got the instruction given to the class.

When Ds knows what he is supposed to do he can cope quite well but a general instruction to the class he could miss entirely. Once your Dd has receptive language scores in the normal range she should catch up rapidly.

There is some overlap between Autism and receptive language deficit but it takes a skiiled person to know the difference e.g. Ds had poor eye contact because he didn't understand what was being said not because he was autistic.

DD has a very strong visual memory, and this is how she picked up on the alphabet/numbers so early on. She learns words very quickly but can't decode. She also has perfect pitch and synaesthesia (she associates musical key signatures with colour and can identify what 'colour' you are playing a piece of music in. Mostly to shout at you and tell you to play it in the right colour).

We've always been firmly of the opinion she would catch up in her own time, but I do worry because she is so very young, in age and behaviour, for her year and I'm concerned what sort of damage we might do her education in the long term if she misses out on basic stuff now. And if she gets the impression that she's failing.