DSS (8) has severe dyslexia, diagnosed 18 months ago by a comprehensive private assessment. DP organised it. He'd felt for some time that DSS was struggling with school not 'just' because he's the youngest in the year and gets babied by his mum (school's initial thoughts - both valid, but obviously not the whole story).
Over a year on and we're not seeing much progress at all. DSS still can't really read (he has level 5 ORT books, which he struggles with). Phonics mean next to nothing to him. His mum does nothing with him at all – no homework, no reading his books together, no looking into dyslexia interventions – which isn't helping, and so DP is trying to figure out if DSS is actually getting the support he needs and is entitled to, in school at least.
DP recently went to a parents evening and DSS's teacher couldn't tell DP what his levels are "because he's difficult to assess". She said at first that he's doing "fine" (whatever that is), and then later that DSS is "behind" – which we would expect. It all seems so woolly.
So DP is booking another meeting with DSS's teacher, and would like me to come along (because my DS is older and I've got my head around levels, progress, etc by now – it's a bit Greek to DP - plus I'm more emotionally detached from the situation than DP). We'd like to know what DSS's levels were at the end of KS1 and what they are now, in comparison with his peers/what would be expected. We thought this would tell us if school is managing to close the gap, or if DSS is getting further and further behind, as we suspect. We'd like to know exactly what they're doing to help DSS in class (beyond giving him work on different coloured paper). He gets some time with the SENCO each week, but we don't know how much or what he's doing in that time. It all just feels so vague, and meanwhile, DSS seems to be getting nowhere really. It feels as though school are still trying to bring him along in the same way as all the other kids, when actually, he might never get there, and might need continual help and a different approach to make education accessible to him.
What kind of support is DSS entitled to? What kind of progress should we expect to see? Would it be normal for the gap between DSS and his peers to be widening and widening, or should we expect school to be able to narrow this? Is there anything we should be insisting on from school – a TA to read all instructions to DSS for example; anything we should specifically be asking to get the most out of the meeting?
And what kind of support can DP offer in the minority of the time he has DSS – one weekend a fortnight – bearing in mind he has two other DCs to spend time with too?
Thank you!