Hello all,
I would welcome any thoughts on the following issue. Apologies in advance about the length of my post.
DD is a June baby so she is one of the youngest (thought not the youngest) in her Reception class. Her school is ranked Outstanding and has a reputation for being quite pushy. They have a very small number of students with special needs and students who come from minority/ non British backgrounds.
Let me say right away that DD can be challenging to deal with. She is very sweet and affectionate, she loves the company of both grown ups and children, and LOVES attention. But she simply will not abandon an activity of her choosing for another which she may find boring or unpleasant.
Reward charts and time outs don't really work with her.
Her teacher has been telling me pretty much from the start that she doesn't do as she is told. I asked her to give DD some time to adjust to school life since she has had very little nursery experience. She gave her a month and then said she needed "extra help " (basically senco, but they call her the "inclusion teacher").
The first thing the inclusion teacher tells me is DD has a speech delay and a delay in her expressive language. Not "might have", but "has" a delay. I am shell shocked at this point because DD is very chatty and confident, and I never thought she had a speech delay. Anyway, I am quiet and don't argue at all, and simply go home and book an appointment with the GP and we are currently on the waiting list for a NHS assessment. Meanwhile I know something just isn't right. So I find a private speech therapist. She is fully qualified, and works for the NHS during the week, and privately during the w/e. She meets DD and has a 90 minutes session. She thinks DD is absolutely fine. No delay whatsoever. She says she is confident that no NHS therapist would find a single thing wrong with her.
DD does have an issue with paying attention and doing as she is told, so the therapist suggested ways in which parents and teachers could help. For instance by placing her closest to the teacher at carpet time (she currently sits in the back corner).
So I gave Dd's teacher the report written by the therapist, and she has been avoiding me ever since. She no longer greets me at the door, and avoids making eye contact with me , even when I am standing right there at drop off and pick up time. I am giving it until the end of the week, and then I am going to ask her if she read the report.
I can't shake off the feeling she wants DD to have special needs, because she doesn't want to deal with her and to give the inclusion teacher something to do, since there are extremely few true SEN children in school. I think she is resentful that I hired a private therapist and dared to question their "diagnosis" of DD's "delay". I feel that when the NHS therapist says DD doesn't have a speech delay, they will find something else wrong with her.
I believe DD is emotionally immature, but I don't see a reason why she would not outgrow her current behavior. Is it really necessary to "medicalise" and put labels on a child who is simply disobedient? DD doesn't exhibit any violent tendencies, she has never had an argument with another child at school. She has learned to raise her hand if she has a question ( which is a big thing for her), so she does not disrupt the class while the teacher is talking. She is very slowly but surely learning the school routines. Even her teacher admits she has improved since September, but she is not improving fast enough.
What are your thoughts?
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Help: Reception Teacher unhappy with DD
whichway · 11/11/2014 14:38
Kta7 · 12/04/2023 22:10
Tbf it sounds like the original ‘bumper’ might be in a similar position and is keen to find out how things progressed.
This reply has been deleted
This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.
whichway · 11/11/2014 14:38
Hello all,
I would welcome any thoughts on the following issue. Apologies in advance about the length of my post.
DD is a June baby so she is one of the youngest (thought not the youngest) in her Reception class. Her school is ranked Outstanding and has a reputation for being quite pushy. They have a very small number of students with special needs and students who come from minority/ non British backgrounds.
Let me say right away that DD can be challenging to deal with. She is very sweet and affectionate, she loves the company of both grown ups and children, and LOVES attention. But she simply will not abandon an activity of her choosing for another which she may find boring or unpleasant.
Reward charts and time outs don't really work with her.
Her teacher has been telling me pretty much from the start that she doesn't do as she is told. I asked her to give DD some time to adjust to school life since she has had very little nursery experience. She gave her a month and then said she needed "extra help " (basically senco, but they call her the "inclusion teacher").
The first thing the inclusion teacher tells me is DD has a speech delay and a delay in her expressive language. Not "might have", but "has" a delay. I am shell shocked at this point because DD is very chatty and confident, and I never thought she had a speech delay. Anyway, I am quiet and don't argue at all, and simply go home and book an appointment with the GP and we are currently on the waiting list for a NHS assessment. Meanwhile I know something just isn't right. So I find a private speech therapist. She is fully qualified, and works for the NHS during the week, and privately during the w/e. She meets DD and has a 90 minutes session. She thinks DD is absolutely fine. No delay whatsoever. She says she is confident that no NHS therapist would find a single thing wrong with her.
DD does have an issue with paying attention and doing as she is told, so the therapist suggested ways in which parents and teachers could help. For instance by placing her closest to the teacher at carpet time (she currently sits in the back corner).
So I gave Dd's teacher the report written by the therapist, and she has been avoiding me ever since. She no longer greets me at the door, and avoids making eye contact with me , even when I am standing right there at drop off and pick up time. I am giving it until the end of the week, and then I am going to ask her if she read the report.
I can't shake off the feeling she wants DD to have special needs, because she doesn't want to deal with her and to give the inclusion teacher something to do, since there are extremely few true SEN children in school. I think she is resentful that I hired a private therapist and dared to question their "diagnosis" of DD's "delay". I feel that when the NHS therapist says DD doesn't have a speech delay, they will find something else wrong with her.
I believe DD is emotionally immature, but I don't see a reason why she would not outgrow her current behavior. Is it really necessary to "medicalise" and put labels on a child who is simply disobedient? DD doesn't exhibit any violent tendencies, she has never had an argument with another child at school. She has learned to raise her hand if she has a question ( which is a big thing for her), so she does not disrupt the class while the teacher is talking. She is very slowly but surely learning the school routines. Even her teacher admits she has improved since September, but she is not improving fast enough.
What are your thoughts?
whichway · 11/11/2014 19:40
I think I need to clarify a few things.
Dd has problems with instructions, but does eventually do as adults ask her about 80% of the time. It often takes 4-5 times calling her name and repeating the instructions for her to do something she doesn't want to do. She drags her feet, and looks for excuses, but eventually, after some negotiation, does it. She can be quite stubborn and asks "why" a lot.
She is an attention seeker, so she does talk a lot. Sometimes she will say something, anything really, to get an adult to listen. That's where the "expressive language" delay "pseudo- diagnosis" comes from. She will blurt out something seemingly unrelated to the conversation at hand to get attention.
I know her bag of tricks so to speak. And I know that she doesn't care if an adult thinks she said something silly ( she knows that already! ) as long as she gets the adult to interact with her, she doesn't care. Negative attention is better than no attention. Fortunately she doesn't look for attention by doing deliberately naughty things. Her naughtiness consists in not switching activities when an adults tells her to.
She is left handed so she finds writing a bit tricky. When they ask her to practice writing she's thinking " I am rubbish at this , I am not doing this again!"
That said she can sit quietly for prolonged periods of time if she likes a book or an activity. She loves story time. The teacher has told me DD knows her spot at carpet time and listens very intently when the teacher is reading or telling a story.
Does all this sounds like DD has an illness or a delay or is she just a huge PITA? I believe the latter, but obviously I am biased. But not biased enough to fail to notice how much easier other kids are , compared to her. I envy the parents of easy going kids. And I also realize that if all the kids were like DD, the teacher would not be able to cope.
That said, I am not going to sit with my hands in my lap while they diagnose DD with something she doesn't have (speech delay), because her teacher is looking for an excuse to pass the hot potato to someone else. If the teacher needs extra help because DD is immature and a PITA , I am fine with it, but I think they need to give her a chance to grow up before they label her as SEN.
I am going to wait until the end of the week, and then I am going to ask for a meeting.
I think the age is relevant but it mustn't be seen as a reason for everything, this can hide issues and therefore delay diagnosis/ support, further disadvantaging the younger children in the year group.
I started school at just turned 4 almost 35 years ago so it isn't that new a development dc going to school in September after in my case a late august birthday.
I also think it's interesting that dd last year was in a young reception class, they are now mixed in year 1 and the older ones don't seem further ahead at all.
op make an appointment with her teacher and talk to her 
OP's dd may not have any development problems.
It may be ok for her to sit near the teacher etc and all will be fine.
Or she may have some underlying problem, and this may act as a sticking plaster for the moment. Then, there will be something else.
It is not the wrong thing to do this, but other possibilities will need to be looked at at the same time. The earlier you do this, the earlier things can be done to minimise the effect.
I knew a girl in my dds' class who, if you met her aged 5, and had had contact with a lot of people with ASD type problems, you would have thought 
. Her parents refused SEN help due to the 'labelling' issues. They got in a tutor and have done everything they can for her. They got her moved to the front of the class for hearing problems, and sent in letters to school all the time. Even at college they visit weekly and take her to the supermarket. The labelling happened anyway and she had really massive social problems all the way through high school. She is a very precious only child and they have been there every step of the way and more, she is at college and doing ok, so far. Hopefully, her parents will get her a job and she will be happy.
My son had very hidden ASD problems which I was worried about from him being a toddler. He has always been well behaved and is intelligent and hides it well. I have always been 'assured' he was 'ok' He has all the right exams, but not quite as well as he should have which was put down to laziness. It was not until 6th form that one teacher realised that he was looking like he understood but not necessarily taking stuff in. This was too late and we did not get an assessment. He has flunked uni and is unemployed and I can't get him out of his bedroom.
It is not so much about what they are doing and what looks normal from the outside. It is how their brains are working on the inside, how they are interpreting what is going on around them and how they are coping with it.
Another friend's daughter has dyslexia and dyspraxia and other problems that go with it. She had help all the way through school. She had help getting her exams done. She has been to college where all the work done by learning support to get her to find ways round problems has stood her in good stead and she did well, and is now working, has confidence and has proved she can stand up for herself.
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