Teaching children who were born prematurely

[Itscurtainsforyou]

Hope it's ok to post on here. I'm a parent of a child who was born 4 months premature. I've been doing quite a bit of research on what to expect as he gets older and found quite a bit of evidence that prem babies are more prone to issues with concentration and attention (amongst other things like developmental delay etc).

I also found evidence that teachers are not necessarily aware of these issues being related to prematurity.

Do any of you teachers/TAs know about these issues? Should I as a parent arrange a meeting to sit down and talk through this with each teacher? I don't want to be "that" parent, but at the same time I want to arm the teachers with as much information as possible so that my child gets the right help.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know if it's the same in every school, but at my kids' school, when you go down to register, you get a tour of the school and a sit down with the head teacher. So when you're registering, bring it up. You might as well.
But before school even comes in it, there will be nursery first and they will pick up on anything that seems outside of the norm for development etc, so you'll have lots more info when the time comes and plenty time to prepare for school.

I was born at 29/30 weeks into my mums pregnancy so very early. I am educated to a degree level and had no issues with concentration growing up or now.

Whether they are more prone to those issues or not is irrelevant. If it’s an issue your DS has, bring it up. If he doesn’t, don’t.

How old is your DC now OP?

In my area there is a HV check at 2.5 years with the purpose of checking whether your child has nay issues which might interfere with their nursury education.
If your child has difficulty concentrating then hopefully it will be picked up then and communicated to his/her nursery.
Then you have all the time in nursery to see how he/she gets on in a learning environment and the nursery teachers will have the opportunity to make referrals for further help if needed.
By the time your child starts school their ability to concentrate or not will be pretty well known to a bunch of people.
But as PP have said- you will get the chance to discuss them with the school at registration so you should do so.

If you personally feel there's an issue when your child gets to school age then obviously bring it up, but if there's no issues, there's nothing really to talk about. My eldest was 7wks prem and has autism and adhd. Was undiagnosed until recently but I spoke to teacher about concerns. My middle child was 9+6 prem and has no issues whatsoever, exceeding expected standards and so have never spoken to school about the fact she was prem

How old is your child? Has he been identified as having a developmental delay?

Teachers will of course be trained to deal with this, along with a range of other needs that children in their care may have.

Thanks all, I really appreciate it. He's 2.5, just had a check with the HV which showed him significantly behind in everything. He's at nursery 3 days a week and they're still using his corrected age, but he's still behind.

TBH I'm not overly concerned about him right now as he's developing at his own pace, it's just when he's compared to his peers (physically and developmentally) he's obviously behind and unless he picks up dramatically, it's going to be a huge struggle for him at school.

They will assess him as any other child. It really doesn't matter why he has (if he still has them by then) any special needs. What matters is what extra help he needs.

Teachers may not be necessarily aware that being premature may cause this, but they don't need to be aware of this, they just need to look out for the signs and judge the child by what they do have not what they might have.

My own child was born prematurely and among the premature children I've taught one was at the time the most prem surviving baby in our region

Was he born in August? If so, I would definitely try to have him back yeared into the cohort he would have been with if not prem.

As a teacher l have learned this throughout the years through experience. Definitely keep at home that extra year. But as said draw attention to any issues when your dc enters school. If possible could your dc havve some occupational therapy meantime.

Yes end of August baby, we're definitely going to keep him back a year under the circumstances (once we've navigated through the process).

He's under physio and a whole load of other people, I don't know a huge amount about occupational therapy, but I'll ask the question.

As a KS2 teacher I’ve never known whether or not a child was premature. If a parent wanted to tell me I wouldn’t object but it’s not something that would routinely get passed up to every teacher. What will get passed on, however, are any issues/difficulties/particular needs that the children have.

I think being born in August and being so prem. He'd be a prime candidate for deferred entry into reception. Any issues he has or doesn't have will be picked up as he progresses through school. They won't look at his file and say 'he was prem let's look for issues'. They'll say 'I've noticed Thomas struggles to pay attention, we'll discuss it will his mum' 'yes his mum was worried too and she mentioned he was 4 months prem'.
Obviously nobody can stop you telling people though
😊

She looks like she has concentration problems but in reality it's all gone in and she doesn't miss a thing she just looks like she's paying no bloody attention in the process, and she's had issues with late speech and speech articulation and clarity, with motor skills and coordination - we're trying to get a diagnosis at present but it's screaming dyspraxia at me.

Thats really interesting. My son was slightly premature by the same amount and is very similar.
Really away with the fairies look to him when information is being relayed. Then 2 weeks later he'll come out with something quite deep about whatever it was that he's obviously been turnign over in his head since then.
He's very small and thin for his age as well and has a pronounced stutter. Plus he's shy. As you can imagine, I was super concerned he'd be bullied at school. But so far he seems to one of the cool kids!

I would actually bring it up regardless of whether they are issues you've identified or not (I'm a teacher and have had training regarding prematurity)

I know people are trying to be reassuring with anecdotes of early births with no issues -but you've obviously done your research and you've identified already that there is some delay

The issue with seeking a diagnosis like dyspraxia or ADD is that they don't tell the whole picture and can mask other potential issues e.g. If a child is diagnosed with ADD and is inattentive -then the teacher may not look for hearing impairment or a receptive language issue

If the school is aware of the level of prematurity AND the potential issues associated then they can be more aware of lots of little issues that in isolation may seem insignificant, but combined may mean that they need a range of intervention strategies

You aren't asking them to look for something that isn't there, but to be aware of something that is there but is subtle and something that means your child might need longer term support in order to be able to thrive -and with a very aware mum on his side I'm sure he will

I agree with Piebarm that, if a child is showing any signs of difficulties at school and was premature, this information is relevant in building a full picture of the child in order to offer the most appropriate provision. However, as others have said, if there are no delays or problems it is not really relevant.

Also, while the degree of prematurity is a factor (it is much less common for a 24-weeker to have no issues than a 36-weeker, for example), it is by no means the only factor. My DD was born at 29+3 by crash c-section due to placental abruption, but the pregnancy was healthy until then and the birth process was swift and she had excellent care. A 36-weeker with IUGR or low amniotic fluid or oxygen starvation at birth (etc) might have a very different outcome.

I was born three months early at around 28 weeks nearly 37 years ago and am educated to degree level, and have a successful career in publishing, journalism and PR.

I agree with others that it may (or may not) be affecting your child’s development, and that anecdotal stories like mine bear no relevance to your child, but it is always something to keep in mind when assessing how your child is doing. Obviously you know your child the best, and will be more aware of how they are coping developmentally and in an educational environment etc and you can be the best judge of this.

I’m sure I have some kind of undiagnosed ADHD but I don’t feel it had any impact on my education or career apart from being slightly more scatterbrained and easily distracted! I’m sure if it had been formally diagnosed and assessed then it may have affected me detrimentally as I would have always had a label for how I was, and how I should be and possibly felt lacking.

Having said this, I do have high frequency hearing loss as a result of prematurity that was assessed early and I was given lots of support and care for this. If it had gone undetected, i’m pretty sure it would have had a greater impact on my learning and career etc.

Best of luck for you and your DC - I hope you get some answers and the support you may need.

I'm not a teacher or TA but my ds was born at 32+3 weeks. An autumn baby. His reception teacher was new and keen and asked every parent about their child's birth. I was surprised but very happy to give her all the info I could remember. She specifically asked about use of oxygen after birth. My ds was on CPAP for 24 hours, which she seemed to think was important.

It will probably be helpful for you to give a teacher an idea of how much help he needed after his very early birth, and what the cause of it was.

And you are definitely very wise to hold him back a year!

DS1 was born 4 months prematurely and is now 12. As a PP said, the fact that he was born extremely prematurely is of less importance than the needs that he has a result. In a nutshell, he started receiving 1:1 support at nursery, which wasn't connected to the primary school he then went to. His primary school was brilliant about sorting out an EHCP (Statement back then) and 1:1 support, but after that they completely lost interest. Tbh I think they were out of their depth with him as they kept insisting he was completely fine and that I was suffering from paranoia! The reality was unfortunately very different. Eventually we moved to a small private school, which had a far better understanding of his needs. For secondary he attends a specialist SEN school due to the complexity of his needs.

In my experience you'll need to make sure that the school you choose has an excellent senco who understands how best to support SEN (this should always be the case but unfortunately was not what we experienced); an equally supportive head and class teacher; and a good county ed psych connected with the school. But I do agree that as time goes on it's the child's actual needs that are relevant, rather than what gestation they were born at (there was a child at the same primary school who was born at term but had even more complex SEN than my son does). Feel free to ask me any questions x

Have a look at the Bliss website see link www.bliss.org.uk/starting-primary-school
They have lots of advice about prematurity and starting school.
My prem dd was bron at 27 weeks and as there were still concerns when she was 3-4 years old she was assessed by a specialist doctor prior to starting school to see if there were any additional needs (or not). She needed lots of extra support when younger between 3 and 5 years but this lessened as time progressed.
The trouble with research is that it can become outdated. My dd is now a teenager. The outcomes for premature children at school now seem to be much better on average than for the children who took part in this research (born approx 20 years ago). However every child is different and if problems are detected then schools should carry out appropriate assessments of your child's needs.