Concerned about how my sons class are managed

[bluedabadeedabadoo]

So my son is 6 and Y2. He is summer born and very young and immature for his age. He struggles to concentrate, struggles to follow instructions and needs a very high level of support to complete work. He often messes about because he finds work hard. I have 2 issues with school. 1 is that every couple of months they complain to me about his behaviour, promise strategies but then don't put anything in consistently. I don't think my son is particularly bad behaved but I do think he has additional needs and needs extra support in his learning. School just focus on the bad behaviour. This is the message I received today:

Morning. I have been very concerned about L's behaviour since the holidays and despite punishments and warnings it has not improved. I will have to look at our behaviour policy - I think it is on our website too if you want to look - to see what steps are next as I have tried everything in the classroom that I can think of. If you want to talk I am wavailable at the end of today to call or if you want to meet it would have to be next week. Thank you

How would you respond to this? I just think the tone is terrible and very negative. I think they need to be changing their teaching styles and putting in additional support for him.

The other issue is the message she sent home about the class in general. Again very negative and focusing on consequences. Should I be suggesting that perhaps try need to be a bit more creative given the heat and that we are coming towards the end of the term? Surely constant criticism and consequences for a class of 6 and 7 year olds isn't going to be helpful? She has send Home a think sheet that she wants children to complete when they have done something wrong. On the sheet they have to 'think' about their behaviours and make a 'promise' as to how they will respond in future. I think this is wholly inappropriate as how can a 6/7 year old male a promise of this effect and be expected to keep it!! Any thoughts would be highly appreciated as I'm really struggling with what to say to school.

I do think the tone is very negative, and is written in a very odd way.

If it were me, I'd have written a note or caught you at the end of the day to arrange an appointment for a chat. I'd certainly have talked to the B.Co or Head of year or Head of Key Stage, and looked at the Behaviour Policy (if that were needed ??) before speaking to you.

However, in terms of what I would do next, is arrange the meeting, acknowledge that there is a problem, and ask how you can all work together to support your ds. Ask them why they think he is struggling. Ask them when the issues occur (see if there is a pattern, and / or a trigger). Ask them what strategies they are thinking of putting in place.

Punishments? He’s 6, with additional needs.

Does he have an EHC plan?

No there is no diagnosis and currently I don't think they recognise him as having additional needs. They just see him as a naughty child. I think there are real issues with his ability to listen, concentrate, retain and follow instructions. I think I'm going to ask for a meeting with the senco, a copy of his IEP and consideration to him being seen by an ed psych. I know they will say no but I may ask if they could try him in year 1 for the rest of the term as he's an August baby so extremely young for year 2. I think the work is too hard for him. I think it's only going to get worse sadly as he's not ready for this level of work.

I'd ask for an appointment before the end of term, preferable with the SENCO as well as the class teacher if possible. Is he in the same school next year or moving to juniors? Will it be possible to meet the new teacher?

Ask the current teacher things like:

What are his strengths?
How far behind is he? (has he passed phonics screening? Sats?)
What learning support has he been given? What behaviour strategies have been tried? Which were most helpful?
Do they have any specific concerns? (E.g. signs of dyslexia, ADHD etc)
How much positive attention is he getting? When does he have the opportunity to succeed?

Just seen your second post. If you think they my be something along the lines of ADHD - inability to concentrate, listening and so on- you could always speak to your GP and see about getting him assessed that way.

It’s quite telling that she mentions warnings and punishments but not strategies and support.

If you want to talk I am available at the end of today to call or if you want to meet it would have to be next week.

This seems like a very sensible suggestion. Surely you do want to meet with the teacher?

Does he currently have an EHCP?

I’d worry that she doesn’t know the behaviour policy! Shocking!
You need a meeting with the class teacher and SENCo.
Also, I really dislike ‘punishment’ it is a consequence. He needs support and encouragement to make the right choices not punishments.
Good luck

Oh, so he has an IEP ? So they are recognising that he has additional needs ?
What happens at the review ? Do you just meet with the SENCo, or with the class teacher too ? What sort of targets are they working on ? Does he make progress from one IEP to the next?

How about taking some responsresponsibility for his behaviour and try teaching him to be responsible for his actions?
You can't just say " oh well, he finds the work too hard so he doesn't behave"

He needs to learn to get on and get his work done. The poor teacher has a whole class full of children that she needs to teach and help make progress.

Fairenuff of course I would like to meet the teacher. It's not that I have the issue with.

Yes I suppose they do see him as having additional needs given the IEP but day to day you wouldn't think so. I haven't see the IEP for a while.... this year I think. He had it from being at nursery. Nursery and school considered that it was because he is one of the younger ones and will catch up. It's not getting any better so I can't see a reason for him not having it.
He is way behind. We agreed he wouldn't do his sats so I didn't prepare him but then she didn't make necessary arrangements for him not to do them. I didn't even know he was doing him until he told me so I was annoyed about that!! I asked her how he got on and she never replied. I don't hear a peep when he's good. The reward system they use, I've just had a look and all the positives seem to be the whole class and nothing specific for him. We have put things in place in the pasty night traffic light cards which come home but they aren't consistent.

Crunch time thanks for your helpful comment. Yes of course he needs to take responsibility but he is a 6 year old child who has some difficulties and also struggles to verbalise. I'm more than happy for there to be consequences (just like there are at home for poor behaviour) but he also needs to be supported appropriately as how can he meet his potential if all everyone sees is the negatives and there is no recognition of the support he needs to address any deficiencies and reach his potential?

OK, well I would ask for an appointment with both the class teacher and the SENCo together.

An IEP should last for around 12 weeks / 3 months / 1 term. It should then be reviewed. Ideally (and I understand it isn't always practical or realistic) everyone involved withe the child should be at the meeting. Even if you haven't been at the meeting, then you still should get a copy of it. At the review, the progress against the original targets should be discussed, and the meeting as a whole should then decide between 3 options..... i) he has caught up and no longer needs further support or ii) he needs another IEP, with a similar level of support.... or iii) he hasn't been making progress, and therefore needs more support.
Ask them to show you where he is working compared with expectations for his age, and what they have in place to help support him to catch up, or, at very least, maintain progress and not fall further behind.

I am really sorry to say this, but no child gets an IEP because they are summer born. If he has had one since nursery, there are serious concerns. If DS finds work too difficult, he obviously hasn’t caught up, so what use has the IEP been? Concentration is poor because he cannot do the work. Poor Behaviour stems from that. No child who is struggling can sit and concentrate on something they patently cannot do!

If his speaking and listening skills are poor, what’s being done about it? If he has an IEP, what’s it supposed to give him in terms of additional help? How has it helped him? If it hasn’t, there needs to be a serious renegotiation of what is in it. The SenCo should be leading this at the annual review. He should also see an Ed Psych.

Also, it is scandalous the teacher doesn’t know the school’s behaviour policy. She cannot punish and sanction without knowing it. In addition, these policies have rewards for good behaviour and details about how the school will encourage and reinforce good behaviour. It’s a good suggestion that you read it so you can go into a meeting fully informed.

You must ensure that the work is differentiated for him. He could work with a TA. Schools often put a TA into the classroom for children who are struggling rather than take them out of class. It greatly helps with behaviour and concentration too. The teacher needs to be much more proactive and you must try and hold the school to account. You want information from the school about what progress your DS is making. Try and get involved as much as you can and ask what you can do at home to help. Often children are great outside school because they are not being challenged and can do what they want. School is different.

It is the job of the teacher to teach all the class and some children always find the curriculum more difficult and continue to do so. The school need to come up with much better strategies to help.

Thank you that is really helpful. I do need to be questioning more about the IEP as I've never been invited to a meeting. I think I've had a copy every near but not this year. If he has had one for 4 years and he is still way behind then more support is needed.
I read the policy and it does seem very harsh, inflexible and not child focussed at all. There isn't much in there by the way of reward or positive re-enforcement. It however does say that there needs to be achievable and realistic goal set which I think is a really good idea. I was thinking they could send them home so I can discuss this with him before hand and then we can prepare for what is expected.
I don't think being 'summerborn' was the specific reason for the IEP by both school and nursery said that they think he needed it because he is so young in the year group but haven't ever said that they have more concerns than that.
In terms of speaking he does have some intervention in school. Listening and concentration I'm not sure.

My DD is a late August birthday but bright and did well at school so it’s not really a birth date issue for DS. There’s more to it than that. It’s more to do with his attainment and probably progress. A child who is September born might have the same issues.

The behaviour policy doesn’t sound like any policy I have seen. Do get a full copy and also look at what the government recommends should be in a behaviour policy. There should be plenty on reinforcing good behaviour and rewards as well as sanctions.

Ask for a meeting to discuss your concerns. I would definitely try and go for targeted TA support in lessons. This should keep him better focussed and his work should be differentiated so he can learn and achieve some progress, although it might be small steps. Ask to see his progress profile for the whole year. How much progress has he made? Is the IEP focussed on language help? Try and look at the broader picture of what he needs to learn effectively in the classroom.

Wow crunchtime. Do you have any idea about children with additional support needs? It seems not.

It all sounds a bit unclear. If a child has an IEP then, according to the SEN Code of Practice, they are on SEN Support and they are only put on SEN support if they are receiving support in some form from an outside agency. If you haven’t had regular meeting to update the IEP, and if no outside agency is involved, then it suggests that he has been taken off SEN Support without you knowing. I would ask to meet the teacher and the SENCo to ask for clarification. You can also discuss what specific strategies are being used (doesn’t have to have an IEP for this) and then ask to meet again in a few months time to see if the strategies are working.

Thankyou for you help everyone.
Statistically August born boys do achieve the worse in school, take a few years to catch up, and it is very well know that summer borns (obviously not all) are more likely to struggle in the first few years of school so I expected problems but it does seem that it could be more than this. I did try to push for a reception start at CSA for this reason but failed.

I went through his bag last night and school have sent home some work he's been doing. There's one piece with about 10 lines and the teacher has wrote next to it that this is 1.5 hours of work. Also wrote next to it is a message asking him to re-write it (I can see why he would have a meltdown at this!!!!) and another piece from another day with about 13 lines with writing next to it stating 2.5 hours of work. Is this appropriate? Should he be expected to sit for 2.5 hours completing the same piece of work that he is clearly struggling with?

Please have a look at Dyslexia

The poor concentration processing and not following instructions all tie together

He needs to be assessed

(Look up 37 signs of dyslexia)

That will be say half an hour a day over 5 days or similar - not all in one go

This is really really poor OP. Their negativity is shocking!!
Get yourself over to the SN section to get some proper advice from many of our SN mums who are extremely knowledgeable.

Good thinking Oblov. Thanks x

Do you think the comments about the length of time the work has taken is more "this is an extended piece of work, and not a quick piece" comment?
My Y2 boy who is 3 months older than yours would not sit for an hour and a half writing something, but would write more than 13 lines in a 30 min lesson (assuming the topic interested him!)

Achievable and realistic goals to take you to the end of the year - set with input of Senco, and maybe a chat with next year's teacher, if that information is known to the parents currently sound like goodcways forward -i assume you only have 3 or 4 weeks left?