son left with trousers on wrong way and unfastened all day

[Joyx2boys]

Hi I received a letter from my child's school which said he would be starting a outdoors activities block with the dates for commencement, ans stated "to help your child successfully participate in sessions can you send them to school with the following items on each of these dates" a list of outdoor clothing followed. there was no time mentioned or if he needed a change of clothing. I dressed him in warm clothes with wellies & put his school clothes in his school bag in case he needed them and took him to school. at 3pm I went to collect him, he came out wearing his school clothes which were filthy and his trousers were on backwards! his head was hung low and he said look and turned around to show me that his trousers were not fastened and his underwear was clearly visible, he said the outdoor learning was after lunch so they told him to get changed when he arrived. he'd put his trousers on the wrong way, but instead of his teacher telling him to go sort them she left him to sit in class all morning like that, and he went to lunch and play like that as well. after lunch when the class was told to change into there outdoor clothing another teacher told him just to put his jacket on and his scarf & gloves, so he spent the entire out door activities trying to stop his trousers falling down. I asked my son how he felt about it and he said he was sad :( I went into school and asked to talk to his teacher who said we assumed you'd know the activities are always in the afternoon, (I don't attend them and have never had a letter saying there in the afternoon) then she said I'm not here to dress your child, she was quite abrupt about this. which made me really angry but I'm not good at confrontation. I phoned and asked the assistant head about it and she said "you spoke to his teacher, i'm not sure what more I can add?". I'm not sure what to do? my child was degraded and he was left at risk of being injured, because he struggled all day to hold his trousers up. he also comes home a lot with his shoes on the wrong feet, i'd spoke to his teacher about that last yr and she say's we like them to have independence. I will not leave it like this but not sure what to do about it? they are still being independent if the teacher say's you have your shoes/trousers on the wrong way swap/turn them around, children's feet are growing having shoes on the wrong feet for long periods of time is surely damaging?

Bunnybigears

Wether a child has additional needs or not makes no difference. No child should be left to walk about like that all day. Then to top it off when all the other kids were told to change ops ds was told not too, why? Because they couldn't be bothered helping him?
OP you would have every right to be upset, I'm upset for you and your son reading your posts! I wpuld be fuming and I think I may well put in a formal complaint, especially because the school is aware your son may have additional needs! I would ignore most of the responses on here. If this happened to any of these people's children they would be fuming.

Typical MN, teachers do no wrong. Actually this teacher sounds like a dick!

Did your son ask the teacher for help or tell the teacher his trousers were falling down - in a P3 class I wouldn't have thought a teacher would be 'on the lookout' for clothing issues but would offer advice if approached.

Could you help your son manage a bit better, perhaps by buying or adapting his trousers to have elasticated waists rather than fastenings, so the risk of him not being able to manage the fastenings is removed - I think that will be a more sustainable solution than expecting the teacher to deal with it.

I do think the teacher could have said “they are round the wrong way, please go sort them” but I do think Yabu to be outraged. I’d be more annoyed about the fact another teacher said to just put a coat on and his school clothes were filthy. Why bother asking you to bring outdoor wear then?

You said your son has memory issues and difficulty following instructions
Could have have been confused? Could the teacher have instructed him and he didn't follow the instructions? Could his teacher have asked him to change and he 'forgot?'
You said he lashed out - maybe the teacher took a risk all and decided it wasn't worth the kick off?

I think you need to speak to the teacher and ask relevant questions and work on these areas at home - and see if school will over him some one to one help for his difficulties

he just turned 7yrs the school try to put assistant in where needed but there's not a lot of them, and he is not diagnosed with anything so nothing has been put in place, it has been a very long process with the referrals waiting on appointment which are far apart, then they lost his paperwork so everything had to get started over, he has test he's to go for but still no appointment on when. I have asked to speak to the head or the assistant head to discuss what happened but she wasn't helpful, when she phoned, I just said I would still like to come in for a chat about it, she said she'd phone when she had time.

Well there's clearly an issue and they should treat him as if he has a diagnosis - as professionals they should be ale to guess the right lines of diagnosis

Most likely dyslexia dyspraxia and maybe ADHD or ASD and help accordingly

I also think the school is remiss here. They think your son needs to learn "independence" but clearly the issues go further, I have no idea if a teacher knew why they didn't send him off to get changed, that would be a normal human reaction,

Unless of course they did, and your child is maybe confused as to what he was asked to do?

You say you are in constant contact with his doctors. How about his teachers? If the school are aware that your ds needs extra help, it seems odd that not just his class teacher but others, like lunch time supervisors, Ta, anyone hasn't recognised that your ds 's trouser was falling that it could be a risk of injury/accident.

So, a lot of additional info here, which makes a big difference to how people respond. It is clearly not reasonable to expect your DS to be able to dress himself correctly without assistance. The school should know this and be able to find strategies to help him.

Whilst you're going through the process of getting a diagnosis and the right support at school, can you investigate ways to help him with basic tasks? How does he manage with PE changing at the moment?

Can you get trousers that are just pull on with nothing to do up? I think Marks & Spencer's do these up to a high age range. Same with the shoes - there are lots of ways you can modify them so he can work out which way round to put them on.

Is there any way you can look at other schools? Reading back through your posts I see he's being bullied and excluded from friendships, and the school aren't addressing this. That combined with the lack of interest in addressing his additional needs adds up to a big failing on their part.

Poor kis. Giving him 5 mins to change back to normal would not be the end of the world. It is not the end of the world if he wears his clothes inside out or back to front either but a little bit of sympathy goes a long way.

I teach a similar age/size of class. Wouldn't have left your ds all day like that - my TA or I would have talked him through it. I'm all for independence but children first of all need to be comfortable and confident to learn. Plus we're nice people who don't want children to feel embarrassed. My teaching baseline is that you trust us every day with the thing you love most in the world. We as teachers need to make sure they are safe, happy and challenged in their learning.

I don't quite see how you misinterpreted the dress code in the first case but such things happen.

I think you'd have got a very different response if we'd known about all this additional info.

Yes this school doesn't appear to be meeting his needs and you need to chat to them.

Send an email and ask for a response in writing. Anything they commit to paper they think harder about. You need a paper trail going forward about all aspects of his time there.

As others had said you would have had a completely different response had you explained your ds’s age and difficulties he is facing.

The teacher sounds unkind, is not acknowleging your child as an individual and I can see why you escalated it higher.

I forgot to add. Yes to the paper trail.

Even without the extra into about SEN, the way the school have spoken to you is unacceptable. If the school's attitude to parent's concerns is usually to brush them off like this and be short with you, I'd be considering a new school. School is a partnership.

My DC's school wouldn't dress them, they expect them to be independent. But I can't see them not telling them if their bum was hanging out of their clothes. And if I spoke to them about it, they'd explain their policy of not dressing them in a friendly way, not make me feel shit about it.

I'm not sure what you hope to achieve. The school thinks the matter is closed and there is no point in further discussion.

I think the school have been a bit slack tbh, both in not telling you whether they had to come dressed in their outdoor clothes, and then not making sure he had the right clothing on and spoiling the school clothes, as well as not giving him time to sort himself out or help him.

Sometimes as a working parent who isn't in the playground every day it does feel like you are expected to know these things by osmosis.

I don't think the OP only saying later that her son has additional needs excuses the earlier unkind responses from other posters.

I feel the trouser situation must have been exaggerated here.... surely his bum/pants can not have been that visable or falling down or he would have thought to nip to the loo and change them around. Also surely the teacher or even someone he came into contact with would just say ooooops trousers wrong way, go and change them. She mustn't have noticed! At that age the pace of the day is very quick. I am a reception teacher and do not personally dress any children or even tie up laces for PE (why send dc with laces for PE if you know they can't do them, but that's another thread) as they need independence but I would always scan round and check nothing obvious has gone wrong. The odd button missed etc I just leave because you'd be there all day as pp have said. I wouldn't do it for them I would mention it quietly for them to fix themselves like shoes on wrong feet, jumper inside out etc. I have never experienced trousers on the wrong way.....that is quite an error to make. I'm assuming you get him dressed in a morning because I doubt that is something he'd get wrong if he practiced every day, SEN or not. I would also suggest that you encourage your dc to speak up and ask for help. All this needed was for him to go to the teacher and say, are my trousers right? And she would say no, other way. Simple. Unless she is a vile person who shouldn't be teaching she would not have ignored him. I'd put your concerns politely in writing and mention the attitude when you spoke to the teacher, although if you were rude to her first you should have fully expected that response. But do not ask for someone to help your child, you mention he is being bullied..... kids can be cruel and this would not help.

Russell19 Memory retrieval is a huge stumbling block to learning and being able to fulfill even quite simple tasks. My DD has ASD and learning needs and being able to dress herself is very difficult- add in a busy distracting environment and things do go wrong. Furthermore a child that has not been diagnosed but does have additional needs may well lack the confidence to approach staff members for help unless they have shown themselves to be supportive and non judgemental. The adults in the room are letting him down by ignoring these issues.

Op I think you are in Scotland so things may well work differently but can you contact the SENCO for a meeting. There are strategies that they can put in the place to help your child (short simple checklists and Makaton figures etc) which you can do at home and they can replicate at school to help cement his learning. He may need to get dressed somewhere quieter.
Good luck.

The tone has changed since OP said he has special needs. Does it? I just don't see it. OP says he was wearing trousers wrong way around that shown his underwear and to a danger of trip/accident degree.
I am sure any teacher/ta/super visors who have spotted would say something.
If you really think school has ignored it and let him suffer embarrassment, the school is not the good school. If the fact isn't that severe as op claims and and no one noticed it, there's no one to blame. Only thing OP can do is to have more convo with school so he can have more close eye on him.

Russell19 if the OP's child is anything like my daughter, who has a diagnosis of dyspraxia, with some sensory processing issues in terms of being under sensitive to some types of sensory input (she's oversensitive to sound but really undersensitive to touch) then it's fairly likely that they may well not "feel" that their clothing isn't on correctly at all - DD2 can be utterly and totally oblivious to things like clothes on back to front, collars turned in and shoes on the wrong feet. She also doesn't "see" the right way around for clothing, or what clothing is on the wrong part of the body or inside out - she'll basically throw nearest limb into nearest hole and call it a done job.

We try to minimise this as much as possible - she has the easiest option to dress and undress herself available chosen for her, I've got nametapes sewn into her clothes that say "back" on them, and we have stickers in her shoes to try to get them on the right feet - but school are aware of her difficulties and do have her as someone to take an extra bit of help with when it's PE day and the like and cast an eye to check shoes are on the right feet and the like as it's definitely not lax parenting, but an issue related to her SEN.

Forgot to mention Marks and Spencer's sell some great easy dressing school trousers and shirts (designed in conjunction the Autistic Society) which have been brilliant for my daughter. Well worth having a look at.

What contact have you had with the senco of the school about this-have you made them aware that he is unable to dress himself?