D & T despair in Year 9 - the final straw

[Swanhildapirouetting]

Ds1 is 14 years old and he is dyspraxic.

He has no statement, and was only recently diagnosed with DCD. All his school work is pretty substandard at the moment, and he seems unable to concentrate on his homework for long. Homework club has resulted in very poor quality homework, so it hasn't improved his understanding even if it forces him to sit down and do it physically.

He has just done a 19 mile walk for D of E, and has a big role in a music production at school, so very preoccupied with that, all well and good, at least he has some self esteem from these areas. He is happy going into school, but not really any friends that he sees outside school.

In a vain attempt to try and tidy up his overflowing desk I find a Desk Tidy Project. Pages and pages of evaluation in D & T gobbledegook, no doubt very important if you are going to do the GSCE (which he isn't) He has printed out six pictures of a desk tidy, none of which you could possibly make in D & T (think plastic skull) He doesn't get it. He doesn't understand anything spatial. He cannot put it into words or evaluate it. It means nothing to him, although he likes making stuff in D & T and bringing it home afterwards and is very chuffed. It is just the process is not something he can put into words or evaluate.

So, there we are, another 4 hours of work he hasn't done/ completed and cannot make head or tail of. To add to all the other stuff he hasn't done properly, the RE he doesn't understand, the Maths he is having tutoring in, the Spanish he doesn't understand Vamos (just one example) the English he is getting a talking to over, the Science he cannot evaluate...I could go on. I just feel I am beating my head against a brick wall trying to keep him to understand all these things, and be self motivated.

Do I just ring up the D & T teacher and say, he cannot do this booklet, please please let him make the bloody thing without writing its life history. He is not doing the GSCE next year or any arty subject (music only)

oh yes, and he doesn't understand ICT either and hasn't done the project for that either, because he doesn't understand it, he says. He isn't doing Computer Science GSCE next year.

This is a high achieving boys' comprehensive btw. It is really that they expect him to have organisational skills that he doesn't possess. I am not sure what I should be asking them to do; when I've asked individual teachers to help they are all very engaged, but they keep saying he needs to ask if he doesn't understand. He doesn't ask and just hopes the problem will go away if he thinks about something else.

To be fair (and Call me Lazy) but I wouldn't worry about a D and T project really. It sounds like you are trying to cover the important things, which are Maths and English. No, don't ring the D and T teacher. It sounds like he is struggling a bit and the school will be aware already.

Good for you for trying to help though - it's bloody hard work sometimes - I'm familiar with the brickwall and homework scenario and have been trying to take a back seat, but it's hard.

I'd email the teacher and say basically what you have said here. With an offer of trying to help him to do the bare minimum.

Believe me there will be plenty of students who won't be doing anything because they are not taking it next year and they can't see the point any more and their parents won't be worrying about it.

The teacher will probably be sympathetic.

DD is just coming to the end of y10 and I have asked for a referral to be assessed for dyspraxia. She sounds similar to your son.

I have found I still have to do much more 'scaffolding' for her than I suspect the majority of her peers require. So any big task I help break it down and monitor progress.

I have stressed since y7 that everything must be written in the planner. She gets that and does it. I then check the planner at least once a week.

For a task like this for DT (now delightfully dropped) I would in theory have thought of the most simple things I possibly could that helped the brief, and then if necessary helped achieve it.

In your situation now I think I would write to teacher saying sorry it got lost, DS is a bit generally behind due to DofE etc, as you know he's dyspraxic so this task is over-the-top-effort-to-get-result, please can he not do it just this once?

I'm sorry your son is struggling, but as a severe dyspraxic myself i don't see any connection between most of the problems you are describing and dyspraxia.

Could there be another reason why he is having problems?

luggage organisation is one of the problems on the dyspraxia/DCD profile. He is quite organised in one sense, in that once he focuses he completely focuses, and has an excellent working memory, remembers appts that sort of thing, but he just tends to go for the most literal interpretation of most tasks and weighing up things does not come naturally to him. He has quite a simple view of the world, although perfectly quick and smart in some ways (ie: algebra, learning words for a song, picking up tunes)

It is just the D & T is the last straw really, for the parent who has to scaffold everything and what is sad is that Ds has clearly given up bothering to even try. Although I could say that is a blessing because it keeps him from anxiety and he doesn't tend to stress over his work at all (no perfectionist tendencies there I have three children and to be still organising a Year 9 is a bit depressing, (as well as two year 7s one with ASD)

honestly i'd say take him out of school (re: take him off roll), focus purely on the maths and english and pay to enter him in the exams. find things he loves doing and builds confidence from and focus on what he might like to do at an FE college at sixteen.

This does sound more like just being a 14 year old boy than being dyspraxic!

But most of them aren't like that Luggage, or they wouldn't be expecting him to do all this stuff! They have obviously pitched at some normal 14 year olds..or surely the curriculum would be a pointless exercise.

Although I totally agree about the bolshy teenage bit sometimes he is just delightfully normal lazy argumentative emotional

Badger I am considering that very thing with my second child in Year 7 [sigh] I think it is too late for ds1 though, and I cannot turn the clock back now.

Thank you everyone, I think I just need to focus on the scaffolding, as there isn't really any other solution. I will talk calmly to the D T teacher and explain the situation, hopefully he wont care at this late stage.

If it is any consolation, I still do plenty of scaffolding for by G and T, non dyspraxic, grammar school, DS14! He shouldn't need it. In fact, a few years younger, he didn't need it, but seems to have so much less energy and drive at this stage, and can take a very minimalistic attitude. I wouldn't be surprised to find such a D and t project on his desk.

This sounds like ds2 who is 12. We have routines for him as organisation is missing.

Step by step instructions are fine but if you give him the bigger picture he seems overwhelmed.

I broke down on parents evening when they told me they have arranged an ed psychologist for yr 8. I have been wanting this for years but primary said he was fine. At least now I know I am not imagining it. There is a pin prick of light at the end of a very long tunnel.

thanks to the sanity on this thread, I have asked ds calmly about the project and he said he doesn't need to do most of the pages but has done three sketches, and talked relatively benignly about mitring joints. We have stepped up the requests for fixed bursts of work, and he is presently doing some violin practice.

I feel much calmer, pressure off, but scaffolding on!

Is DS officially on the special needs register? If necessary, you could raise with the school the need to make reasonable adjustments for his disability which could include appropriate arrangements for homework and coursework.