Anxious yr 11 Dd, mixed moxk results and conflicting views from school

[tommy72]

Hello! I apologise in advanced; this is most likely going to turn into a massive rant, i'm lost at what to do next.
So, DD is in year 11, gifted but dyslexic... now that is about all i can 100% say she is as some teachers tell me she is the work of the devil challenging, where as others say shes quiet and anxious. Anxious i agree with... she has always been a worrier.
At the end of October she sat a hell of a lot a full series of exams.
Her results looked as it they were sat by 2 different people they are: 2 9s, 2 8s, 2 7s, 1 and 3 Us.
She did not cope with this at all; her anxiety went sky high, worst it has been since changing schools in year 9. Her body focused repetitive behaviours returned , scratching and lip biting, as well as regular panic attacks. After this period of mocks her 'bad' / 'coping' / i've no idea as everyone wants to call it something different behaviour returned. In the form of truanting lessons, avoiding situations she finds difficult (e.g assemblies, English lessons, social situations) and refusing to work. These have not gone away and are causing her to get in a lot of trouble at school (some quite rightly so) however DD is getting extremely stressed and building higher barriers.
We had parents evening last Thursday. Not one teacher could say the same thing about her... it went from "the barriers need holding and she needs to realise she cant get away with this, needs to work harder and revise more" to "she needs support, take the pressure off herself and relax". Honestly i felt like every teacher i spoke to was talking about a completely different child, and they're are all taking different, conflicting approaches to dealing with her.
I spoke to the year 11 SEN lead and all she basically said was "she's in the top pathways, getting ok results there is not much we can do to support her. She has her exam access in place and uses it. She needs to toughen up and buckle down."
This was completely different from the weekly chats i'm having with DDs mentor, who is telling me she needs support.

Now if i'm honest i'm not really sure what i'm asking. Any ideas or advice on what to and where to go next? . All i know is i have an extremely stressed, anxious DD who does not want to go back to school and, in my eyes, is not coping.
Thanks in advanced, was nice to let it all out.

Ok so 6th form..does she want to do Alevels or a BTEC type course? Don’t let school bully you Into not dropping the core subjects because they look better..do what’s best for her?

I think leave her over the holiday drop the odd question in but tell her you don’t want answers now but in a few days. Give her time to forumulate what she wants.

Get the school to get her seen ASAP by an Ed Psych they will give you a plan of action and it helps with the GCSES as school have a medical reason for putting stuff in place.

Poor girl sounds overwhelmed.

Op sounds very similar to my Dd year 11 except the high grades.

Things got worst with secondary every year until we had total school refusal for n year 10. My Dd is extremely anxious, has many tics and what your saying about teachers giving different reviews ring true.

Has your Dd ever been seen by a ed psych? If not I would recommend also go to GP and see who they can refer to I.e emotional health academy these have been fantastic for my Dd and she is now in the pathway for asd, asd presents very different in girls and is not uncommon for it not to be picked up until teenagers

She would like to do A levels at 6th form, however when in this state of mind says she can't as she won't cope.
She has no been seen by an ed psych so will push for this in the new year, before things get much worse.
Will push for her to drop PE and RE again- maybe bit more force needed? Any suggestions of how to go about this? Last time they said no as they need her attainment and progress 8 as its good in the other 6 boxes?
Would like to hope she'd be less anxious going back in January, but with the behaviour presented before i think shell dwell on it over holidays and find it even harder going back.

If she has already got a reader, scribe and extra time, an Ed Psych report is not going to be of any further practical benefit at this stage. Things like a separate room (which she may already have if she has a reader/scribe) are at the discretion of the school.

Long term, I would be focusing on an ASD Assessment via your GP if you believe that’s a possibility. In the short term, I would try and get her to see her GP about anxiety and try to get some counselling in place.

Some great answers here so I won't say much, but I would be on the phone to all my friends loudly talking about how amazing her maths and science results were, so that she could overhear. That's all I'd say in public. I might warn them beforehand so they didn't think I was being a twat.

To her I would just say that in 6 months time it will be over and the very worst case scenario is that she fails an exam or two, and who cares about that.

And I would get her an English tutor who specialises in SEN. Whether or not she has anything diagnosable, she is reacting in essay based subjects in a way consistent with a problem. She needs the support of knowing how to tackle the exam as a practical project like a jigsaw, where you can still make a picture visible even if there are some pieces missing.

I think she’s right about A levels unless she can find a way to cope, and it has to come from her. I would just tell school that her getting 6 or whatever it is minus the RE and PE is better than her getting none. Ask the senco what they are going to do to help her make them take responsibility as well. As a parent you can’t do this alone they need to work with you and your daughter to get her through. I was lucky my DDs schools totally could see where she was at and they bent over backwards to help. We all just wanted her in school daily and to pass. Having got in her mocks 7s and 8s she ended up with 4s and 5s as the stress took its toll. But she passed everything she needed and got into college. If she hadn’t have passed maths or English college would have let her do them again there, knowing that took pressure off. Good luck

Responded on other thread but lots of flags for ASD. School can put in place lots of different things, I have 11 year old with suspected ASD and he's got a TA about an hour a day, allowed to do non core lessons 1 on 1 in support hub, allowed to leave lessons if distressed and go to quiet room, homework is voluntary and this has helped turned him round from avoiding school to going and finding it OK. Ed psych report too. Had to fight to get this as no EHCP. Initially told no money need to find another school. Called LEA SEND team then help appeared.

You can also get schools with autism cabins if you can get a diagnosis, they do work 1-2-1 in there but its hard to get EHCP for this. You have to keep trying and expect to be rejected first time. Also has to be over first £6k, so someone needing TA one hour a day wouldn't get as school supposed to provide this. Trouble is school budgets cut to bone and sen budgets aren't ringfenced so can be raided.

My son is incredibly bright, doing logarithms at 7, its a myth you can't be bright and have ASD, lots of bright kids with it.

“My son is incredibly bright, doing logarithms at 7”
Gosh- did he use a slide rule as well? And was he born in 1960?

But I agree, lots of very bright children have ASD.

Re RE: I would say that the school's progress 8 scores are not your concern and that you are only interested in your daughter managing with lessened anxiety at this important time. I wrote to the head to ask my DS to be dusapplued from RE. I made it clear it wasn't that I thought RE was unimportant, but that DS was not going to pass (he got 13 percent in his last mock) and he really needed the time to focus on additional practice in English.
It was agreed but the school did say they would need a written request.

He would love to have been born in 1958 - favourite number is 158 though dread to think about school then. He tells me 158 is appearing everywhere now after Teresa May needed 158 to win. He loves maths and economics. Used to go round at primary asking mothers and staff if they knew the square of 32,000 and then telling them the answer and his maths teacher named him the human calculator. Does it all in his head and gets very annoyed at having to put methodology in as doesn't get that everyone else does not do these calculations in their head.

He's getting some mixed results at secondary but its as he's refusing to do some tests so they are being entered as 0. So French did 3 out of 5 parts, got excelling in those and zero in ones he didn't do so officially down as developing now. Though his report data is silly - first half term was excelling in French, second developing as he missed exams. He managed to get a U in dance as didn't enter but school at least will let him opt-out of these now so he has a break. Think boys are easier to get help for as they tend to let everyone know they have a problem and he's a complete PITA for teachers at times though varies from angelic to nightmare. Luckily just get angelic at home.

Looking to the future might help a bit. What about something like this

qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/btec-nationals/applied-science-2016.html

Alongside maths.

Just inform the school that’s she’s not doing PE or RE to ease her anxiety as she isn’t coping at all. They are entitled to grant her a reduced timetable. Meet with the
Senco and pastoral team. Go see the GP and ed psych and get everything noted formally so that
Allowances are respected

You can get an ed psych assessment privately if you want it done quickly

Take her to your GP to get her anxiety officially recognised. If possible get her a counsellor for it (you would be surprised/horrified by how many year 11s have CBT etc for anxiety).

Get her some tutoring support. My DD has come up with a strategy for English Language that she has a basic story that can be applied to most language "prompts", so she doesn't have to be "creative on demand". (DD has a ASD diagnosis.)

I would also investigate alternative 16+ provision. If the school is not helpful at GCSE it's unlikely to get better at A'level. A lot of schools seem to assume that problems disappear as pupils get older.

@DreamOnandOnRon
If that was genuinely what got them the results, then presumably they weren't actually doing anything too taxing during the school day...

She needs understand that it is important to pass at least one of the English, or be required to resit next year and be limited in her progression. One to one support going through sample questions and mark schemes may give her a structure to follow in an exam situation, almost more mathematical and detached in approach, which could help her produce answers and build up some basic marks, hopefully then enough to pass.

@marchingfrogs - even so, that is an obscene amount of work to get a child to do. 90% adults wouldn’t consider doing a 8.40 -3.20 day at work with commuting times both end and then doing another 4 hrs academic study on top at home

OP sorry for not offering any help to you - sounds like you are a caring and thoughtful parent who is advocating for your child which is the very best thing you can do for them.

Does she have an ASD diagnosis? She sounds very like some ASD girls I have worked with. Can she stop going to assemblies? They can be so stressful for many students.

Reader / Scribe - how does she actually use them? Does she get them to do all reading/ scribing or some? I’ve seen many a student with a reader / scribe sat next to them, unused for a couple of hours. Does she write a plan in English? Again I’ve seen students with scribes who seem to skip this. Does she ask tge reader to read back to her what has been written? I think if you can gauge how she uses the reader / scribe it will help. Does she use her extra time? If so how much?

Does she have access to Read Write Gold to read the Eng Lang reading paper? Has she been taught how to use it? How does she feel with it?

Sorry lots of questions! I would definitely see about removing her from assembly. Does she have a card allowing her to leave lessons if she needs to and a safe place to go? If not I would ask for them. The scratching etc sound very like coping strategies to deal with stress so school needs to seriously look at reducing this.

I would give serious consideration to dropping RS and PE (although this has a fair bit of cross over with Biology) so she can focus on English but of course this will pose a problem as to where she can physically go in school / who can supervise her / work with her.

Does she actually know how to use a reader / scribe effectively? If not maybe school can help with this?

Meant to say what are her views on English? Does she like it or does she view it as pointless and stupid?

Does she have very black and white thinking? How is she with understanding inference?

@KittyMcKitty

Thank you for response.
No she does not have an ASD diagnosis, this is something I have mentioned to both her secondary schools as well as her primary but all 3 said it would be unlikely as she is very social. Dd asked her head of year if she could stop going to assemblies. She said she could not, as many important announcements etc happen during assemblies.
She uses a scribe and reader for all exams except maths (where she reads and writes herself) though the maths department were not happy about this as they could see in her paper where she misread various questions resulting in loss of marks. She has them read/write the whole paper and tells me they go back through at the end, has the questions and answers re-read. If I can remember rightly she used extra time in all her exams except English, RE, Pe and physics although i'm not sure how much she used each time.
The only support given for reading in English is a computer reader, Dd hates these and does not use them.
The school banned 'retreat cards' 2 years ago as they were abused by many students- Dd did not have one at this time as shed only just joined the school.
I've tried on numerous occasions for RE and Pe to be dropped but the school say she cant because of attainment and progress 8- even though shes doing 10 gcses RE and PE do not share 'boxes' with any of her other choices.
Dds views on english are mixed... she likes books, novels and poetry when read to her and makes great inference- English teacher tells me she makes the best verbal comments in the class. Dd says she prefers subjects like maths and science, as its either right or wrong and there's no two ways about it. When i asked english teacher what she thought was goin on she said " She does struggle with structuring her answer, but in class after digesting the question and being read the text she can produce written work.The problem comes when faced with this and having to read the texts in English exams she panics and freezes."

She’s only not allowed the reader in the reading section of English Language- is she getting it for the other papers / components? She can have a reader for all of Lit. I’ve attached the relevant bit from JCQ regulations.

Maths she should use her reader and I would push her to (although of course the reader can’t read any symbols ( x % etc) only point to them.

Seriously I would push for removing from assemblies. Also I would suggest calling any local ASD support groups - she sounds so like girls I have worked with. I know many ASD students who are highly sociable and socially competent. Girls also mask better leading to the self harming coping strategies.

How is her behaviour at home?

I would suggest deciding what you want and then telling school - the risk of not acting is her mental health deteriorating further / her becoming a school refuser.

Does she have access to a school counsellor?

Forgot attachment!