Memory Difficulties and Secondary School

[Faultymain5]

Sorry this is long, I've always been anxious about my Preemie but her dad is the most laidback person in life. So when he is upset and anxious, I realise I am justified

When my DD was 7 she was having so many problems with her reading we suspected Dyslexia and eventually had her tested. However, on testing, they said it wasn't dyslexia but that she had a auditory and memory sequencing issue.

In year 4 she had a helpful teacher and a tutor and seemed to make progress.

However, in Year 5 we stopped the tutor and things seemed to slip.

She has had continuous interventions throughout her school life and she has only really made progress in Year 4, it's a topic we have discussed with the SEN teacher at school as well as her Year 5 teacher. Nothing seems to have helped and after Year 5, the interventions are still in place but there seems to be a lack of progress overall. We're not best pleased with her Year 6 teacher as he doesn't seem to care, his answer was "she will jsut have to figure out a way to make it work". I guess that's fair enough if they have tried everything, but that's his statement after 6 weeks of not working with her. She has had difficulty developing the tools that have assisted in the past, because they don't seem to have given her any guidance. And routines seem to be disrupted quite frequently in the last term. Things like setting spellings and not doing the tests, messes with her routine, that particularly is a bugbear for many parents (parents whose children are normal I sometimes overhear). I'm a little frustrated with the school, saying she doesn't fit a criteria for extra help (but may be able to qualify for extra time in exams), with her new teacher being too busy to deal with something, I'm thinking, (but have no understanding of how a school is run so could be wrong) that could be run by a teaching assistant. I'm frustrated by the fact we have spoken about these issues numerous times prior to now and it's only now that the SATS are coming that they are concerned with extra Booster classes, even though they don't go through anything and just make her work througn workbooks and when things are wrong, just mark them as wrong and leave her not knowing. Even the Booster classes are worthless. The poor girl has to go to school early and leave late 3 times a week and she still has to come home and do school work at the weekends. Her foundation is completely off (and she' s not the only one) yet, they're busy introducing Algebra, to kids that still have trouble with some of their timestables.

Finally, the question. How much worse will it be in secondary school, with what presents as undiagnosed APD. How on earth do you get extra time in exam if you don't fit enough of a criteria to get any assistance, prior to exams?.

My old boss' daughter had APD, and didn't get any real help to college. And should we just get another Tutor for her for the rest of her school life?

Okay, so it was a bit of a rant as well, but hope it's understandable.

You may well find it gets better in secondary. We did.

At primary they kept saying she wasn't too bad, others were worse, passed dyslexia screening test etc.

We asked for re-screening at start y7.

My prem DD2 also, it turns out, has auditory processing issues, (plus general processing stuff too). Which is apparently why she misses out whole syllables in words.

She has had extra time for all assessments since near the start of secondary. They have tried to teach her to type, but DD2 hasn't got on well with it.

DD1 (dyspraxia, rubbish at note taking) was given hard copies of notes to annotate, rather than having to write all her own.

Both DDs had English intervention (though that might only be because they qualify for PP).

That said, we are also doing external English tutoring for DD2, as the 1-1 really helps her.

In late June, (after GCSEs are over), I would contact the SENCO of the new school and ask for a short meeting.

Thanks for this, I realise I'm being a little panicky and this has helped me to start formulating a plan. We have parents evening tomorrow and I think my DH will be calmer than he was yesterday concerning what's happening at the primary. Especially, if he thinks there is light at the end of the tunnel.

God I could have written your entire post including Algebra when they can't do timetables and a useless year 6 teacher.

We are at the end of year 11 and still have a lot of issues BUT the Senco has been great and put in place extra time in exams, a reader for exams and also coloured paper. She has a whole learning plan on how they are meant to support her in class. If I'm honest it's often not stuck to in the slightest and a constant battle for Senco and myself to raise with some teachers but it's more than primary.

I won't pretend it's been easy because I'm going to literally cry with relief in June when she leaves but I've found that testing is a lot easier to gain in secondary in our experience.

Our problem lay mainly that my daughter was quiet and obedient mostly so the Senco in a large secondary was tied up with kids who had greater or louder kids and she slipped under the radar.

She's in a smaller school now and Senco care is massively improve although now she has different issues.
Definitely make an appointment to see Senco and the learning support team when they go for visits.

Or it could be worse because she has at least 10 different teachers who see her so infrequently (and teach 300 other children) that they never get the time working with her to figure out what works best for her...

I also think you should review the booster classes.

They've had 7 years to teach her.

If you feel the classes are being more stressful than helpful, then bin them. (Might well depend on how many are there and whether they are going at her pace or not).

Also, watch out for 'too much' assistance with SATs. As in if they suddenly start offering scribes or readers. Fine if you are happy, but if you feel they might overinflate her scores that is another matter.

Our secondary school has 'pupil passports' for the pupils with additional needs. It is a 1 page A4 with their photo, and bulleted points on what they struggle with, what helps, interests etc. It is accessible to all teachers via SIMS (or something). We, as parents, get input into it each year.

We also have a good 'contact teacher' system. I have used it to confirm with teachers topics for revision and stuff like that where DD hasn't quite grasped what was said in class.

Starsnotbows, I'm basically copy and pasting for my DH to have a read, I literally think there is nothing we can do for her in Primary and I don't want to stress her (though being a very compliant child, she'd never complain). But I think he will be his normal chilled self knowing we're not alone and that because others have gone bvefore us, we have a better idea of what to and how to ask for assistance.

TeenTimesTwo, Re: Boosters it's literally a text book that you could buy in WHSmith that she is working through. Practice is great, if you have a decent foundation. I'm going to see what DH is saying. Re: assistance I will check.

physicskate, that's what I'm worried about , I think I'm going to have to become "one of those parents".

@TeenTimesTwo - pupil passports can be really great when used well!! I once had 1/3 of the class with one - massively unsustainable when I also taught 11 other classes. And they sometimes included really inappropriate things like: must sit in the back as people behind this child can be distracting. Um, no he wanted to sit at the back so that he could throw bits of paper at people!!

DD's says 'responds well to praise' which I know is stating the obvious in some ways, but it really helps her motivation. She finds school such a struggle that teachers saying 'you are doing a good job, well done' helps keep her going.

My DD is the same. She has noticed that if it is something easy she gets called on but if it is something tricky that she needs to think a little harder about they will not ask her. That's not her memory, that's just how they make her feel at the moment.

I get exactly how you are currently feeling.

My daughter has dyslexia, audio processing and memory/sequencing problems. She isn't statmented- probably because of the cost to her primary. A few months before her SATS I was approached by the school to ask if I agreed that doing then wasnt in her best interests (it would reflect badly on the schools results although they didn't say that). I agreed that it would stress her out so she didn't have to sit them.

We have paid for years of tuition which has helped her gain the skills for life (reading and math basics) but so much of the extra work has not shown the results we hoped for. She will struggle to get any gcse grades despite trying harder than any other child I know- we are OK with that. She has so much more to offer, we have found that she can gain entry on to some college courses she would like without the gcse grades and can resit math and englis till she passe as an adult.

She is currently in year 9- we looked around high schools and picked based on who had the best SEN help. Found all schools spouted about being supportive but when asked to produce and demonstrate different resources some were merely babysitting rather than teaching. We also also talked about groupings, we feared she would be grouped with kids who were disruptive, we were told the school had an off the record knack for splitting the intervention kids in to 2 groups (disruptive and not dissruptive). She goes to a small secondary where she won't fall between the cracks. I also found that the ones with the best gcse results weren't the best for a SEN child, the kids struggle so much in them that they change to another school where they can get help. The one we picked had ok gcse results but openly told us they don't look great on paper aso they take a lot of SEN children.

She gets an amazing amount of intervention at her school, there is a lot more help for the kids who really need it (as a pose to her primary). We have found secondary much more supportive.
Main points.

+keep communication open with the new school- remain friendly so they want to go the extra mile for your child.
+don't listen to any other parents comparing their child's grades.
+set up a meeting with the new school as soon as possible and be frank with them about how much she struggles.
+find out about any taster or settle in sessions they have for kids who will struggle with the change.

• Ask them to have a meeting with her current school to discuss transition +Give them copys of any paperwork/school reports for her file
• Ask them to notify you who her key worker will be as soon as they assign one- this will be your main point of contact with any queries in the early days. +Get a meeting about 1 month after she has started, they would of had enough time to assess her and tell you what their plan of action is.
• Make sure you dd knows that she can keep going to her key worker if she is struggling with absolutely anything

Thats a mammoth message, sorry if there's any spelling/grammer mistakes. Hopefully something in there is helpfull to you. Good luck.

@claireandlily Thank you for this comprehensive list, another for DH to read. I’m going to put dates in the family diary to remind us to contact the new school. We’ve got parents’ evening tonight so this will be interesting.