SENCO suggests waiting but classroom teacher wants further assessment ASAP.

[Cadmum]

Our DS1 (9) really struggles with spelling. The classroom teacher is convinced that we should involve an educational psychologist immediately but the Special Ed teacher suggested that we ought to wait.

Now I am more confused than ever. Any advice gratefully received.

Hi Cadmum
my ds1 is also 9 and he has always struggled with reading writing and spelling. He has been at school action plus since reception and has been seen by the LEA educational physc in year one and year three. She was very unwilling to DX anything and kept on saying we should wait and see.
In september we decided that we had waited long enough and had a private assessment and he now has a DX of dyslexia with dyspraxic traits.
He has always had some extra help at school and this has not increased even though we have a DX, but we now pay for a specialist tutor, as we now know what type of help he needs.
I would suggest that you push the school for an assessment, I believe that you have a right to request that your child is seen if the teacher is expressing concern.
I wouldn't want to wait any longer, as if there is some type of problem, it is best to try and get to the root cause of it before he goes to secondary school.
I would send a letter to the senco requesting that your child is seen asap. Good luck

Agree with what has been said. Most SENCOs are f* useless and will try and fob you off. Remember, they work for the LEA/Council and are mainly there to try and save ££. Some are good I am told but still under orders from their employers.

If you child is struggling you must push VERY hard for assessment/extra help. It might take a term to get the assessment so apply now and just ignore the SENCO if she is not being helpful.

Thank you so much for your replies.

We are actually living in Austria at the moment. The school he attends is a private International one but all that actually means is that we pay dearly to send him there. As far as I can see his teacher is not very well suited to deal with a child that has difficulties of any sort (Would love to push all square pegs into round holes...) She seems to delight in pointing out every mistake he makes (and you certainly don't need to look hard to find spelling ones. ) The SENCO was fabulous and in her assessment she only felt that spelling was the issue. (As it happens her daughter is dyslexic and is at Oxford doing her PhD so she really knows from personal experience how challenging things will be for our DS.

He reads all of the time and thankfully even when assessed by the SENCO he read with 99% accuracy at a 12 year+ level (whatever that may mean!) His teacher seems to think that this may not be the case as she is convinced that he guesses and substitutes words often but I am 99% certain that this is because he is really afraid of her and cannot possibly read to her without making mistakes.

Cadmum - it may be that your son struggles with the phonology of words.
Phonology it the ability to ues sound in language accurately.

So it could be that when he reads he recoginises a word that he has seen before and knows what to say, but when he has to spell, he has to work out what the breakdown of the word is and what the sound is of each bit of the word is.

This sounds quite confusing I know, but if you don't know what the correct phonic sounds are it is hard to spell.

I know this because I suffer from this as well as my son, I can read no problem, but when faced with a new word, I sometimes struggle to know how to pronounce it. I am also a dreadful speller, which is a problem when you can't spellcheck on MN

I hope this makes sense.

Isgrassgreener,

It may indeed be an issue of phonology... He is a very bright child (but who doesn't think that of their own child, right?) that really finds it challenging to spell in English. He does not seem to struggle as much with german spelling and he contends that it is because the language is phonetic.

I think that we will speak with the Educational Psychologist to discuss the pros and cons of an evaluation. I will also ask the SENCO why she recommended waiting. It was nearly impossible to speak to her at the meeting the other day as the classroom teacher kept interrupting. I feel more inclined to listen to her opinion since she is the one who works with children who have special educational needs and because of her own experience with her daughter.