ADHD in secondary Grammar school

[Whereisthesunny]

Ds is in yr7 and keeps getting in trouble in the afternoon for shouting out as struggles with focus by then. Any suggestions i could ask school to try. He is not medicated. He is allowed breaks but it still happens.
Would also be interested in those who chose grammar for their ADHD child and moved them later on. Son hates it and wants to move school and i can’t see if this would be better in local secondary as surely ADHD would be still affect him the same way.

Is DS actually having breaks or does he need prompting to have a movement break?

What is DS doing and eating at lunchtime?

Does or can the school offer sensory circuits? If so, timing these to help after lunch may help.

Would you consider medication?

I don’t know the answer to most of these questions as by the time i hear about issues it’s got to the head of the year and all these details are lost.
i get secondary is not as hands on i don’t ever seem to hear from the sen department.
i would change school i think before i put him on meds but might have to consider it

his teachers would know what exactly is happening but there is no communication from them. it always passed on to the head of year to contact me

You should request a meeting with the SENCO. Have you ever had a conversation with them about the support DS needs? Does DS have an IEP or similar if the school calls them something else? Do you have teachers email addresses?

We have been called in for a meeting as they are struggling with his disruptive behaviour of shouting in trying to be funny. when they take him out of class he seems better but u guess they can’t go on like this.
My son requested to go on a behaviour log again as he feels he does better when he has to be accountable but again so just had a call for mum&dad and ds to come in and have a chat about how to go forward.
Any advice on what else i can suggest to meet his needs?
He’s been given a toilet pass which allows him to go out for a break but he doesn’t use it unless he is sent out.
Im not sure what else i can suggest to them to try

I think without knowing ds it’s difficult to judge or suggest.
He is super articulate and acts very mature one to one and is a pleasure to be around.
His issues arise when he is in class or ant break time amongst his peers and is trying to dominate or be funny or feels anxious or frustrated about work. That’s when inappropriate behaviour happens.
Social anxiety i assume is part of it but maybe to top it with adhd is not a great mix.

But again i wouldn’t say he would be happy at home without other children around.
Its a very difficult and fine line achieving contentment with him

I would go back to starting with the original questions. Have you spoken to the SENCO? Is there an IEP in place? Is DS having movement breaks or does he needed to be prompted to like he only uses the toilet pass if sent out? As well as proper movement breaks teachers can help my engineering movement during the lesson e.g. using DS to hand out books. Does the school offer sensory circuits? What is DS doing and eating at lunchtime?

In addition to those, do they have a mentor who can work with DS? Have they looked at placement within the classroom? Do they have a social/nurture group?

Thanks for these. He is in year 7 so not sure if the social/nurture groups are more of a primary school level?!
He has had a meeting with a mentor i think a couple of times. Will ask what the outcome of that was when we are seeing them.
Last time i spoke to senco was about 3 months ago after parents evening and we agreed on the movement break for him and he was then given a toilet pass to use when he feels he needs it.He does not have an ehcp.
this is a grammar school and i get the feeling that they don’t want him there.
He has voiced several times that he wants to move school to his local one to be with his old school friends but i feel for him it’s just a superficial reason as he actually finds secondary rules hard to obey but i feel these problems will be there locally too.
So based on this i think he is a hassle for school and they would rather he moved.
The call today didn’t highlight any major incidents but lots of low level ones that even the head of year agreed is down to his adhd.
Am i wrong to think that we can’t aim to perfection here and it’s expected to be a bit of a tough ride due to his adhd?!

Request to speak to the SENCO again. Even though DS doesn’t have an EHCP, does he have an IEP? You could request an EHCNA yourself.

Lots of secondary schools have social/nurture groups.

Is the toilet pass acting as a pass for movement breaks? They should be separate and DS needs prompting to use the pass for movement breaks.

Many with ADHD do find school difficult, but much more can be done to support DS.

If he himself would like to try a different school, there would be no harm in looking into the position re in year admissions, going for a tour etc?

Going on my experience of teaching in grammar and in comprehensive, there will be more kids like him in a comprehensive.

He's obviously bright to have passed the grammar tests.

Better to consider a move now than get to year 9 and find it's too late.

The problem you might find if you move him is that you get far less support than you do now - especially if he is bright and achieving, as the grammar will probably have far fewer SEN kids and almost certainly far fewer with complex needs.

There is so much pressure on resources right now that in our experience if child is not suffering hugely from mental health issues or failing everything then you are pretty much on your own. Disruption in class is likely to just result in an awful lot of time in detentions.

Is there a reason you haven't tried medication? It's been completely life-changing for us (high-achieving 15 year old with ADHD and severe dyslexia).

It's hard to say - depends on the specific school - but the grammar I worked in had little idea how to support SEN kids precisely because there were hardly any. There was a part time SENCO with two other roles, no TAs, no counselling, no resource space or SEN space, no social skills support, no nurture type support. It was sink.or swim. They were OK with dyslexia but that was about it.

yes he is very academic (possible ASD) hence his primary suggested grammar will challenge him. His older sibling attends local comp and all his mates are there too so he is feeling like he is missing having to travel.
I fear that academically he won’t be challenged plus he will have lots of partners in crime to mess around.
I don’t have experience with this grammar but i don’t feel they know what they are doing with his adhd. I had to give them advice as to how to handle a melt down he had a few month back.
Actually my idea was that grammar would have a lot more sen students but more of asd due to academics but maybe that’s wrong.
i certainly think adhd is not a common sen for grammar

What does their latest Ofsted report say is the % of SEN students on roll and what does it say about how they do with them?

What contact did you have with the SENCO, if any, before he started?

Can’t see actual numbers but report mentions SEND students do exceptionally well and are happy. Not sure if that’s much to go on

You can search for the most recent statistics here. You will be able to see the percentage of pupils on SEN support at the school and the percentage with EHCPs and how that compares to England. But they don’t tell you the type of SEN, which I think plays a significant part in if a school meets a pupil’s needs.

Having been at a grammar myself, and having looked at a very wide range of schools for DD, I suspect ADHD is not that common at grammar.

Around 70% of kids with ADHD will also have dyslexia, and I know when we were looking it was very clear that the vast majority of selective schools were only really set up to deal with high-functioning ASD and the mildest of dyslexia. Even though DD's ADHD is very much a focus issue and not a behavioural issue at school (she saves the 'H' part for home) we felt it wouldn't be fair to put her in a selective school.

I have friends with ADHD kids in selective indies and grammars and none of them have found that they are in any way set up for the realities or even basic understanding of the issues around organisation or executive function or shouting out/fidgeting.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow thanks for this. They seem to be very willing to try out techniques and are open for me to suggest things but not really sure what else to suggest. They gave him a toilet pass and is allowed to have a break/walk with it. However i started to think that while agreeing all these with head of year, it doesn’t seem to translate into the actual classroom with teachers. Perhaps they are not used to it and so he is still constantly getting into trouble with teachers but they just get the head of year to deal with him/me so a lot of the actual details or info is lost by the time head of year speaks to me.
Its hard not to be able to speak to teachers like we did in primary as it makes things so much transparent.

The SENCO should be ensuring teachers are aware of DS’s needs and the support he requires. Can you request the email addresses of DS’s teachers. If they won’t provide them, can you ask them to forward an email you send to the HOY outlining DS’s needs. If they won’t do that, I would give each teacher a written sheet at the next parents’ evening.

@Headfirstintothewild thanks for the link. funny enough the send number on roll is blank and so is the type of sen provision.

when i had parents evening i remember talking to one of his teachers who would tell me he gets very fidgety by the end of the day so i asked her if he can just have a walk/ break and she point blank said no for safety reasons he can’t just wonder around.
2 min later i was talking to senco and i asked why he can’t just have a walk/movement break which they replied of course he can and they had already spoken to teachers so they know about it. i said the teacher had just told me it’s a big no and they looked surprised but i realised the communication is not all there so perhaps i need to push that more next time.

Has the school become an academy relatively recently? The latest figures are from 22/23, so if the school has opened (including when they have become an academy) it will be blank and you will need to look at the ‘old’ school profile.

Otherwise the statistics should be there under ‘absence and pupil population’. Not the number, but the % with SEN support and the % with EHCPs.

When you click ‘get information about schools’ under ‘show more school details’, unless the school has an ARP/unit or is a special school the ‘type of SEN’ being blank is correct (unless, as some have, the school has misunderstood how to complete their data set). And unless the school has an ARP or SEN unit the “Resourced provision number on roll” and “Special Educational Needs (SEN) unit number on roll” should be blank (again, unless the school have not understood how to report their data).

I would email his teachers individually and spell it out if you can.

I assumed all DD's teachers were fully aware - she has a laptop for everything, is not shy about her SEN and the SENCo had assured me (in writing) that all teachers were fully aware and trained and had a SEN plan. I was a bit sceptical given that I knew none of the things in the plan were actually happening in practice.

When the school report came out and subject after subject said that DD would do so much better if only she could learn to properly focus and pay attention, alarm bells went off... along with another email to the SENCo. Parent's evening the following week had one teacher saying 'I'm so sorry about the report, I had no idea she was ADHD till yesterday, so that rather explains the lack of focus doesn't it...'

So now I don't trust any of them and am just emailing each teacher with a list of issues to be aware of and what strategies are likely to get the best results.

@Headfirstintothewild thank you found it. 1300 students 0.5% with ehcp and 13% Sen support

@OhCrumbsWhereNow thank you. it’s quite a difficult situation as ds is adamant he wants to leave and so i think school would be much happier if we just did that and i can’t blame them for it.

For comparison, my outstanding comp (similar size) has 5% EHCP and nearly 18% SEN support. That's why I'll be sending my DD (ADHD, ASD) there and not to one of the grammars and independents that most of her friends are going to.

It was a tough decision but I want her to feel like she fits in and for staff to see her difficulties as everyday and frequently encountered.