Your thoughts, please

[Minx179]

I was talking to a colleague, her dd (9) has undiagnosed/unrecognised ld's, maybe adhd.

Her dd is very chatty, loses concentration, fidgetty etc. Due to the disruption this caused in class, she had to spend a number of breaks/lunches having to walk round with a TA. Her DD informed her she liked the TA because they play a good game, on questioning it turned out the game was 'see how long you can be quiet'; they play this 'game' most days .

Unsurprisingly this led to further disruptions after breaks/lunch followed by further breaks and 'games' with the TA.

Don't want to go into too much detail, but as the title asked what are your thoughts?

Sounds awful. If I were the mother I would be concerned and wanting a meeting at school to clarify what support is being given and how this time is being utilised. My ds was told at infant school that he could go no more than 2 feet away from LSA and sometimes had to hold hands with them whilst playing! Needless to say school always said they had big problems in the afternoon (as he had not had a chance to run around).

As a teacher I'm completely and utterly confused by the suggestion that a child who is disruptive in class will become less disruptive if she walks around 'seeing how long she can be quiet' during the active and free parts of the school day!?!

It's good that your colleague's DD likes the TA but I can't help thinking it would be better if the TA was able to support her in staying on-task in class (perhaps pre or over-learning something if appropriate or taking her for a run around the playground between finishing the carpet session and moving to independent work at tables).

If she were my DD I'd want to know what the basis was for deciding this was a good way to support my DD and would ask for the breaks to be timetabled active sessions that helped her learning rather than silent isolation sessions that excluded her from her learning and her peers.

I am possibly a bad mother, because I sometimes play this game with my DD1, who constantly talks, often starting a new sentence before getting more than 2 words of the first sentence out.

If she likes the game, and isn't being punished if she doesn't manage to be quiet, then I don't see the problem. The problem comes if she is being forced to be quiet.

I'm not sure how the conclusion can be drawn that the walking with the TA led to further disruption. If she was disruptive prior to the walking, then it can't be as a result of the break activity.

I think the real issue here is tackling the classroom activity, not the break activity.

it sounds like she needs some time where she can be loud etc, i know if someone tried with my ds to keep him quiet during breaks etc then he would be even worse in class as he hasnt had an outlet, id think it would be worth speaking to the school about that, i know i wouldnt be happy about it, but then again my ds is in ms but has 2 workers from sn school come out once a week and is being tested for adhd atm, but his school look at me like stupid young mum...pfft lol, but imo it will be making her more distruputing during class, every child needs time to make noise etc xx