what would you do?

[isthatallyouvegot]

A little back ground. My Ds is 8 with possible HFA he used to be on an IEP for besd and also extra help with lessons, after a very bumpy year and a change in teacher resulting in him making progress with his work his additional help was removed but he was left on the IEP for besd. After several weeks of working in a small group within the class room during his English lessons, completing any unfinished work during his next lesson etc he is now on his own with his English work (something we have had constant battles with over the years) he became even slower to complete and is now not completing it at all (we know because he tells us to save him becoming anxious about it). I am pretty sure we are about to be bombarded with notes from his teacher because he is not completing his work and in all honesty we have exhausted all ideas to try to help with this from a supportive parents point of view. what would you do? would you suggest that the teacher speaks with the SENCO or do you have any ideas that we could try to help? thanks

I would suggest that you speak with the SENCO to be honest. If he is not able to complete his work then either it is too hard for him or he is not receiving enough support.

Either way his needs are not being met and he is not going to be making any progress.

I would go and see the SENCO and ask what they are going to put into place to support him.

Also look at applying for a statement for him, you can do it yourself but it is good to have the support of the school.

Keep coming on here and try asking more specific questions to maybe get more help.

Good luck

ok thankyou for the advice. In all honesty he was assessed by an educational psychologist a few months back and he showed to be more than capable of doing the work, she did say that if he continued to work as he was at the time she would consider a statement but there was very little chance he would get one due to his test results. I think that after he had settled with his new teacher he had a positive impact on him and he did produce more work but as I said now it is him independently doing the work in English he has stopped again, and of course because he has been proved to be capable he is just being seen as not wanting to do it. We have spoken to him and he said that its too hard or its boring, and then he has also said he doesn't know why he hasn't done it. I will try speaking to the SENCO but I don't really know what to say as they took him off the IEP for additional help so they must see that he is doing fine. I don't know, I just don't know we are just going round in circles.

Do not (openly) take on the school's responsibility for getting your DS to do his work. You're not there... and you're not a teacher... and you didn't remove his previous support. Your job at the moment is to make sure all of this is documented, and can't later be denied.

If school can't manage his SEN, they need to do so, usually by seeking outside advice or allocating additional resources. If they can't or won't do this, request a statutory assessment.

Schools don't take dc's SEN support away only if they're fine. They also take it because they haven't got enough SEN money to go round, or to re-allocate the funding to some general area of school life

Needs get prioritised because of Ofsted / league tables / governors / LEA / complaints etc. And it's unlikely your DS is top of their list.

isthatallyougot we have a rather similar issue here. Dd2 ?ASD in Y3. Always had difficulty producing an adequate amount of written work. In fact only produced any decent written work a year ago in Y2. Despite this she got 2b in all Y2 SATS. Those pesky SATs can hide a multitude of sins! Dd2 is having help with literacy but school are stopping short of allocating her a TA which is probably what she really needs. Getting an IEP is like getting blood out of a stone at this school (dd1 is Dyslexic). I am normally in touch with SENCO quite a lot and suggest you do this too.

thank you for the replies he had so much pressure put on him (and funnily enough on us too) the last time he wasn't doing his work. I just didn't know how to address this but now I see that the first port of call (should I get any notes) should be the SENCO and if I have read correctly it should be to ask what ideas they have to support my Ds? Not what I can do to support them.

Did Ed Psych find no issue at all affecting his ability to process instruction, plan and execute work? Are there any sensory issues? Fine motor problems? Is this an anxiety issue? Are there concerns about language skills or attention? Do you have any thoughts on this? It's a shame laziness has been mentioned, because if ASD is suspected then there is surely more to it than that. When is your ASD assessment?

Handywoman when the Ed Psych came in my Ds had just been for his first appointment at CAMHS and AS had been mentioned, sadly we as parents had to have this pointed out to us , so when she assessed my Ds I was just given a quick outline of his cognitive abilities which were in the high average, superior or average range and that he lacked motivation, as far as I am aware she didn't get around to actually observing him in class and has relied on staffs feedback, when she worked with him it was 1 to 1 in a quiet room. She told me that he wasn't showing signs of AS and that symptoms of AS did not present until after the age of 8 but there was something called HFA and that was it we were pretty much passed back to CAMHS again. We have told the school of his sensitivity to loud sudden noises, seems to have hearing problems most of the time (will genuinely laugh or look confused at something he thought I said when it was actually something that sounded like that) but then hears the most smallest of sounds, he is scared to get things wrong so much so that he will spend his time avoiding doing it than trying, he has the most amazing attention span but sadly only when its something he wants to do. but they just look at me as if I am full of it. I don't think they will take anything seriously unless they get a dx. We are just waiting for the final appointment from CAMHS who have observed him in school so hopefully they will of seen what may be a difficulty.

Sounds from what you say there coul be lots of things stopping your ds from producing written work, language, attention, anxiety. Has he ever been seen by a SaLT? Have you considered auditory processing problems?

If school are looking at you like you are 'full of it' and you did not suspect ASD, who made the referral to CAMHS? The underlying issues need to be teased out alongside dx, it may require further investigation to work out what those are. Either by SaLT or fuller assessment by Ed Psych.

I made the referal via the GP almost 2 yrs after ASD was mentioned to me by the school (it took for me to step back to realise what they were talking about, our Ds's characteristics just seemed so 'normal' he was our first Dc) but since the educational psychologist came out no matter what I said especially where his work was concerned I just got shrugged off. no he hasn't had speech and language because I never saw any problems with this in fact I remember having some really interesting chats with him when he was 3. I have pretty much researched almost everything that his difficulties could possibly be due to. I am just hoping that CAMHS can point us in the right direction, and that the full results from the educational psychologists findings will be included in the final report which I can then take a closer look at ( I have to analyse everything now, I'm terrible ) but at the moment I just don't want to see his self esteem suffer like it has before and I don't really know how to help.