OK, following on from Star's inspirational niceness victory, I am doing the AR parental form this weekend.
This is long - be patient!
School are very kind, very helpful and willing to try new things.
However, there are three problems with reporting on progress.
- DS's TA is difficult - a 'muggle' if you will
It really is a case of 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink'. She is very keen on making him do the same as everyone else but she has no strategies to achieve this. She also often fails to follow advice from professionals or record her interventions. This should be less of a problem now we have our own SLT and our own OT involved but it was a problem when NHS S< was wafting in occasionally to see how things were going as targets were being marked as met on the basis of a casual conversation that DS 'usually' or generally did x,y or z.
She is very reactive and when things are going well she reneges from the provision and then gets annoyed when things go badly again. She handles him in a way which inevitably leads to pointless and avoidable confrontations.
How do I report back on the need to 'all sing from the same hymn sheet' and follow the required provision and advice without being overbearing, critical or condemnatory?
- NHS SLT is another story. We have DPs now for S< but she has just sent me her report. She has met DS twice. Her modus operandi was to go into school, talk to TA and report back to me what the targets would be as a fait accompli. I let this go for the 'greater good' but sometimes the targets would be particularly inappropriate, for example, a suggestion that DS spend 10 mins every day, at the end of the day with his TA to talk through the things that had gone wrong. This seemed very negative and doing this with a TA he is not particularly comfortable with and who may have a role to play herself in some of the things which had 'gone wrong' seemed very unfair.
Anyway, her report has listed all the targets she suggested but which were not worked on, commenting that work didn't happen because of me. No explanation of my reasons which just makes me look obstructive and I don't see what the point is in listing targets which were withdrawn.
She also left him without provision between Oct and December. He had been put in a social skills group but no one had gone through targets or explained the purpose of the group. I did not know this. DS thought the group was a bit of fun and when he found out what it was, he was really annoyed as he felt stupid that people thought he needed to be taught the things they were doing. The SLT had never discussed with me the contents of the groups but from what he said it seems like they were really inappropriate for his ability. Anyway, her report simply suggests that the groups were stopped because of 'parental feedback'(even though he told staff this himself) and doesn't explain how she then left him for two months without adjusting the provision - this included a statementing visit being missed.
SLT is now out of the way so I don't want to spend too much time battling this and have made comments on the report. Do I just make these comments in the report and move o, looking to the future with a different SLT?
- DS has some programmes which need to be set up but he doesn't want to do them with TA - they relate to sensitive anxiety management issues.
How do I manage this?
I am told TA will be at meeting.