Absolutely fuming. Class teacher not implementing agreed IEP

[Donki]

Parents' evening tonight.
The YoungDonki's class teacher (yr6) expressed great concern that YD would have difficulty making expected levels of progress "because of his poor work ethic"
I was shaking with anger - class teacher is not implementing the agreed IEP. YD (Aspie) has severe anxiety around writing (generalised to most of the curriculum because it all involves writing) due to a physical difficulty (assessed by OT as being at 4th centile for writing speed). BUT the class teacher has had him writing out all the Lesson Objectives, and hasn't once given him the opportunity to use a keyboard for longer pieces of work (as agreed). NO BLOODY WONDER THE YD TRIES TO AVOID WORK AND HATES SCHOOL.

I asked the teacher why he thought the YD might have a "poor work ethic" - he said "because he has been allowed to get away with it"

The man has absolutely no bloody idea.

Straight to HT then to Govs then to LEA cc Ofsted.

Outraged on your behalf.

Here is a letter.
Thoughts welcome

Dear Mrs Headteacher
Further to our conversation last night:

Mr Classteacher expressed concern that YD would find difficulty making the expected 2 sublevels of progress this year because of “a poor work ethic”.
When I asked what he thought the reason for YD having a poor work ethic might be, he said “because he has been allowed to”

As you know YD has a diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome and has high anxiety about school focussed around writing and social difficulties.

The OT assessment (of which you have a copy) showed that YD’s writing speed was only just over the 4th centile, and recommended that tasks involving writing be shortened or supported where possible e.g. by being presented as a cloze exercise; and that he should learn to touch type and use a keyboard for longer writing tasks.

The IEP agreed with school states that YD should use a computer for typing longer pieces of work, and should get time to practise touch typing.

It was several weeks into term before YD was given any time to practice touch typing. We have continued to practice at home, and YD is now starting to approach 30 words per minute with an accuracy of 80-90%, but needs to continue to get time to practice regularly at school, as well as at home, to establish and automate this skill so that he can dual-task and think about work at the same time as typing.

9 weeks into term, YD has not been given any chance to do writing tasks on the computer – and has been expected to write out the learning objectives by hand at the start of each piece of work in his exercise books.

YD has found the end of year 5 and the transition to year 6 extremely difficult. He has had very high anxiety levels resulting in several meltdowns, where unable to tolerate his feelings he has repeatedly said that he wants to die, and is going to kill himself. On four occasions we have had to prevent him trying to take action on this by going to get a knife.

We had hoped that as the term progressed, he would become less anxious, and less reluctant to attend school. This has not happened. He says every day that he hates school and doesn’t want to go to school.

I accept that Mr. Classteacher is trying to push YD to do more writing with the best of intentions and to try to enable him to make progress across the curriculum. We too want YD to succeed and make progress. However we do not think that failing to implement strategies agreed in his IEP will help with this. We hope that if his extreme anxiety about writing and work generally is reduced by implementing the IEP, YD will be happier and make better academic progress.

Yours Sincerely

Mr and Mrs Donki

The e-mail although worth sending (its a written trail as much as anything else) may not make any difference in the long run.

The problem with IEPs apart from the fact they can be poorly written (so not SMART in terms of targets) is that they are not always followed or even taken any notice of. They are not known as "Individual Empty Promise" for nothing. They are not legally binding in the same way that a statement is.

He also does not want to go to school also because his needs there are not being met. This type of situation is not all that uncommon and usually comes about because of needs not being met.

Is there a Statement in place; if there is not I would be applying for one of these asap from the LEA particularly as he will soon be going to secondary school. Has anyone ever mentioned the word statement to you?.

Dear Attila - thank you
The letter requesting a statutory assessment went off on Monday, with school's blessing! (adapting the IPSEA form letter)

I am fortunate to have much more information about statements then many parents starting the process because every single student that I teach has one. However I am finding that it is very different (and much more daunting) being the parent.... and I am very lucky in that the SENCO at my own school is being very supportive (and knows the process from both sides!)
IEPs in my school are always SMART - and the feedback process rigorous. So seeing badly written ones from mainstream is a bit of a shock.

This does not mean that I think I know what I am doing. I feel completely out of my depth - and never expected to be asking for a statement for my own child. So I am very grateful for any support - and (now that I know what it is) honks.

[The wild geese seem to have finished migrating over the house - haven't heard any flocks honking in real life for a couple of weeks)

:)

(And the main purpose of the letter is to provide a paper trail for the statementing process....)

(and vent my anger)

Yr 6 is (sadly) all about SATS. So you may also want to discuss extra time / use scribe or keyboard for taking SATS. If school can see it may help boost their results they may be more willing.

Is YD likely to get level 4 or 5 on SATS? Thats basically all the teacher and school are judged on.

DS won't and my plan (if we last in mainstream that long) is for him to do Yr 5 twice because Yr 6 will be a waste of time

He will get a level 4 or 5 for most things - except writing, where he will be lucky to get a level 3. If he is given extra time (which I will be bringing up at the termly review; he did get more time for the voluntary yr5 tests - but only after I went and made a nuisance of myself) AND can use a keyboard.

But if his anxiety increases too much at SATS time, it will be a trip to the GP to get him signed off if school won't disapply him. I am not sacrificing the YD for the sake of their blessed statistics.

What a plonker (to put it mildly) CT is Donki we had similar in YR 3, CT thought it would be a 'good idea' to remove DS's (AS) IEP to 'see how he goes on' after various outside professionals had been in for the past 2 years giving strategies that had started to help! And yes he too had a 'bad attitude' towards learning, which had funnily enough developed over a period of time where he was constantly told he was 'lazy' and 'couldn't be bothered' sadly the EP only became involved when he no longer saw the point (aka damned if he did, damned if he didn't) so that's what it was put down too

Good letter, and good luck with SA request

What made me see red was the fact that poor YD had been writing out the LOs. Again. We went through this argument last year. Yes, it is important that he knows what he is doing and why. Writing them out is utterly pointless, and takes time and effort that could be used much more constructively. And cumulatively is completely demotivating for a student who struggles to write. If the teacher wants them in the YDs book, print them out on a label and stick them in or get the TA to do it. Then YD can go back and tick them when achieved. Or whatever.

Hi donki We have been going through similar with the transition into yr6 with a teacher who lacks understanding and is focussed only on SATS.

Luckily my nagging eventually got her moved into the parallel class where she is much happier. I do all my correspondence by email now so that we have a trail.

Good luck

Well done Ineedmorepatience - sadly I think that there is no chance of getting the YD moved.

I have to admit that I am really very worried about transition to secondary.

I'm in a strange situation because at my ds2's primary they put no pressure on him at all with the writing and concentrated on nurture instead. I felt let down by his lack of academic progress and the fact that he can barely write legibly despite having high end of average IQ (just tested by Ed Pysch). We are having him assessed for dyslexia atm as he has very poor phonic understanding, which school also never investigated. I felt like they hadn't helped him academically because they just decided it was a social communication issue that needed dealing with first and foremost. And if he was calm and encouraged that was enough. I felt let down by the end of SATS. He got 2 4's and a 3 in Spag, which I felt was poor.

BUT BUT

But the outcome has been that ds2 was NEVER anxious about school, and really enjoyed it. He is also enjoying secondary, despite having a lot of difficulties with the homework (which I am in negotiations over with SENCO). He is coping well socially, and has joined a Creative writing club, choir etc, behaviour in lessons excellent although a bit too outspoken sometimes. School btw was doubtful he would manage secondary easily. But he has.

So I don't know what the answer is, except that I completely agree that the school should back off on the work ethic bollocks and "he has been allowed to get away with it stuff". We allow them to get away with it for a reason, because it is a major trigger for all sorts of worries and anxieties, fear of failing, fear of not achieving perfection. Never in a thousand years would ds2's class teacher have said that to me. I don't know whether he should have been pushed more - perhaps your story is that there are ways to push and ways not to push.

We are trying hard atm to get some baseline from ds2 of what IS expected of him, and what he CAN manage. Usually with a timer rather than anything more formal. And very much expecting the school to differentiate for his abilities.

And as someone who teaches children with statements, I think you are the last person they should have been accusing.

Your letter sounds great.

And secondary have also put loads of additional support in for his literacy, handwriting, individual tuition, touchtyping classes, writing homework out for us by email.

So you may find secondary much more clued up in helping him than primary ever was. They have a much bigger cohort so funnily enough they have far more strategies to support different abilities. We were amazed how quickly all this stuff was provided, with no initial issues flagged up by primary (goodness I see they were so slack on the academic stuff although obviously they had an enormous file on the ASD side.

It's a good letter and I think you should deliver it - cc'd to the SENCo as suggested above, but I don't understand why you
a) haven't been in/called / e-mailed / however you contact the school usually before now and followed up the lack of typing work
and
b) why you didn't ask the teacher about it at parents' evening ? (Apologies if you did, but that's not how it's come across in the OP)

BackforGood
Fair points - my initial post was just letting off steam, and the letter was to ask for feedback from a disinterested perspective, as I was still quite angry.

For what it's worth, I have been into school to talk to the class teacher/senco/headteacher most weeks. The touch typing has started again at school because I went in and created. I had not realised that the YD was having to write out the LOs, and had had no support/differentiation/accommodation with writing because having struggled with school all day, the last thing he wants to do when he gets home is talk about it!

Of course I raised the issues with the teacher at parents' evening - and the teacher came up with some other great comments that also showed he has absolutely no idea about the YD (or indeed anxious/ASD students in general)

I now have an appointment with the SENCO this week.

Thanks Polter :)
We may need it.

Well that makes more sense now then .
I hope you can get some more support from the SENCo and Snr Management at the school after your meeting.

The YD school refused for the first time this morning :(

However a bit of patience on my part, accepting that we would be late, instead of upping the pressure (and thus the anxiety) meant that the YD got to school at 11.00 am calmly and in good order.

The HT met us (I had phoned in as soon as I knew we had a problem), and was absolutely brilliant, talking calmly to the YD, empathizing with him but reminding him in a matter of fact way that tomorrow he was expected to go to school on time as normal. She eased him back into class very carefully and in as low key a way as possible :)

The SENCO was very positive today - she had lots of suggestions for strategies to help the YD, and asked for our opinions and advice as to what worked at home.

They are going to put in support to try and help the YD be less anxious and task avoidant - and have recognised that there is little point concentrating on the YD's academic progress until he is happy to be in school and wants to learn. They are investing some TA time and resources to do this. We can review progress in 2 weeks, and again in the new term, adapting things if necessary.

We will see how it pans out - but I feel much more hopeful about the next few months now.

Thank you for all your support and comments.

(But we are still going ahead with the Statutory Assessment. Just in case anybody wondered)