Hi. I'm a dad, so I hope it is ok to post here, but a friend told me mumsnet is the place to come for SEN advice. My wife and I feel like we don't know what we are doing, and my son is our oldest, so high school is a new things for us too.
My son is 11 and in year 7 at our local high school. He was diagnosed with dyslexia by an educational psychologist (independent) and with ADHD by CAMHS (in an different area from where we now live, but still England).
He seems to be doing ok at school. Second set out of four for maths - and school reports suggest he is fine, bar the needing to concentrate/focus/easily distracted/hard to get started on task.
CAMHS pretty much say that as he is medicated, those ADHD 'needs' are dealt with, and the school said their own testing of his reading and writing put him within their acceptable range (though the dyslexia diagnosis report by the psychologist showed he had really high scores for verbal reasoning, so the acceptable scores which are on the low average side aren't great I think).
Therefore he gets nothing in school by way of extra support. Teachers know about his ADHD and dyslexia and are less punative about things like chatting and losing focus, and he is allowed to type longer pieces of work in class, but beyond that nothing seems to be happening.
I think it is because he is 'doing ok'. However, I wonder what he would be capable of if he were given support for his difficulties? As I said, his dyslexia report suggested a very clever boy behind the average school attainment.
Am I being unrealistic in expecting more? Should he be on the school SEN register? If he is, we've not heard. If he was, would it actually mean anything? Does he actually have a 'disability' that the school need to make 'reasonable adjustments' for? (You can tell I've been doing some reading, can't you?)
I would really appreciate some views on firstly what to think, and secondly if there's anything we could/should be doing. Thanks in advance.