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Am I micromanaging school work too much

3 replies

Taswama · 18/06/2020 17:47

13 year old DS is in Y8 and is autistic.
He has 1:1 support to scribe for him in mainstream for his core lessons, but us in top sets. He originally stayed at home during lockdown and I chose work for him to do each day and allowed him a lot more time due to having to type it himself. But he still struggled and I could only give limited support due to teaching his younger brother (also autistic) and working.
So for the last few weeks he has been going to school 3 mornings (4 hours) per week. I download work for him the previous evening and put it on a laptop and number it so he knows what to do first. I normally put 3 pieces of work on and he will get 2 done in the 4 hours as he is still typing himself but has at least got TA support for any questions and to keep him on task. We insisted he should still type himself as his typing speed has improved and it’s a life skill and he won’t have a scribe forever. He then does one more subject in the afternoon at home. When he’s at home he does the same pattern but he tends to have a longer lunch break as he plays with his brother, which is great.

He’s covering about 2/3 of the work set this way, we’ll 2/3 of the academic subjects anyway and one or two nutrition/ music / computing/ DT if time.

But now lessons are starting on Teams (5 so far this week), sometimes they are only announced on the day and he’s got used to me planning for him so doesn’t even read all the messages on the portal. He had a Teams lesson today that assumed he’d done the lesson from yesterday but he hadn’t because he’s always at least a day behind and he only does 2/3 of the lessons anyway. He could have watched the recording but he definitely enjoys the interaction for the live lessons he’s had so far. He didn’t have anyone to scribe during the lesson, so I doubt his notes were much use either.
I may be massively overthinking this, I don’t know if I should just let him choose which lessons to do each day? Or send him to school every day so he has support on hand for live lessons? Or just carry on muddling through for the next 4 weeks and pray things are sorted by September?
.
Work to date has been a lot of revision but they are now introducing actual new topics.

OP posts:
Niffler75 · 19/06/2020 13:01

@Taswama Sounds like you are very busy and doing an awesome job! As your son is covered by the Equality Act due to his diagnosis I would suggest a reasonable adjustment would be to have details of the lessons the day before and some pre prepared notes for lessons emailed through. This would allow your son to focus on the lesson without having to type as he struggles to keep up. Otherwise I wonder how much of the new information being taught he is actually taking in?

Taswama · 19/06/2020 21:06

Thanks @Niffler75 that’s a good idea. I will email the Senco. I was also thinking about emailing the school to ask them to schedule lessons on Teams so you can see what is coming up rather than relying on messages on the portal.
DP thinks he should be at school more if they are now teaching new content but I don’t want his memory of this period to be him having to go to school every day while DS2 was at home with me.

OP posts:
Niffler75 · 19/06/2020 21:26

@Taswama Let me know how you get on. Some simple adjustments might make things a bit easier! Just be really clear with the school that these are very simple adjustments that will make things better for your son. Take care!

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