to be proud and hurt at the same time
have just posted as follows on a Celebrations thread in another section, about ds' school report:
"My celebration is that ds brought home his school report from Yr 5. He has exceeded expectation in both reading and science despite having had an absolutely crap year with only 72% attendance due to a painful disability which was diagnosed about this time last year. And as the report amply shows, at no time, not once, has he shown any bitterness or taken his disappointment out on anyone.
(at no point did the report mention that his disability actually affects his ability to deal with school subjects or that you might expect a small boy to be affected by such an upheaval in his life- but that doesn't surprise me, I know the school)"
And now realise that I am actually both hurt and angry. The school does not mention that he has a disability, nor that there is any reason for his absences (he is basically only absent when in so much pain that he cannot sit in a wheelchair).
The headteacher's comment reads as follows:
"Although coryds does have potential, his poor attendance means that he is not making the progress he is capable of."
Full stop. Nothing more. No comment to the effect that he even knows that ds is disabled and ill and in pain (the school has, of course, been supplied with full details). Nothing about the courage it must take for a little boy to go into school and take part in the learning, and even in PE, when he knows he can collapse in agonising pain at any moment. Nothing about the fact that holding a pen hurts, that sitting on a chair hurts, that it is harder to concentrate if you hurt.
It is not the same headteacher who used to persecute dd, but it is the same school. And from what I have been told (by social services amongst others) they still have a very poor record for SN.
Come to think of it, no part of the report mentions ds' disability: they note that he has difficulty in making things stick together- everything seems to fall apart, but fail to mention that that's because his bloody joints are falling apart.