He's a gem; he's got a golden heart and is kind and friendly, in his slightly different-to-the-norm way.
He has considerable executive functioning, memory and information retention difficulties. He is by nature lazy, but really REALLY wants to get good grades so he's working hard to get to the higher level of the local schooling system. A good score now (continuous scoring) means many more doors opening later. If he goes to the next school at the lower level, he can move up later but he hates school and isn't academic.
He is so unhappy because he's working as hard as ever he's capable of and it's not going too well. The teachers are not seeing/understanding just how motivated he is and how hard he's trying because he masks his unhappiness at school by clowning.
We have enough to be able to afford side-lessons for him and he's in the extra maths lessons at school too.
Me talking to the teachers hasn't achieved much.
Has anyone got any experience of this and can I ask what helped/didn't help? Any tips?
His self-esteem is utterly shit and another failure (there have been others) .. It woudl be unbearable