What's available at your school??

Well, I don't know about Scotland, but in England there legally has to be a named SENCO in each school - although each class teacher should take responsibility for the appropriate teaching and support for every child in their class.

If she is working 3 years behind her peers then she should actually be considered for a Statutory Assessment and at the very least be on the SEN scale at whatever the equivalent of School Action Plus is (which would entitle her to 12 hours of support from school each week). In England, you can,as a parent, request a Statutory Assessment even if the school does not support this - and in my authority, parental requests are always more successful than those that come from schools. You may fall into a problem by doing that though as part of the assessment is almost to prove that a child is consistently 'failing' despite long term support and intervention - so there needs to be tracking evidence of levels and achievements alongside evidence of past and current support given.

As a school, no matter what their size, they should have some interventions in place - ie. spelling groups, catch up reading, social skills groups etc.

Before you meet with the Head, I would try to make a very clear list of specific areas of concern that you want targeted. Do you have past school reports that you could use to highlight her lack of progress? You say Literacy is of concern - but waht aspect? Her understanding of what she reads? Her ability to use known spellings in her free writing? Her sequencing and structure when she formulates a piece of writing? Her attention/memory while working/can she write the sentence that is in her head or does it get muddled? Her knowledge/use of phonics to support reading and spelling? Her lack of awareness of grammar and punctuation? Sorry, just trying to help you tease out the actual problems.

Can you isolate the areas that she is making progress in and see if there's a pattern of some kind? And how does that pattern then appear next to the areas she is struggling more in? Are the poor areas all language based? All writing based?
How have you had her IQ tested? Was this in a private assessment? If so, is there any chance you could pay for your own private EP assessment?

They should have 'things to offer you'; they are a school and it is their job! They may not have all the answers but they really shouldn't be short of suggestions and resources to try.

Sorry, that's more of a rant than help!

Have they/you considered dyslexia or spld? Has she ever been seen by an ed psych? Does your la have a learning support team/specialist teacher? Ring them direct.

This is what we have. Dd, 8, 10 hours 1 to 1 a week plus 2 half hour sessions with specialisttteacher to work on social skills. Booked onto emotional literacy course in school. In reality has much more support as lsa also volunteers in school and spends much of the day in the classroom. No statement. Despite difficulties academically on a par with peers.

Ds2. In ebd school and dx dyslexia amongst other things. School put him on Cumbrian reading programme - 4 sessions of 40 minutes every week for a period of time. Worked really well and now reading independently. Ed psych fab and has assessed him 3 times in 3 years and will see him again in summer term.

There's also read write Inc which lots of schools use.

Can you push for assessment?

Dd1 is year 8 now, on school action plus, but turned down for a statement. Her primary (a one form entry) never applied for one as they knew she didn't meet the criteria, but she did see Ed psych twice while there, and someone used to come in from behavioural support to observe and advise from time to time. They did loads with her over the time she was there. Some of it was due to behavioural issues, but she got support for other things too - motor skills, social skills, maths, writing, reading. These were usually run by TAs. In years 5 and 6 the class of twenty something was divided into three sets for maths, and dd in lowest set which ranged from 3 - 5 kids with a really good TA. Sometimes if they had volunteers, she would get some one to one. In year 3 they even got her an art therapist (she loved the attention and activities though I could never see how it helped in any other way). A few years back the gov had a tutoring scheme - dd had this for, I think, 4 terms during years 5 and 6. In year 6 when they worried about her SAT results (:0) - or maybe about her teacher managing her and the rest of the class - she had a one to one TA for part of the time (which we weren't actually that happy about given dd was about to strike out on her own in secondary school).

Anyway, shows what a school can do - most of the interventions were things the school do anyway. Some were down to the fact dd is a tricky character who "acts out".

The school is well staffed though -every class has a TA for at least part of the day. The senco, who is also the deputy head, is non classed based and they have another non class based teacher too.

Not sure this helps you - if the school don't see the issues or don't have the staff?

My ds is in y3, has no diagnosis as yet and gets 32 hours per week on his statement. His statement started at beginning of y2 and he was unregistered for reading, by end of y2 he was achieving a reading age of 7.

He has 6 monthly SaLT reviews and targets set from that into his IEP.

School have a member of staff also for break times and lunchtimes so he's never left (although now generally watched from a distance)

The ed psych he sees is one who deals with lac and adopted children so he totally gets the whole anxiety and attachment sides.

The senco is very proactive and has done Louise bomber courses.

This is a small, one class per year, village school.

I think, probably, your best bet might be getting in touch with PAS, getting an ed psych involved (which pas might be able to help with) and ultimately getting a statement. My ds was around P7/8 for all subjects but sats level 1 for reading. He's achieved those levels because of the extra input and almost constant one to one, and that's the idea. It's not good enough, in my eyes, to just accept a child is doing ok achieving less than could be possible (while recognising that a child is only capable of their personal 'best') if providing extra help could be of huge benefit to them.

Don't accept the 'they won't get x because they don't meet the criteria' .....get stuck in!

I know I'm known at the school as a bit of a pest, on occasion, but I don't care. Best of luck xxx

Hi all
Thanks for great advice.  Lots of things to think about and ask for.  I also had a chat with dd's tutor who gave me some ideas too, so I'm hoping we make some progress.
Ceci