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SENco
Apr 19, 2018 0:18:32 GMT
Post by knight on Apr 19, 2018 0:18:32 GMT
So, it took me until Kitt started Year 1 for me to realise that whilst I'm not a teacher (working on the basis that they know their job; I know mine), despite various lengthy TAF meetings, reviews, general meetings, etc, making notes raising concerns on certain issues - that actually, I know Kitt the best and what she needs in school and now I have no hesitation in saying what's needed for her. Reception pushed Kitt through the reading books, despite me raising concerns that they were way too hard for her (took well over an hour to read a simple book, with lots of tantrums/resistance, etc). The books were so hard for Kitt that I thought they gave her a full level higher. Once in Yr 1, SENco said Kitt's attitude to reading was unusual (hated it) and I had put it in her first reading record that she really struggled with the level, just as she had in Reception); they re-assessed her, put her back to the first Reception books with the first starter words. I was furious that the full and only 2 terms of reading in reception were lost/missed opportunities to get her "secure" at an acceptable level for her (instead of ignoring me and pushing her on). Emailed in a chronology of when I raised concerns, how Kitt had been let down and queried how this could have happened when she actually has an EHC..!! Kitt has an EHC for a reason so, unclear why they tried to push her ahead - presumably so that she "entered" KS1 at a higher (inaccurate level). I felt awful that I was forcing Kitt to read the hard books because I thought the teachers knew best (not to mention the months of hell we had). Happily Kitt is now flying through the books, enjoys reading and in fact, I asked school to move her up to the next stage. Within days of starting Year 1, Kitt's class teacher (aka SENco, having been involved since Reception) said she now understood what was meant about Kitt's lack of attention (clearly more apparent than the other kids and part of her EHC issues: part of the TA's job is to keep Kitt on track, a lot). Again within days of starting Yr 1 (with the last few months of the previous school year's TAF mtgs being used to discuss visual aids), SENco decides that she's impressed with LO's "independence" when she picked up pencils to work with (instead of dark/clear marker pens as advised by the Low Vision Clinic and other professional, along with the peripatetic teacher having gone into school). SENco also mentioned that not only was she allowing Kitt to use pencils but also, had not drawn over each line Kitt works on with a dark pen/marker (so that she can see it as Kitt seemed to "cope" ok). I wasn't impressed and after all the parents left the info session, told SENco nicely that this wasn't acceptable, that she should not have to "cope"/"get by", the professionals' advice should be followed to give her a fighting chance; and the following day, I took into school extra appropriate instruments for writing and told them that they should buy these in and this is what LO will be using from now on, that we are the adults and make the decisions for the then 5 yo child (which teacher realised and agreed with!!) Another example, LO came home in Reception upset that she had told a teacher on playground duty that she couldn't find her friend and was dismissed. Spoke to school and whilst they have LO's details on the board in the staff room, asked them to speak with all staff across the whole school to ensure that if Kitt tells a teacher that she can't find a friend, it's because she cannot "see" them and they need to be her eyes and at the very least, send Kitt in the direction of her friends. (eg LO struggles playing hide and seek at school as she can't "find" the kids; at the park after school today, I told Kitt her one of her friends was there and she was looking in the right direction, really hard - but couldn't see him, not until she was literally 7/8 feet away; she thought a farm dog was a "cute, really small pony" the other week; and could not see an approaching cyclist when I tested her when crossing a road - she relies on her hearing to compensate for visual difficulties, blah blah - when new issues arise, I inform school to keep them in the loop). So, in the last week, I told school that Kitt the Consultant has now registered Kitt as being partially sighted; there's talk of starting Kitt off with a white cane possibly to prepare her for when she's a bit older and wants to be out and about on her own/without support; school know that Kitt has incredibly strong glasses and has a stronger magnifier for reading in addition: so what does the class teacher (SENco) tell Kitt yesterday when she said she couldn't see the letters on the board: "you're just phaffing because you want to be in front of the whiteboard" ...!!!! I was furious. Kitt can lie and phaff like all other kids but SENco knows the issues (or should do) inside out and she's the one who said this. I was straight into school today, repeated what Kitt said and asked to help "test" Kitt there and then to get her desk position right. They agreed and have moved her desk much closer, which makes a big difference. It's disappointing that whilst the school do seem to get a lot right (and want to get it right), they seem to lapse. I can see I am going to be, oh wait, I have become, one of those mothers who's going into school regularly. (The good thing is that with all these situations, I know Kitt totally gets the message that I believe her and will fight for her)  |
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Post by moo on Apr 19, 2018 7:31:44 GMT
Many many hugs knight & kitt xxxxxx
Sadly these experiences are ours too 100%.
Like you I foolishly trusted & believed teaching staff assuming they had understood what was discussed in meetings about special needs etc....
My experience is that they will cheerily pat you on the head claiming to cover all, & totally get what is requried... in practise they deffo won't as they have to work harder at their job & horror of horrors have to treat kitt differently...
X
In my experience, the teachers we have had the misfortune to meet at primary are intent on bashing the square peg into a round hole with a passion..... it seems their sole mission is to prove all the experts, paeds,sw etc around the child wrong & them right & super human!?. Another fave here is 'well I think baa/skweek's interpretation is wrong he has not understood, Miss would not do that.......'
Still trying that one now skweek is a competant debator & reasoner & in year 6!!!
My advice, treat this as your 'job' & keep at em.... don't give an inch. If you do they will slide & continue failing kitt as it is easier for them....
As for us, secondary for baa are amazing, proven already primary lies & failings, only a few weeks left for skweek cannot wait to be out... His hypervigilance, stress & anxiety is off the scale, he needs a long summer break to recover & prepare for secondary.....
Good luck, it is just the worst.
I became the most hated parent of all time.... us advocates for our children do... school can never be in the wrong they are superhuman afterall.
Xxxxxx
Xx moo xx
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Post by jmk on Apr 19, 2018 8:41:30 GMT
So sorry to read that you are having problems getting school staff to do their job, made all, the more difficult that it is the SENCO that's slacking.  Having met Kitt in person, it is obvious from seeing her glasses, that her eyesight must be poor, so what teacher wouldn't get she might need to sit closer to the board, it's madness. Keep doing what you're doing. Maybe school need frequent reminders and you 'sticking your nose in from time to time' is the reminder they need to keep them on track and to re read her EHCP to remember her needs and what to do. Good on Kitt for speaking out and telling you what's going on, that's great that she is articulate and can tell you, otherwise you'd be none the wiser. So what if you become the mum from hell. Adopters are not over protective, they are just normal caring parents who have to educate themselves on their childrens needs and then become their advocates to fight to get what most kids get naturally, to make up for the missed years, genetics, trauma, etc, that other kids don't have to contend with. That's why WE are superhero's!!!!! |
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SENco
Apr 19, 2018 12:31:15 GMT
via mobile
moo likes this
Post by daffin on Apr 19, 2018 12:31:15 GMT
Knight, your experiences resonate so much with me. We have given every assessment report we have on Monkey Boy to his school - including before he even joined the school in reception. We have been patronised, ignored and MB’s needs have been dismissed. He was taken off the track towards the development of an EHCP in Year 1 - because ‘he’s fine’. Our reports of bullying have been ignored ‘oh, they’re friends. They just have a complex friendship’. ‘His Reading is exactly where it should be’ ‘he has no problems with his memory’ ‘his sensory needs are met by the Early Years curriculum’ ‘I’ve worked with children with Attachment problems and he’s fine’ on and on.
I actually googled ‘Gaslighting’ the other day as I felt so strongly that my reality was being systematically denied. Wikipedia has an interestin page on it.
See also itmustbemum - a great forum. Mostly blogs and mostly on ASD but some great stuff eg school’s insistence that a child is ‘fine’ despite expert reports - and therefore ‘it must be mum’.
Quite reassuring.
We found that school had to snap to when MB was weeks away from taking his SATS. I hated the idea of the stress they would put him through, but ONLY then did school BEGIN to acknowledge that he had difficulties. They still tried to pin that on him missing class to attend therapy (once every 2 weeks. Purleez!). Then a THRIVE practitioner from the Virtual School started working with him, in school, and all of a sudden they started noting his hypervigilance, sensory seeking and controlling behaviour.
He’s just had a EdPsych assessment and is on track for an EHCP. He was recently described by a child psych as being at the ‘very upper end of need’ and having ‘daunting’ levels of problems.
But school ignored and belittled me for over 3.5 years - and ignored his needs and deepening his anxiety and misery.
Of course we fight for our kids! Of course schools hate us. We are pains in the butt. But we have no choice. We are fighting for our kids. We’re it! If we don’t fight and advocate for them, who else will!
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SENco
Apr 22, 2018 20:21:54 GMT
Post by knight on Apr 22, 2018 20:21:54 GMT
Thanks everyone. All told, it's good, I'm just disappointed and surprised that all the meetings and paperwork for a child with an EHC don't have as much meaning as I assumed/expected they would. It sounds selfish (although it is what it is) but Kitt should get more of her 1:1 support than she actually gets; probably more like 1:5 but I think as they're doing more "real"/desk based work in school as getting older, I'll step up pushing for a breakdown in a day of what she personally gets because she needs constant reminders/prompting about things she's learned or new things being explained which she simply doesn't grasp; then she forgets it. Sitting with Kitt 1:1 at home, it takes sooooo long to do certain tasks that I can't believe that grounding is taking place at school. I know there's other kids in class but, she has an EHC, none of the others do. (I now send in abridged versions of her homework and tell school Kitt has told me what to say but I'm writing it for her as it was punishing just how long it took her to write 5 sentences; school accepted that, it's taken the pressure off and today (having recorded the "story" about X she made up yesterday when asked to do her homework), she wrote it up beautifully today with some help, no strops/delaying tactics, etc. Moo, yep, they will no doubt try to hide when they see me "asking for a word"....!!!
Yes JMK, Kitt was very quick (rightly) to seek praise for telling me; she does that quite a bit in different situations (even if she's in the wrong) so it's helpful to be able to advise/address things with her.
It's just not on that you Daffin and MB had to go through all that; hope the EHC is finalised soon.
x
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SENco
Apr 23, 2018 18:24:21 GMT
Post by rosie on Apr 23, 2018 18:24:21 GMT
Just keep pushing!. She shouldn't have to just manage if she has an EHCP. How many hours does she have ? We had a child with partial sight in her case caused by Nystagmus who had 1-1 support for most of the school day. With playtime we made sure she went out with her friends so she started out in the right place and didn't need to hunt. Midday supervisors were also aware to make sure this happened and if not found her friends for her. For Forest school where the ground was more uneven and there were branches and other possible hazards she had someone with her all the time. Similarly with PE she could also see the ball so she had a ball with a bell inside that she could hear. Although it is appropriate to work in a group some of the time e.g. for social skills or if the task involves working with others, the 1-1 should primarily be there for her benefit and when needed. Does the peripatetic teacher for children with visual difficulties have any influence? |
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SENco
Apr 24, 2018 20:57:23 GMT
Post by knight on Apr 24, 2018 20:57:23 GMT
Thanks Rosie, I will. Kitt definitely shouldn’t just have to manage, I won’t allow it. Kitt has 18 hours pw via EHC; how that translates into 3 hours per day of actual 1:1, I’m not sure; there are 4 other kids on the table so the TA is shared. Kitt needs the TA for carpet time for sure and for actual work (she was kept back for a couple of minutes the other day because she was so unfocussed and apparently did more in those few minutes than the whole of the period when she should have been working. I’m guessing that she’d not had 1:1 for the tasks and had no focus: EHC is not just for vision but for attention span/LDs).
The Peripatetic teacher probably wouldn’t take things much further as the advice is being followed (clearly just going to need regular prompts from me as and when things come to my attention, eg School try to remember to give handouts in larger print but when I went in the other day, the very small A2 size phonics reminders, one for each child on the desk to refer to, was the regular size for Kitt so I immediately asked for that to be re-printed to at least A4 size - shouldn’t have to ask).
Kitt has a nystagmus. How did it affect your daughter once she started wanting to become physically more independent or should I say, how did you/she adapt? It’s a few years off for Kitt but it worries me (hopefully, her good friends now will continue to grow with her and will be the ones to help/support her as she gets older).
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SENco
Apr 25, 2018 6:45:31 GMT
Post by moo on Apr 25, 2018 6:45:31 GMT
Knight this was our experience, sharing our 'paid for' 1on1 special help. Challenge & fight is my advice.
School hope we parents won't notice if the children also needing help are included too.... It took me a long while to 'prove' to the school that I 'knew'.... I had to wheel in P.A.S. who in turn asked to visit during a 1on1 session 'at what time do they generally happen each day'? Lets see how they work out?
Grrrr so frustrating as I always felt 'why are my children still being taken advantage of, its about time they were respected & helped to catch back up!!' Take your eye off the ball & that 1on1 help will always get shared!?!
Xxx hugs xx
Xxx moo xx
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SENco
Apr 26, 2018 17:22:37 GMT
Post by knight on Apr 26, 2018 17:22:37 GMT
I don't get it Moo: it's almost like it's a pot of money to be absorbed for general use but it isn't (or isn't supposed to be) and then there's the PP+. I emailed the teacher yesterday to say that I queried if Kitt's lack of concentration since the Easter Holidays (raised by both teachers: "what is going on with Kitt these last few weeks?") was in fact down to the fact that precisely since the Easter hols, they are doing more desk-based work so Kitt has to try to concentrate more, do harder work which she doesn't always grasp, let alone be able to do. Used it as an opportunity to say if that's the case, it highlights to me and serves as a reminder of the need for her designated 1:1 to be more for her sole use this term and going into Yr 2, which is what I told them pre-Reception. I expect a meeting will be due soon ahead of the Annual Review so I'll be asking for a breakdown of what the 1:1 time looks like in Kitt's day. As with most of us, I'm like a dog with a bone x |
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SENco
May 11, 2018 8:58:03 GMT
Post by runmum on May 11, 2018 8:58:03 GMT
This resonates with me - I was about to post some similar rants. Thankfully our SENCO is very good but everyone else ignores her so we end up in an equally rubbish place and the SENCO goes off sick. Despite all this attachment awareness and thrive stuff it seems schools just want to go back to zero tolerance. It's almost Dickensian. You all have my empathy and loads of massive hugs. We are awesome super parents!
Our Monkey Boy has an EHCP - our LA could not be bothered to update it last year as there were a lot of changes. They eventually sent it with hardly any changes made. I sent it back with lots of notes to support making the changes. I then threatened legal action as by this time it was 10 months after the last review and it was a transition EHCP. They never even replied to my letter and we never got an updated EHCP. They have not initiated this year's annual review so we had it anyway and they did not send any paperwork or representatives. So I re-typed the whole thing which took me days. Great I think - this is now concise and easy to read and will help the teachers and Monkey Boy.
Monkey Boy then does some really odd things or actually none of it is odd if you bother to read the EHCP.
He was repeatedly demeaned by another child for his learning difficulties . School says - that's just teasing he needs to learn to cope positively. The EHCP says he has very poor self esteem currently made worse by awareness of his severe learning difficulties and gives strategies.
On the class whats app group MB then threatens to beat the child up if he does not stop being mean. The child says no I will not stop. School says yes the other child was a bit mean but Monkey Boy is a bully. The EHCP says that MB is impulsive due to his ADHD and can act from his limbic brain if stressed and gives strategies to reduce stress.
He has sensory processing problems and cannot sense when he needs the loo. He has a toilet pass because the good SENCO made sure of it. He hates using the toilet pass because people make fun of him. He gets to the point where he cannot hold it and urinates behind one of the blocks other kids say they will report him and he says he will beat them up. School say there was a toilet nearby so this is anti-social behaviour. The EHCP explained his sensory issues and specifically highlights how he feels about kids finding out about them and suggests strategies.
They ask him about the urinating and he lies saying it was apple juice. School say they have tried to support him and has has repaid them with lies and they are very let down. Monkey Boy is anti-social and aggressive. The EHCP sets out his survival strategies and explains these are templates associated with early abuse and gives supportive approaches. I send school a link from the AUK website about adoption and lying.
It all gets reported and escalated. But does the head of year or form teacher read the EHCP - NO. The SLT do speak briefly to the SENCO before their meeting to pass judgement which is of course several weeks after the incidents because they have to investigate. However the SENCO is off site and it's a brief discussion - no one thinks "oh let's have a look and see if this EHCP will help us?" They then implement a sanction - they were planning exclusion but the SENCO managed to get this diverted to inclusion. However in line with their behavioural policy they just think a day in inclusion will give him time to reflect and of course he will now be an angel!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I then get a call to say that he has told an LSA to go away because her services are no longer required. Do they think oh that's sad and tough for the LSA but obviously with all this "teasing" about his learning difficulties he is just trying to pretend his issues don't exist as a coping strategy. No! they say Monkey Boy must no be rude to staff. No proverbial Sherlock!
When I ask about the inclusion I am told he was allowed to be in a room with pictures on the wall and support from a member of staff and that he was not left sitting outside the heads office. Well thank heavens for that but when I say "good as I would have been horrified" they seem to imply that all this along with shouting at the child might be deemed a good way to manage children who behave in this way. So I am left wondering do other kids sit outside the heads office then get shouted at and told they are spending a day in solitary confinement? Really!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The school is renowned as the most pastoral in the area so it's not like we can just move - frying pan to fire!!! And today we hear our government are giving more money to Grammar Schools. I despair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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SENco
May 11, 2018 17:09:55 GMT
Post by rosie on May 11, 2018 17:09:55 GMT
Sorry Knight I didn't notice your question. Haven't been on these boards quite so much recently. It isn't my daughter that has nystagmus it was a child we had at the infant school where I teach. It is some years ago and the child is no longer at our school. I think as they get older they rely on friends more to help them. I heard that this child did cope very well at her new school once she knew the lay out of the school and everything was familiar. How they cope as they get older and want to be more independent would presumably depend on how poor their eyesight is. It might be worth asking the periapetetic teacher what they suggest to help pupils further down the line when they move onto secondary school.
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SENco
May 11, 2018 20:44:36 GMT
Post by knight on May 11, 2018 20:44:36 GMT
Runmum - that must be incredibly exhausting, constant battle and reminders for them to refer back. It does sound like they just adopt the same policy for MB as the other kids but I just don't get why, especially when there's an EHCP which explains the difficulties, rationale behind them, strategies, etc - sounds like it's commonplace that they're not taken into account as much.
Rosie: ah, I misread your message. Yes, that's what I was thinking, they must adapt as they get older and rely on their friends more; I suppose it's the times when friends aren't around, especially by High School stage. I know I'll just find strategies for Kitt and we'll ''grow'' together as her needs change. x
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