I think that sums up life at the moment - Crazy. I don't have a moment to breath, let alone blog.
Since the beginning of May I have been travelling with work, 2 nights in Amsterdam for a meeting, 5 days later another 2 day meeting in Amsterdam, last week a 5 day meeting in Istanbul (thank god I am not there this week), tomorrow I head back to Amsterdam for yest another 2 day meeting, then hop straight over to Copenhagen for a 4 day meeting.
In between all of this I am also doing my regular mummy duties, dog walking duties, decorating the boys bedroom, training for the Great North Run in September and trying to find a reasonably priced gardener to come and tame the jungle that seems to have appeared outside the back door (please don't get me wrong, we are not rich or posh and have never had a gardener before and probably never will do again, but having done all these meetings, we are in a rare position of having a little extra cash and are realistic enough to realise that neither one of us has the time, knowledge or willpower to sort the garden - the idea being, get a keen gardener who wants a bit of cash in hand to sort it out and then we maintain - mmm right, that's the idea anyhow).
I am also in the process of stomping my authority with the school and refusing to be fobbed off and demanding my Little Man's lack of progress is recognised and looked into and I think we are making progress. The SENCO retired at Easter so I saw the deputy and the head and said I was worried and showed them his work books over the last 2-3 years and the lack of progress.
I expressed my shock when the headmistress actually utter the words 'perhaps we need to accept that Master E has reached his potential'- I don't think so love, and I think she regretting speaking them out loud. The deputy clearly got my upset (only someone with very thick skin and a lack of perception wouldn't have done) and said she would see what she could do.
The following week she rang me and said she had done some assessments and we had every right to be concerned (people did look strangely as a jumped around outside the headmistresses office doing a victory dance while chanting 'told you so' - no not really).
Long and short of it is, they have had the Autistic outreach team in to assess him which has lead to 3 visits from them, and an acknowledgement from them that he needs extra help, and I am currently waiting to speak to them having said we wanted to be involved.
So I had better get back on with the work I need to do towards these 2 meetings I need to fly off to, and get the rest of the painting done, then hopefully out for a run and dog walk all before picking the boys up.
Showing posts with label SENCO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SENCO. Show all posts
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Apparently this is nothing to worry about.....
I mentioned on my post about Reading Eggs that Little man is very behind with his learning and we would like to do more to support him and get him more up to a similar level to his peers.
He is 9 at Christmas and to be fair has only really started reading in the last year or so but spelling and Maths still elude him. I have mentioned it on numerous occasions but keep being told that he is not that behind and his work is very inconsistent.
Anyhow, I am seeing the SENCO tomorrow and am going to take in a sheet of paper just written by him tonight.
He is always, always hungry and generally has his tea (bigger portion than me now), a bath, then a sandwich and beaker of milk and then bed. Some nights though he is still awake and complaining of hunger pains at 9.30 like tonight (he is also stick thin despite eating me out of house and home).
I am in my office supposedly working and both boys were told by their Dad, if they managed to get into bed and not speak until the morning, they would get a treat when he came home from work tomorrow night.
Little Man just appeared, grabbed some paper from the printer and wrote:
He is 9 at Christmas and to be fair has only really started reading in the last year or so but spelling and Maths still elude him. I have mentioned it on numerous occasions but keep being told that he is not that behind and his work is very inconsistent.
Anyhow, I am seeing the SENCO tomorrow and am going to take in a sheet of paper just written by him tonight.
He is always, always hungry and generally has his tea (bigger portion than me now), a bath, then a sandwich and beaker of milk and then bed. Some nights though he is still awake and complaining of hunger pains at 9.30 like tonight (he is also stick thin despite eating me out of house and home).
I am in my office supposedly working and both boys were told by their Dad, if they managed to get into bed and not speak until the morning, they would get a treat when he came home from work tomorrow night.
Little Man just appeared, grabbed some paper from the printer and wrote:
Me: Hello, what's wrong? Are you not speaking to me? (spoken)
LM: Ica not becu I wont get a tret and I hungree (he wrote on paper)
translation - I cannot because I won't get a treat and I am hungry
Me: OK, you go down and get yourself something quickly (spoken)
LM: No, yoo go pliys, cwicliy pliys mumiy sum riyol foob ples (written)
translation: No, you go please, quickly please mummy, some real food please
Me: (writing now to humour him) Sandwich or biscuit?
LM considered both and ticked both but pointed to sandwich.
I then gave him some written options:
1. Honey
2.Chocolate
3. Jam
4. Butter
5. Mud
LM read these, ticked the chocolate and mud, then wrote 'harhar' - so there is nothing wrong with his reading!
LM: can iy saiy bad tues wot bus yoo sey
translation can I ?no idea? what do you say?
Actually writing it on here, doesn't make it look quite so bad, but the image of the actual writing and you will see that I have done well to be able to put all that down
But hey, LETS NOT WORRY, apparently it is OK for a nearly 9 year old to write like this
Friday, 25 November 2011
A homework rant this time
OK so maybe I am just jumping on the ranting bandwagon. Not only can I thank Sarah Mac for passing the fire on to me, but I am probably going to fuel her fire further with this post!
Little Man is in year 3 and has started getting proper homework in the form of his daily reading, spellings once a week from which he has to write his sentences and then a spelling test. As regular readers will know Little Man is struggling with the whole learning process and is quite far behind but they do send home spellings that are more geared to his level. The reading we have been doing daily since the word go and as for the number work, well that is a step too far for Little Man to cope with at the moment and we figure (rightly or wrongly) it would be better to concentrate on the reading and writing for now and get his confidence up on that front and let the number work come in time.
Anyhow despite struggling Little Man is keen and happily does his homework, rarely complains and works really hard at it. In September when school started we were sent home a sheet with the week on it saying Monday - PE kit, Tuesday - library book, Wednesday - nothing, Thursday - hand homework in, Friday - spelling test, everyday - reading book etc. This is pinned to my fridge as well as each one being on repeat in my phone.
The spellings are a sheet of paper with a list of 10 words, all normally related i.e. sigh, fight, night etc, or undo, unfit, unkind etc. These are listed on he left hand side of the sheet. On the right hand side it reminds you to read, say, cover and spell the word, then has a bit about what the number work should be, then under this a box suggesting daily reading. If we just open the book Little Man starts messing around and doesn't concentrate so I open his book and place a blank sheet of paper immediately over the list of words and we move it down a word at a time. At the last word, I normally just push the blank paper back inside his book and shut it until the next day when we do them again. From this list of 10 words he then needs to choose 5 and write a sentence with them in i.e Someone was unkind today. This is done in a separate book.
Two weeks ago I noticed before we left the playground on the Thursday night Little man's homework books were still in his bag and not handed in so we popped back to the classroom and handed them in. Last week on Wednesday when I picked Little Man up, he clearly wasn't well and his teacher said she didn't think he should attend school on Thursday. I agreed. He got home, fell asleep at 4pm and slept through to the next morning when he woke as bright as a button, raring to go, and after a very good breakfast I decided he was well enough to go in. He hadn't done his sentences though as we practice the words all week, then do the sentences wed night to hand in Thurs. I went in to see his teacher and explained and asked if he could hand them in on Friday. I was quite put out by her response when she said no, she marked the homework Thurs night and rules were rules, he would get a not done mark. I did protest he had been ill and she knew that to no avail.
This week Little Man was very upset Wednesday night and it eventually came out he had been told he had to attend homework club during his break times - he is 7 not 15. This was because he kept failing to hand his homework in. I assured him it was only once and it couldn't of been that reason but he was insistent. So the next morning I trotted back in to see the teacher. She informed me that homework day had been changed to Wednesday's back in October and the kids had been told. I am not being funny I still need to remind Little Man to put his pants on before his trousers, there is no way a message like that would 1) register with him or 2) get home. She then said it was written as well right on the bottom of the weekly sheet and showed me. Sure enough it was but due to my bit of paper method I never see the bottom of these sheets. I felt it was really bad he was being penalised for my mistake - he isn't capable of reading that message himself. She said she couldn't make allowances it wouldn't be fair, and his homework would not be marked this week. I was livid and she knew it.
On leaving the classroom I got collared by the SENCO who wanted to see me a separate issue we have with Little Man which is to do with a change of teacher which I will blog about separately. She asked if everything was OK so I explained about the homework situation.
Needless to say at 3.00 she saw me again and told me the teacher had been spoken to, and told allowances should be made, she had also had plenty of opportunity to have a quiet word with me about his late homework seeing as though we speak 2-3 times a week to catch up, and Little Man does not need to attend homework club. He came home a different child. His breaktimes are very important to him, as they are any child but homework club would break the school routine which could have a detrimental effect, luckily the SENCO gets thats.
I just hope the teacher doesn't hold it against me, I never intended them to speak with her, but it was out of order and I still feel they get an awful lot of homework for 7 years old.
Little Man is in year 3 and has started getting proper homework in the form of his daily reading, spellings once a week from which he has to write his sentences and then a spelling test. As regular readers will know Little Man is struggling with the whole learning process and is quite far behind but they do send home spellings that are more geared to his level. The reading we have been doing daily since the word go and as for the number work, well that is a step too far for Little Man to cope with at the moment and we figure (rightly or wrongly) it would be better to concentrate on the reading and writing for now and get his confidence up on that front and let the number work come in time.
Anyhow despite struggling Little Man is keen and happily does his homework, rarely complains and works really hard at it. In September when school started we were sent home a sheet with the week on it saying Monday - PE kit, Tuesday - library book, Wednesday - nothing, Thursday - hand homework in, Friday - spelling test, everyday - reading book etc. This is pinned to my fridge as well as each one being on repeat in my phone.
The spellings are a sheet of paper with a list of 10 words, all normally related i.e. sigh, fight, night etc, or undo, unfit, unkind etc. These are listed on he left hand side of the sheet. On the right hand side it reminds you to read, say, cover and spell the word, then has a bit about what the number work should be, then under this a box suggesting daily reading. If we just open the book Little Man starts messing around and doesn't concentrate so I open his book and place a blank sheet of paper immediately over the list of words and we move it down a word at a time. At the last word, I normally just push the blank paper back inside his book and shut it until the next day when we do them again. From this list of 10 words he then needs to choose 5 and write a sentence with them in i.e Someone was unkind today. This is done in a separate book.
Two weeks ago I noticed before we left the playground on the Thursday night Little man's homework books were still in his bag and not handed in so we popped back to the classroom and handed them in. Last week on Wednesday when I picked Little Man up, he clearly wasn't well and his teacher said she didn't think he should attend school on Thursday. I agreed. He got home, fell asleep at 4pm and slept through to the next morning when he woke as bright as a button, raring to go, and after a very good breakfast I decided he was well enough to go in. He hadn't done his sentences though as we practice the words all week, then do the sentences wed night to hand in Thurs. I went in to see his teacher and explained and asked if he could hand them in on Friday. I was quite put out by her response when she said no, she marked the homework Thurs night and rules were rules, he would get a not done mark. I did protest he had been ill and she knew that to no avail.
This week Little Man was very upset Wednesday night and it eventually came out he had been told he had to attend homework club during his break times - he is 7 not 15. This was because he kept failing to hand his homework in. I assured him it was only once and it couldn't of been that reason but he was insistent. So the next morning I trotted back in to see the teacher. She informed me that homework day had been changed to Wednesday's back in October and the kids had been told. I am not being funny I still need to remind Little Man to put his pants on before his trousers, there is no way a message like that would 1) register with him or 2) get home. She then said it was written as well right on the bottom of the weekly sheet and showed me. Sure enough it was but due to my bit of paper method I never see the bottom of these sheets. I felt it was really bad he was being penalised for my mistake - he isn't capable of reading that message himself. She said she couldn't make allowances it wouldn't be fair, and his homework would not be marked this week. I was livid and she knew it.
On leaving the classroom I got collared by the SENCO who wanted to see me a separate issue we have with Little Man which is to do with a change of teacher which I will blog about separately. She asked if everything was OK so I explained about the homework situation.
Needless to say at 3.00 she saw me again and told me the teacher had been spoken to, and told allowances should be made, she had also had plenty of opportunity to have a quiet word with me about his late homework seeing as though we speak 2-3 times a week to catch up, and Little Man does not need to attend homework club. He came home a different child. His breaktimes are very important to him, as they are any child but homework club would break the school routine which could have a detrimental effect, luckily the SENCO gets thats.
I just hope the teacher doesn't hold it against me, I never intended them to speak with her, but it was out of order and I still feel they get an awful lot of homework for 7 years old.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)