Backstory: Last year ds had truly amazing teachers, they 'got' him and went out of their way to make sure he felt happy and confident about his abilities and work.
In the infants maths used to be his absolute favourite subject, he has always been in the top set and got level 3 in the y2 SATs.
In y3 he essentially had a breakdown for the first half and was left to his own devices for the second half (spent the last half of the year reading in the corner). In y4 his teachers just couldn't get to grips with the fact that he can do the work, he just needs longer to process. As a result he completely lost confidence in his ability and stopped working. At the end of the year one teacher wanted to move him down a set - apparently to show him that he was better at maths than the pupils in the other group - 
. The other teacher, EP and inclusion teacher disagreed, as did I, saying that would just knock his confidence even more, as he was capable of doing the work - he just needed proper differentiation and reassurance of his abilities.
Last year his maths teacher was adamant that he was in the top set, on the second to top table purely on merit. She reiterated to me regularly throughout the year that he absolutely deserved his place in the class and she worked hard to differentiate and support him. By the end of the year he was doing really well and after all her encouragement and support, finally started to believe in his abilities again. At the end of the year she pushed for a meeting with the Head to insist that he be allowed the extra time for tests and assessments that the EP and OT had suggested. I got the distinct impression she had been pressurised not to do this during the year she taught him. Spoke to her right at the end of term and she said she'd had a meeting with the Head, SENCO and next year's teachers and it was agreed that he should get the extra time. In the meantime I made sure it was written into his statement.
This year he has two teachers who clearly don't believe he has AS. They are obstructive to say the least and have a big thing about 10 year olds being too coddled and needing to be more independent. They include ds in this, despite him clearly presenting as a much younger child in terms of emotional development and maturity.
His maths teacher has not been giving him the extra time for tests and assessments and as a result in less than one half term he is convinced once again that he is no good at maths. His confidence has plummeted and now he has started to make silly mistakes as a result. She has even kept him in at break to finish tests. 
We've been through this before with SENCO insisting extra time is only for official tests/assessments and failing to grasp that if they don't allow him the extra time in class as standard he becomes despondent, loses confidence and gives up - resulting in lower grades. He is entitled to the extra time based on the results of his WISC IV and this is clearly stated in the EP report and now also in his statement.
He brought home a test the week before last that was marked in red pen. He had completed 16 out of 22 questions and got 15 correct (the one he got wrong was a silly slip of the pencil type mistake). The teacher had put a big red cross next to every one he hadn't completed, plus obviously the one he got wrong. She then wrote a big red 7 on the bottom of the page. So not only did she not give him enough time to complete the test, instead of encouraging him by marking the ones he got right, she chose to highlight the ones he hadn't completed and mark them as wrong and instead of a mark for the ones he got right at the bottom, she had emphasised the ones he hadn't completed/got right. As a result he was really upset and told me he is rubbish at maths etc - so we are right back to square one, where we were in y4, effectively wiping out a whole year of hard work by last year's teachers.
I had just had a meeting with the SENCO about how they intend to implement his statement, but was not at all happy with their plans and my concerns were borne out within a week - so I added this to my list of issued with the school so far this term (which is now 8 pages long) as I plan to ask for a meeting to address them.
He has just come and told me that last Tuesday his maths teacher told him that she is going to discuss with his class teacher him moving down a group in maths. 
She said she would speak to his CT about it for her to discuss with us at parent's evening. He is obviously devastated and now sitting sobbing over his maths homework - which is something he could have done easily last year, but now can't do for panic.
Not only are the school not implementing his statement properly in a myriad of ways, by failing to do so they have totally undermined all the good work put in by last year's teachers. Ffs, if the maths teacher had given him the extra time as required, he wouldn't have lost confidence and wouldn't be in the situation he's in now
I have only spoken to his CT twice this year and both times she ended up ranting at me about how ridiculous his statement and extra support is. We get ten minutes at parent's evening, sat elbow to elbow with other parents. I don't want to discuss it at parent's evening, but dh says he does - loudly if necessary.
I want to arrange a meeting to go through the 8 pages of problems we've had so far this year and how badly ds is affected as a result. To find out why the teachers have such a shitty attitude to SEN and what makes them think they are better qualified than a team of over 9 professionals to know what my son's needs are and therefore over-rule a hard won statement.
The problem is that dh has just started a new job and can't come to daytime meetings anymore.
I am all shades of angry about this, sitting here shaking with anger at how upset my ds is because of their incompetence and refusal to give him the support he needs, as set down in his statement.
I feel sick and just want to cry. I have fought so bloody hard and after winning the statement content he needs (with one or two exceptions) he is worse off than he was without one. I can't believe they told him they were going to move him down a group without speaking to me, or at the very least his inclusion teacher first. Poor child has been bottling this up all week without saying a word. I bloody knew something was up because he has started flapping and tic-ing again and is generally a real state as soon as he gets in from school every day.
I spoke to the TA who helps him get organised for the day on Thursday and she insisted that he is doing really well, settled in fine and had no problems. I told her what a state he's been in at home and said it's because he's having to hold himself together at school and she said 'well he's doing a great job at it then'.
I know the school are going to put the blockades up and I have a huge fight on my hands about the useless way the have implemented some of the statement had have clearly completely ignored others. I can't even go to the LEA about it as the Statementing Officer seems to be best buddies with the SENCO and just says it's my problem because I don't have enough trust in the school, so it's for me to sort out with them.
It's not even as if I care about his bloody results fgs, I just want him to be happy and confident and he is the polar opposite of that right now thanks to their spectacular mishandling of him.
A whole year of excellent teaching and support wiped out in 3 weeks (he was on a residential for one week and off sick for another). That has to be an all time record.
Can someone with some perspective please tell me what to do? I feel like no matter what I do nothing will change and ds is going to slide further and further backwards as the year goes on.
Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on special needs.
SN children
I am so upset, school and statement related (ranty and long) :(
moosemama · 14/10/2012 13:10
Honks and > Moose
I don't really feel qualified to give you any advice as we are going through similar . All I can suggest is that you have a meeting with school and ensure that minutes are taken so that they are fully aware of your views. You can probably get someone from PP to attend,not necessarily to provide input but to be a witness and take the minutes if necessary.
Also, it is the duty of the LA to ensure that the provision in the statement is met so if the meeting outcomes are unsuccessful you need to go to them.
on your behalf and for your ds. It really annoys me that this goes on all the time and school and LA think it's acceptable.
Thank you greyhares. I think they're going to refuse to meet with me unfortunately, based on the fact that we've already had a meeting on 27th September.
I took a PP rep to the last meeting and she is great. Have just emailed her the whole sorry story to ask her advice as well.
I have already spoken to the LA about the statement not being implemented, only to be told it's early days and I obviously have trust issues with the school, which is nothing to do with them and for me to sort out directly with the school. They were also at great pains to tell me that they haven't had any other problems with the school - but I know different, as I am friends with someone who has a son with physical needs, whose statement came with funding for school adaptations, which weren't made for the whole of the first year he was there and then were done on the cheap, in appropriately.
blueemerald I can't pull him out, he really wants to be there, to be with his best friend and the school are already making threatening noises about scaring off the secondary he wants to go to if we are too pushy with his statement. I know that's not right, but it's the reality of the situation and we are hog-tied by it because it's taken such a lot to get ds to accept that he has to leave and go to secondary and he has his heart set on going to the same one as his best friend, which happens to be the best one for him in the area as well, but unfortunately has a close relationship with his primary, iykwim.
justoutside I asked about that for ds, but they said their tests don't get harder towards the end. They are differentiated by ability, so different groups within the set do different tests.
I don't understand how they think he can go from 'absolutely deserves his place in the top set on the second table' to 'struggles with maths and needs to be moved out of the top set' in less than 4 weeks, without considering what they might be doing wrong and what they can do to sort it out.
Sad thing is, I think we are headed for similar with literacy, as his CT just doesn't get why he has problems getting his ideas onto paper. Mind you, it would help if they let him use ICT as his statement states.
Thank you Attila
I have just had a long talk with him about it all. From what I can make out, the maths teacher sets a minimum number of questions to be completed by everyone in the class or else the lose breaktime. Ds is a hall monitor at break and takes his job very seriously. He has been panicking that he won't be out in time to do his job, so going into a flat spin and just trying to get as many questions done as possible. So he's rushing, not thinking or being able to think clearly due to the panic and as a result, getting lost of questions wrong.
He has just sat here and sobbed his heart out. At first he said he go down a set if that's what I want him to do, then I explained that I don't care what set he's in, I just want him to be happy and not to be struggling every day. Then he really broke down and said that he's been in set 1 the whole time he's been at the school and he doesn't want to go down a set. I asked him if he might not be more comfortable moving down a set and having a different teacher, but he really doesn't want to do that, he will feel embarrassed and humiliated and he won't be in the same class as his friends anymore.
Imo, he can't have gone from deserving his place on the second to top table to being moved down a set withing 4 weeks without something going very wrong somewhere. I told him so and said that it isn't anything he's doing wrong, it's down to the way they are teaching and organising lessons etc.
I suggested I speak to the teachers about setting him a lower target number of completed questions and give it a few more weeks to see if taking the pressure off helps.
Just spoke to dh and we are considering going above the SENCO (who is also an Assistant Head) to see the Head. I have evidence that he SENCO has lied to me re access arrangements for SATs and denying ds extra time and word processing access, so that alone is enough for us to go over her head.
He's adamant he doesn't want to leave the school. If we ask him what he thinks about school in general he says he likes it, but if we ask about say, maths or literacy specifically he gets upset.
Re secondary. We have already had a meeting with the head of learning support and he made a point of saying they will keep ds with his best friend and one other 'friend' for tutor group etc. The meeting was very positive and they sounded like it won't be a problem, but they hadn't seen the statement at that point, as it wasn't finalised. I'm wary of contacting them again, as I don't want to get a reputation as a pushy parent again, before he's even at the school.
Applications have gone in now and the LA will be sending them a copy of his statement around about now anyway.
I'm not really sure we are up to going the legal route, financially or otherwise at the moment and any advice IPSEA etc would give would be to spell out the school/LA's legal responsibilities to them and threaten legal action if they don't do it - but we know from experience they won't bat an eyelid at that, so we have to be prepared to act, rather than just call their bluff, iyswim. I'm assuming legal action would mean judicial review to get the LA to enforce the statement.
Oh good grief Moosemama
Why can the same school be so different? I dont understand. They discussed and went through the statement with you fgs so they knew what was coming or am I wrong on this...
I just wondered if it would be worth explaining to your DS in and honest fashion that this school is hell bound to make his maths a struggle and because the moose household are a team you think its best to pull him out of school and home educate him so he can prove them wrong and take all the tests he likes online so that he can stay in top set at the senior school x
As for the LA and buddying up with the senco, well irrespective of what he/she feels about it being early days you can email them straight away saying there is no early about it seeing has he has already spent an entire Y3 with them so they know him well, the maths teacher knew him well and what she did worked so why cant the same be expected from this maths teacher as per the statement!
So it isnt being implemented so what do they intend to do about it before you take the matter higher level.
Tbh I would go into a meeting with my list of "not doing" hand it around and just come out with "this is what is not being done, why are you not implementing all that is in that statement" and leave the ball in their court to answer. I wouldnt budge anymore and just keep repeating that if they adhered to the statement and listened to the proffesionals your DS and his self esteem would be going uphill and not downhill. I wouldnt take their snide comment about ruining it for his senior school and I would take something to record the meeting because you are so confused right now and it all might not sink in today.
If you are nice they are going to play up and if you are nasty......they are going to play up. I am really disgusted with them.
Thank you for your insight swanthing. I hear what you are saying and have tried to discuss that angle with ds, but as his statement puts it 'ds has a fragile self-image' and he equates moving down to failure and finds it a horrifying prospect. Personally, I feel the same as you, that if he wouldn't be as stressed in the next set, then maybe that would suit him better.
Obviously the whole change thing comes into him not wanting to move groups, but ultimately it's the humiliation he can't handle, even though I've explained it's not to do with his ability, more to reduce the pressure. It doesn't matter to him, as he still feels like a failure.
I'm also still struggling to see how he can go from a position where the school was so insistent he was in the right place, to being told - teacher's words to him in the middle of a maths lesson - "I don't think you belong in this set" in just four weeks. They haven't tried to work out what has caused this to happen, they just want to move him down and have done with.
Coff yes they went through the statement with us and made it clear that they weren't happy about the content. In fact they said they would revoke his school place if we persisted with quantifying and specifying and then said no other ms primary would take him either.
The LEA stonewalled us, refusing to respond to letters and phonecalls for weeks after we sent in our amendments, then we threatened legal action and on the second letter, about 6-8 weeks late and thanks to some wording given to me by IE and IPSEA, they suddenly issued a second proposed with hardly any of my changes made.
They then refused to even speak to me to discuss any further changes, but I managed to wrangle a phone call and eventually we came to an agreement on wording, which wasn't the tightest in the world, but would make it extremely difficult for the school to deliberately misinterpret. They also agreed to go back to the EP and if she agreed, make one of the most significant imho changes to the provision. The EP agreed, as I knew she would because we'd already discussed and emailed about it, so the SO made that change.
The SO then went through and made a lot of 'weasel word' amendments on the phone with me and then we agreed I'd send in the rest of the minor word changes and as she was just off on holiday for the summer, she would either make them or instruct whoever was doing it to make them and then finalise.
The statement was finalised while we were on holiday and when we got home I found many of the amendments she said she'd made on the phone weren't changed and she hadn't made any of the other one's I'd requested. This meant that some of his support ended up as 'he needs' rather than 'school will provide him with'. Most notably ICT 'can be used' and 'ds needs additional time' - so two of the points the school really objected for for some ungodly reason.
Then as a finally insult I discovered that they'd allowed the school to make two changes to the content after I had signed to say I agreed with the draft. Those two changes undermine the whole support plan imho. The changes were embedded in the middle of paragraphs I hadn't asked to be amended, so I missed them when checking the final statement as I had no reason to believe they would have changed and they looked the same if you scanned the first sentence.
When I called the LEA to ask how the hell it had happened the SO basically told me she is the SO and can do whatever she likes - if she feels a change the school requests is reasonable, she can include it regardless of my opinion or the stage of the statementing process, even if it was a parental, rather than school request. She also told me that the school know my ds's needs better than I do 
and that the only problem with ds's statement is my lack of trust in the school to implement it appropriately to meet his needs and that is my problem and no-one else's. Well now I think they've demonstrated that my lack of trust was justified.
Tree, thanks for taking the time to post. Hope you managed to get some sleep.
Home-schooling isn't an option, he is just so anti, he desperately wants to stay at school and would see being pulled out as yet another failure.
I am making some calls this morning and hoping to have a plan of action by the end of the day.
Ok, just made a spectacular prat of myself by crying on phone to SO. 
But, she was lovely and talked me through how to approach the school. She said I am within my rights to go back to them, tell them it's not working and tell them to do things as per statement. She said the school have signed to say they will meet his needs as set down in the statement and they have to do it and I have been reasonable agreeing to try the school's plan, even though it wasn't what the statement dictates, but enough is enough, if it isn't working they need to sort it asap. She also said to go to Head if SENCO isn't budging.
I did explain how I had bent over backwards not to be unreasonable or pushy with the school, yet I'm still getting treated like I'm a problem and she said that nothing I have done or want to do is unreasonable and as long as I am not down there ranting at them all the time they have no cause for complaint about my behaviour.
Flabbergasted!
Waiting for PP to come back to me now so we can get moving on getting this mess sorted out.
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Thanks NoHaudin and Corny (Loving your assessment of the SENCO by the way. 
)
That's the problem, they are blocking the extra time and word-processing use that he should be using as his normal way of working for some reason. The knock-on effect of that will be them not allowing him it for his SATs come next May.
I have no idea why they would want to do this, as surely it looks better for the school if he achieves the results he has the potential to achieve - with the right support and facilities available to him. 
The only think I can think of is that the SENCO can't be faffed to make the necessary arrangements for him come the SATs (ie sort a laptop that has no spell or grammar check on and is locked down as per the access requirements) plus possibly arranging for him to do his SATs in a separate room so that he can have the additional time without being disturbed by the rest of the group coming and going.
From what I can make out, most of what she does is down to ease of resource/facilitation for her, rather than for the benefit of the child.
Ds came out of school presenting his full range of facial tics this afternoon. This is after this morning, when instead of abandoning me to rush to his best friend's side he wouldn't leave me and instead stood there with his arms around me blinking back tears.
Still no news from PP, so we dh will call the advocate tonight and go at it from that angle instead. A bit frustrated that I've wasted a day waiting for PP, but they are up to their eyes and probably off supporting some other poor bugger who is also getting screwed one way or another.
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