Thursday, 24 March 2011

Parents eve or Speed dating? Can you tell the difference?

Ok admittedly I've never been speed dating ( been married almost 17 yrs in April!) but from what I gather or have been told I had a 'near as damn it' introduction to it last night!

I've had both my childrens parent's evenings this week, primary school child on Tuesday and secondary school child on Wednesday.

Tuesday was great as we have known the teacher for a while ( via my older son) and she is a great 'tell it like it is' type. She knows my son very well and has his character sussed out. He gets on well with her as they very much share the same sense of humour and he probably gets away with more than he should! Reports were great but surprise surprise he can be a bit cheeky............no shock there.

Wednesday was a whole different experience!! Two huge halls all lined with desks and teacher names all the way round. 4 minutes per teacher  with a 4 minute reprieve in between complete with a 'run the gauntlet' style dash to the next hall and next teacher!

Precious seconds of your time are taken up with the teacher looking for your childs details and even worse getting them mixed up with another child.........' sorry I have 2 kids with the same name in that particular class' being prominent in our 3 1/2 minutes left.

This marathon was endured for 2 1/2 hours without a break or the necessity luxury of alcohol which I'm sure is a pre-requisite on a speed dating night. I was exhausted afterwards and didn't even come away with any numbers of the decent looking ones...........I'm sure that's a necessity on a speed dating night!

Again my little baby soon to be teenager was doing well but unfortunately problems have been recognised by several of his teachers with focus, his appauling handwriting, his inability to be in anyway organised and his lack of pen to paper. So he can ignore it no longer and we have been advised to contact the SEN co ordinator to see if we can get to the route of the problem ( very very mild Aspergers) and get the support he needs!! He hates to be singled out in any way and has never wanted to do anything about his 'little ways' but the teachers have made him realise he just needs supporting in a different way. So hopefully things will get a bit easier for him before the very daunting year9!

If anyone has any experience of this, or any advice I would love to hear from you.
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8 comments:

  1. Bakes, Books & My Boys24 March 2011 at 08:10

    Lovely blog! have been chuckling all the way through! Thank you for finding me! am following you now! x
    http://bakesbooksandmyboys.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. jazzygal24 March 2011 at 10:31

    Sounds like the whole thing would have been much more endurable with a glass of wine!

    I believe it can be really hard for the "mild" high functioning kids to cope in the mainstream setting. Sometimes we and the professionals can forget that, because they "only" have Mild aspergers... or PDD-nos as in my 11yo son's case.

    My son has assistance in the form of an SNA (classroom assistant) and 5 valuable hours of Resource a week. Things that will carry forward with him into Secondary school in September 2012. Organisation and handwriting are my main concerns also!

    It's very hard when they get to 11 and 12 without a diagnosis for them to accept a label or help.

    I'm at present trying to rope the school into spending some resource hours on getting typing skills up to speed.

    Can your son do that in your school... do work on a laptop? Can he get a scribe (someone to help him with test papers) for exam time?

    I'm also going to work on some schedules to help with organisation. Especially around homework and having all the correct books!

    Have a look at the book; Mind Maps For Kids by: Tony Buzon. Something I'm gonna be working through!

    Sorry for long comment... hope it's helpful in some small way :-)
    xx Jazzy

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  3. mum in meltdown24 March 2011 at 13:23

    Jazzygal- thank you so much for your comment. I will look out that book and have a read through. It was mentioned that he may be able to do work on a laptop and I'm hoping we can get that on the go sooner rather than later. I'm making an appointment with the SEN co ordinator and hopefully we will have a better idea of how to proceed after that. It never really bothered us or him before as he's very sociable and coped well at primary school but it really is more apparant in year 8 and we need to get some control over it for year9 and onwards.
    Thanks T x

    ReplyDelete
  4. natalee24 March 2011 at 17:13

    Oh. Sweet baby Jesus what a nightmare. I hope they are a little more personal with him.. I definitely would have needed alcohol

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  5. Dianne x25 March 2011 at 00:13

    Sounds like all secondary schools are the same. I have a son in year 8 also and at his last parents evening several of the teachers talked about a different child.
    Hopefully now the teachers have recognised he could use some support they will come up with solutions.

    Our secondary school is not far from a pub, no wonder its always full after parents evening.

    Hope the school are supportive and help him.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Eve Ainsworth25 March 2011 at 02:21

    Hiya
    I hope you don't mind but I have nominated your blog for the Leibster Award (see http://polythenepram.blogspot.com)


    Evey@Polythenepram

    x

    ReplyDelete
  7. mum in meltdown25 March 2011 at 04:41

    Thank you all
    Dianne loving the fact you school is near to the pub that would help both before and after the Parents eve!
    Thanks Evey very kind I will take a look at that
    T x

    ReplyDelete
  8. Freyaoflove8 September 2011 at 12:45

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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