You may, or may not have noticed, that my blog has been a little quiet the past few weeks. I’ve been struggling with something. Basically, our lives got turned upside down, literally 3 days before the country went into nationwide lockdown. It was an extremely stressful time and only now, 3 weeks later, am I coming to terms with it and able to talk about it.
The Back Story
If you follow me on social media, you will know that I have been unhappy with my kids’ school for more than a year now. It started last year, I really felt that Ava did not have a teacher that was best suited to who she is as a child. There were also huge issues with the quality of teacher prepared work that was being sent home. I’m talking about spelling errors, grammatical errors, it was just poor. I had complained numerous times to the school and to the principal and raised my concerns but in all honestly, I always felt like I was more of an annoyance and a nuisance to the school.
At around the same time, Ava started to struggle with her reading. We pushed through because I thought a large portion of it was her being lazy, I feel so awful saying that now, in light of what we have learned.
The Start of The Dreaded Grade 4
I know school is tough and I know Grade 4 is a particularly tough year, but in all honesty, the wheels literally came off this year. Ava had gone from being a child who did well at school, to literally failing everything.
We were worried. There were many sleepless nights and tears. There was even one night, when after 4 hours of homework, my sweet little girl, completely lost the plot, she literally had a breakdown. We had multiple meetings with the teachers and discussions about our concerns, but everyone just said it was normal and teachers just told us Grade 4 was tough. The final straw came when we discovered that for one of her tests, she had achieved 0%. As in ZERO guys. And her teacher hadn’t felt it necessary to communicate that to us. Instead, getting Ava to rewrite the test a few days later with no notice or warning.
Now I take HUGE exception to a few things here. Firstly, being told that the teacher didn’t have time to communicate with us is, in my opinion, when you have a student getting zero percent, unacceptable and secondly getting a child to rewrite without giving them a chance to restudy is just pretty pointless, when I questioned this, I was told the teacher was not obligated to give her a chance to rewrite. Basically, I was told, in not so many words, to shut my mouth. Interestingly, I’ve had a few conversations with other parents who took the same exception to specific tests and teachers. We tried to meet with the school to discuss our concerns again, but we were once again, and this time by the divisional head and principal, pretty much disregarded and dismissed. I cannot tell you how disrespectfully we were treated. Like we were a nuisance and they were doing us a favour. When my husband stormed out a second time and I told the principal we were probably going to remove our children from their school, his only concern was that I put that in writing. No apology, no concern or interest in even engaging on what they could try to do better. Not once did anybody show any interest in taking on board our concerns and attempting to improve what is, in my opinion a pretty crappy schooling system.
And honestly, that is just one example of the lack of professionalism we had experienced so far this year. I could give you a list as long as my arm, but it’s no longer worth my energy. I won’t give that place one inch more of my time and frankly they are not my problem anymore.
The Assessment
We decided to take Ava to an Educational Psychologist for a professional assessment before simply moving schools to ensure we put her into the best school for her. The results were shocking and just further proof that my kids were not attending a school that was focused on excellence in education.
We could never have been prepared for the results of the assessment. It has taken me a while to process it all and to come to terms with it. Along with dealing with my anger at how I feel the previous school had so miserably failed my child. All the while making us feel like we were the problem when in fact they had a teaching staff who were completely unable to recognize that they had a child in the class that had unrecognized special needs. I don’t expect that a teacher be able to diagnose a special need, but I would have thought that being able to recognize that there was a potential issue, would be within the scope of teaching?
The Diagnosis
Ava has multiple diagnosis, when I even say that I get furious with the school all over again that not one teacher in all the years she was a student there, ever picked up on the fact that there might be an issue.
So here is the list:
Attention Deficit Disorder – we have a referral to a neurologist for further testing and to decide on a course of treatment
Auditory Hypersensitivity – which means she cannot concentrate or cope in large, noisy classrooms
And the most shocking of all
Dyslexia
I don’t understand how no one, not one of the paid professionals, was able to pick up on this. I’m also pretty disgusted that when we handed in our written notice to the school, along with the report from her assessment, they didn’t even acknowledge their failure. There was no apology for having even missed such important cues.
Change of Schools
So it was recommended, 3 days before lockdown, that we move Ava into an assisted learning or remedial school, to get her the relevant teachers that could assist her with her education while dealing with and offering therapies to her various diagnoses.
We have managed to get her into an amazing school, just dealing with the school, through their own set of assessments and then getting her enrolled and set up with eLearning during lockdown has shone a bright light on the failures of the previous school. The level of professionalism and care is incomparable.
The new school comes at a much higher cost and obviously, there was no way I was leaving Hannah behind and the old school, so we had to move her too. And again, just dealing with her new school through the enrolment process and eLearning during lockdown has also been a pleasure in comparison to what we have experienced in the past. I am somewhat concerned as it would seem that the school curriculums are different, and Hannah seems to be behind in terms of the reading and the spelling, so we are having to work very hard at getting her caught up.
But I somehow managed to, single handily, get the girls out of their old school, enrolled at their new schools, with all the relevant certified paperwork and vaccination and transfer certificates in the 3 days before lockdown.
What a crazy time it has been. I am still so bitterly disappointed and angry with the previous school, the undeserved trust and faith that we put in their system and their staff and the amount of money we spent there over so many years for this? Unforgivable.
Dear Sharon – I am so sorry you all had to go through this. My kids are in a government school and even in grade RR Leons’ issues were picked up and addressed. We have a lot of kids coming from the C schools to our school – and then somehow they are behind – usually in maths I was told. Just lots of love
Thanks Cat. I am so angry that not ONE of the teachers picked up that something was wrong. That I was made to feel like I was a nuisance for being concerned. I am just so glad that I don’t have to deal with them anymore. There are no words that can full express how much anger and frustration and utter rage and despair they have caused me in the past year.
Oh my word!!! Livid! How in heaven’s name did not ONE teacher pick it up?! I am so sorry that you and Ava had to go through this. As a mom of a girl with ADD, Auditory Hypersensitivity and Asperger’s (dyslexia still to be tested as she just turned 9), changing to an assisted learning school changed our lives! I pray that the transition is a smooth one and that both your girls will feel at home in their new environments when school starts. I learnt very quickly that ‘normal’ school is not for everyone. I wish I had options other than mainstream when I was a child. You are fantastic parents and Ava is lucky to have you! I know of so many parents who ignore their children’s struggles and it breaks my heart. Apologies for all the exclamation marks, but as you can ‘hear’ this is something I am very passionate about 😉
Thank you Charlene. I am just exhausted from this fight and looking forward to not having to deal with the old school and their dismissals.
My blood would be boiling too if I were you. My brother’s dyslexia was also only picked up at about that age. Problem was that he was really good at memorising, so he slipped by with reciting instead of reading. All the best with the new school. There will always be occasional niggles, but if the school and parents can work together it makes all the difference in the world.
This is exactly Ava, it’s a coping mechanism. She has an excellent visual memory.
Just reading your story makes my blood boil! I am so glad you are on the right path for both your kids now. Well done to all of you for getting all this accomplished in the short time that you had.
I would write to the head of the group of schools… and start the letter of with: “I am not expecting a response, but just to make you aware of how shitty this school is…”
but yeah I also understand you not wanting to waste any extra energy on that!
Hang in there… it’s a rough ride, but we get used to it…
So sorry Sharon. It’s terrible. And we had a similar experience at the same group of schools. Claudio has ADHD and Asperger’s and although he can manage in a mainstream school he still needs certain concessions and considerations which his old school couldn’t understand and weren’t prepared to accommodate. The wheels also came off for us when Claudio was in Grade 4 last year. And then one term into their new school Massimo’s teacher made us aware that she felt he needed OT because he was struggling with handwriting and pencil grip. None of these were brought to our attention at the previous school even when I enquired about his pencil grip in Grade R already. He’s now in Grade 2. I am also so relieved to be rid of the old school and so grateful that my kids are happy in their new school which is absolutely amazing and so advanced with technology that the online learning has been relatively easy for my kids to adapt to as they were already using so much of it at school before lockdown. Best decision ever!!! Well done for managing to get it sorted so quickly and all the best.
Oh my word Sharon. I cannot imagine what Ava or you guys have been through. Its just very sad. I am glad that she is in a school that understands her needs. I feel sorry for the kids that are being left behind because teachers do not understand their educational needs.
I have had the same issue with my little girl, luckily it was still at playschool. Schools and teachers have such an impact on these little minds. Most teachers are stars but there are a few were are less than stellar for a variety of reasons.
We used to have a gregarious outgoing little girl, untill she started at a certain pre-school. Suddenly she was introverted and refused to play with anyone. She would say things at home like ” ohhh (enter her name) you are so naughty” “wrong, wrong,wrong” I did bring this to the teacher and the principals attention. My daughter was moved to another class and thats when the wheels came off entirely. She stopped speaking , started wetting her pants and had a complete meltdown before everyday at school when she saw the school building.
We have been working with a OT and an educational psychologist. Turns out my daughter had hearing issues (never picked up) she also has Auditory Hypersensitivity and displays Sensory Seeking behaviors because of the hearing issues.
Fast forward 5 months at a new school, with a teacher and principal that understand her needs. Happy Child who ran to class (pre-lock down) , sings songs at the top of her lungs and is learning to write.
I am so sorry you had to go through with that.
One of the things I am learning about this parenting thing is that we have to be the advocates for our children, no one else can do it for us.
I have heard enough about these types of group schools she attended that as a teacher I wouldn’t want to work there. ADD and the auditory sensitivity I can kind of understand the teacher missing. But dyslexia!!that’s obvious, even as you said if they didn’t know what it was and often teachers are afraid to say what they think as parents freak out the teacher definitely should have picked it up and suggested testing. At least Hannah is young enough to catch up and I am glad you removed her too. I hope these new schools will be the start of a good thing
That’s my biggest issue. I didn’t ever expect the teachers to give a diagnosis, but I would have thought one of them would have been paying enough attention to her to notice that something was wrong.
I can’t even deal. This just makes me so mad. But I’m glad you found different schools for them. Better late than never. And good riddance to bad rubbish 🙁