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His schooling has turned a corner

February 27, 2013 by Jen

My son started grade 6 this year. In most states of Australia that would be the last year of primary school but in South Australia he’s in the second to last year. He’s now in senior school and there’s a noticeable difference in teachers’ expectations of him, particularly when it comes to homework.

My son has never been organised – never. I’ve tried all sorts of methods to get him to remember stuff but I’m not at school with him when he finishes as he goes to after school care so I have no control over him bringing home the things he needs for homework including the diary that’s supposed to have what homework he’s supposed to be doing written in it.

I’ve never been a fan of homework because it just seemed stressful to me, and it seemed stressful for him. As he goes to after school care most days he’s tired when he gets home and the last thing either of us want to do is more work. Spelling lists were a nightmare where I would get annoyed with him for not trying, and he would get annoyed with me for not being patient enough. A couple of years he’s had a homework contract where there’s a page to a week and there’s different tasks to do from maths, spelling to saying what sport and jobs you did around the house. Many weeks saw him whiz through this the day that it was due with a real half-hearted effort. Gentle reminding from me never really seemed to help when he didn’t really want to do it.

In week three of this term I finally saw his diary – after repeatedly asking him for it – and there were some notes in it from the teacher saying that it wasn’t signed and that he hadn’t done aspects of his homework. One of the notes said it might be a good idea to meet to make a homework plan.

This was on a night when he was having huge trouble doing one of his assignments. This year is the first year that he’s had a weekly assignment to do and this one was a huge one it seemed to me.

See, he’s had trouble with his spelling from early primary years. Having trouble spelling means having trouble writing for him too. So the first part of this assignment involved writing ten things that he observed about an exhibition they’d been to the previous week. Not that hard you would think. But it was for both of us. See, he said he couldn’t remember what he’d seen.

Come on, I said, you’re really observant. Surely you can remember what you saw there?

It took an hour to get nearly ten things down on paper and this was only the first part of the assignment. There were still six or so other questions – most of them involving writing. It meant by the end of the hour both of us were frustrated. This is why I could never home school my own child. I might be okay with someone elses, but not my own.

I never thought he would finish this assignment.

The next day on Twitter I asked for help with resources for helping a kid to improve their spelling and the lovely Joh messaged me and made me feel a lot better. She asked if he enjoyed reading and when I said that he did she said not to worry too much about spelling as that would follow. That made me feel a bit better but I thought he’s still got to wade through the rest of that bloody homework. And the amount of homework is only going to get worse from here.

Meanwhile I made an appointment for both of us to meet with the teacher.

She sat down with us after school one day and went through the data she’d collected about JJ since the beginning of that year – all three weeks of it. I’ve never had a teacher talk data before. She’d noticed that his comprehension was really really good, but his spelling let him down and asked both of us why we thought that might be. I mentioned that a previous teacher thought he might be dyslexic. She also asked if JJ had missed much school and I said that no he hadn’t.

I mentioned that he’d had behavioural issues in class before that meant in some classes he was sent out a lot as that was how some teachers seem to manage it so it was partly his fault that he’d missed out on some schooling. I asked how he was in her classroom and she said that he wasn’t disruptive at all. I said that this would be the first class he hasn’t been disruptive in. I know from meeting her that she won’t tolerate it and she seems to have the respect of the kids so that they don’t want to be disruptive.

It’s only taken seven years of schooling to get to this point, HALLELUJAH! Go JJ!!!!

She basically told us that JJ was a bit lazy when it came to some aspects of his schooling and while that’s not great to hear it made perfect sense. She told us that so long as he makes an effort now, it will reap rewards fairly soon and that he will catch up.

We were with her for about twenty minutes, and JJ and I left the meeting both feeling really good. He has improved out of site since. He managed to finish this assignment and while he hasn’t been given his mark yet, it looks fairly promising although his teacher said he didn’t need to write so many slabs of text. He’s even mentioned to me that he feels smarter.

He’s since done another assignment and got a B+. He did this assignment without any stress on his part, or mine.

He used to ask me how to spell words that he should have known how to spell, like ‘with’. His confidence has picked up that he now doesn’t, but if he does I tell him that he should know how to do that and he at least gives it a go.

I emailed the teacher to thank her for the meeting and to say that I’d noticed an improvement.

She replied back with, ‘He certainly seems switched on and very keen to learn. I have already noticed an improvement in what he is handing up to me. I think he is the kind of child who likes to be challenged as he is a bright and creative thinker.
He already is a “smart” kid!’

I’m hopeful for the rest of his schooling years now. And it’s such a relief.

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Mum, you are the beast

December 17, 2009 by Jen

I had to share this Christmas card from JJ to me. His writing has improved a lot this year but he still needs a bit of work in the spelling area. While I’m mentioning improvements I have to say how overall, he improved in the last school term of the year.

He’d been falling into all his old patterns of naughtiness and detentions at school and it was really driving me and his teachers mad. On the first day of the last term JJ told me he’d been to the principal’s office after a kid’s parents had been to see her about JJ. He also told me that he was going back to see her on the Friday.

I rang the principal the next day to introduce myself and to talk about his behaviour. Even though I’d had numerous chats with his teacher and made it clear that I want to work with the school in regards to JJ this mustn’t have been relayed to the principal because she said she was glad that we’d had our chat and happy that I wanted to work with them to help JJ.

The upshot of the phone call was a meeting with a behaviour management person from the Department of Education, the pastoral care worker from school, a special ed teacher and JJ’s teacher. We sorted out a student development plan for JJ where we came up with three really simple goals that he could achieve quite easily and he would be rated by himself and his teacher three times per day with 1 being not very good and 5 being very good.

The goals (and aims) were: 1. Put up your hand for help (to allow yourself and others to work without distraction), 2. Stay in your seat and on task until you have finished your work (to get more learning done), and 3. Start work when the teacher asks (to get a good start with your learning).

If he got good ‘marks’ then he was able to have a reward and JJ and his teacher came up with a list of rewards like taking his DSi in, extra time on the computer – that sort of thing.

Looking back over the charts he hardly got any 1’s but mainly got 4’s annd 5’s. I bore the brunt of his being good at school because he was tired of that when he got home and we had some doozies of tantrums. I’d been kind of prepared for it though and was willing to go with it if it meant good behaviour at school. I was also pretty sure that it was just an adjustment phase for him and that things would settle down at home too.

During the term we had two or three follow up meetings with Department and the school, and JJ was involved this time too. He admitted that it was a long time to be good for not much time getting rewards, but as we told him the rewards were much more than just a bit of time playing his DSi at school.

And they were. The rewards for him were a boost in self-esteem and no detentions at all in the last term. I spoke to his teacher on the last day of term and she couldn’t say enough great stuff about him. Things like he’d become a role model for the other kids. He’d be first in line or first sitting down when asked to. She said she was going to tell his teacher for next year to not judge JJ on his previous record, but that the slate should be wiped clean and this was a brand new kid going to start grade 3.

Because JJ goes to out of school hours care we had to start something similar there too. At the beginning of the student development plan JJ had had a really good day at school and then at after school care was really really naughty. He’d even said to them that he’d been really good at school and didn’t need to be good afterwards. Needless to say once we started an after school care plan he was absolutely fine!

We’re going to continue the plan at the beginning of the next school year just to reinforce the good work that was done in the last term and fingers crossed it works.

Anyway, back to my Christmas card from JJ.

Handmade christmas card

IMG_0290

It says, Dear mum. I love you. You are the best (not beast). It would be cool if we could fly ad look at the rainbow closer – silly. And have a happy Christmas.

Bless him. I’m sure that ‘you are the beast’ is not a Freudian slip!

IMG_0291

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My boy

August 31, 2008 by Jen

JJ

This photo was taken just over three years ago, making him four years old. It was a lot easier then in a lot of ways. He hadn’t started school!

What is it about school that’s so problematic for him, and consequently for me? What is it about schools that see suspension as the only answer to behavioural problems?

I have so many questions and unfortunately there’s no easy answer. We need time. I need to become more in the school’s face to try and get them to help my boy, not just punish him when things go bad.

I want to work with the school but perhaps it’s better for him to make a fresh start elsewhere? I don’t bloody know!

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Day at a time

August 22, 2008 by Jen

Surprising me from up the tree

‘My little treasure’, I called him as I talked to his after school carer the other day. It had been an interesting day. I’d spoken to the deputy prinicipal earlier that day, as JJ spent most of the day in his office after being really disruptive in the classroom.

A year or so ago I’d have really taken this to heart but now I’m a lot more philosophical about it. The deputy told me that JJ’s really intelligent and he knows what he’s doing when he’s being disruptive like this but he does it anyway. He said that in 25 years time I’d look back and think, ‘gee he was a ratbag at school’. I hope he’s right but I hope it’s sooner than 25 years.

These days I take one day at a time. The day before this phone call JJ won a gold medal at after school care for excellent behaviour and he was the best kid to have around that night. When he’s being really nice to me, and polite it’s almost seems surreal but I do enjoy those moments because they don’t last.

The next morning he was very different and I knew that he’d be in for a bad day at school. Sure enough I was right. But then yesterday he was fine. I could be living in Topsy Turvy land because I don’t know which way it will be at any given time. One way of looking at this is that at least if it is bad at one time, then I know it won’t stay this way.

This is all a huge learning experience for me and I’m sure it’s making me a stronger and better person. Yes it is.

PS: I took the photo above in King’s Park when we had our recent Perth trip. I was standing around admiring the scenery, or sheltering from the rain, or both. JJ had disappeared then he appeared just above me in this tree. Don’t you just love the texture in the tree? I’ve got no idea what type it is but I love it.

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Party food and suspension from school

March 30, 2008 by Jen

Chocolate crackles

Party food, ie chocolate crackles, and a suspension from school? Let’s see if I can do a neat segue.

My friend’s son had a 5th birthday party yesterday afternoon. The night prior my friend rang to ask me for a chocolate crackles recipe. It so happened that I had all the necessary ingredients as this is something I promised to do with JJ. In a moment of weakness I offered to make them and bring them along with me.

It’s the first time I’ve made them and it was dead easy. The recipe is on the side of the Rice Bubbles packet.

You will need:

  • 4 cups Rice Bubbles
  • 1 cup icing sugar
  • 1 cup desiccated coconut
  • 250g Copha
  • 3 tbsp cocoa

In a large bowl mix the Rice Bubbles, icing sugar, coconat and cocoa.

S lowly melt the copha in a saucepan over low heat and allow to cool slightly. Add to the rice bubbles mixture, stirring well until combined.

Spoon the mixture into paper patty pans and refrigerate until firm.This will make about 24.

So I made these just before I went to school to pick JJ up. I was sitting outside his classroom when he came back with two other boys and the deputy principal and an envelope in his hand. The other boy said ‘we’ve been suspended’. Apparently there was an incident at lunchtime that involved kicking. I still haven’t got the full story but will find out at the suspension conference early this week.

JJ has had some detentions this year and it seems to boil down to mixing with this kid who gets him into trouble and not knowing how to behave in the playground. He also has trouble making friends at school.

I felt like I was rewarding him by taking him to the party but because it was a good friend’s birthday and we’d promised to go, we went. JJ is without tv and computer for one week and this will be reviewed after a week.

Just when I thought I’d achieved something with JJ’s behaviour this goes and happens. He’s fine (mostly) with me, and friends that had him for a couple of days over Easter noted that he was really good for them. So school, and this other kid, are the common denominator. The school wants to work with us to resolve this so this time I’ll be making sure that this happens.

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