Tuesday, 29 March 2011

School...get ready for a fight!

I have already done a blog post today but right now I am livid, with steam nearly coming out my ears, and figured writing it down might just help me to calm down a little bit.

C is 14 and has High Functioning Autism and is coping really well with mainstream high school. He is doing great in the science's, maths etc and got to choose his options (the subjects he will take for exams) a year early as he is doing so well. He has already sat some of his biology and got an A and A* earlier this year.

Well today he comes bursting in the door from school, talking constantly about how the school are "arseholes", "idiots" etc etc (all words he uses when he is stressed) and took me a good 10 minutes to calm him down so I could get any sense out of him...bearing in mind he normally comes in door and when asked how school has been just says "fine", we never get told anything!

He hands me a letter informing me that they are now changing his options (after studying them for a year!). This year the government, in their usual wisdom , decided that schools would be ranked in their league tables, not just by how well the children did in their final exams, but only using the children who did well AND took history or geography. My daughter last year got 6 A's and 4 B's but as she didnt do either of these subjects she didnt count, so their place in the league table went right down.

So now, the school have told me that C must drop one of the subjects he is doing well in, and take either History or Geography. C struggles a great deal with handwriting and essay type questions, he has no interest in either subject..is just managing in English and we are hoping he manages to struggle through that and get a half decent grade to go along with his others. He wants to go into game development at university (he is very serious about that) and at the moment is doing Graphics and Media, both subjects that are very relevant to his aims and ambitions...now the letter says he has to drop one of them!

Now my question is this, are the school doing this for my son's benefit, or to make their place in the league tables look better?? I think you can guess what my answer is.

Have just rang the school asking to get an appointment to go in and see them but have been told I will have to ring in the morning. Apart from the difficulties C has with his hand writing, he like most children on the autistic spectrum, struggles with change..esp one that is just thrust upon him with no warning. He is now constantly going in and out of the room, saying he is leaving the school and if I dont let him he is leaving the country if we dont move house.

Ok, rant over for the moment, thanks for listening, just when you think things are going well something else comes along and slaps you in the face. I am not going to take this lying down, they have a fight on their hands!! xx

Oh, and by the way, he has till Thursday to decide which one he is dropping!
Posted by at
Labels: ,

7 comments:

  1. Kimmy29 March 2011 at 17:34

    that's messed up. best of luck for yall!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Susan29 March 2011 at 18:41

    Ty, will update when I have spoken to the school x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Welcome!30 March 2011 at 19:42

    I can totally understand your rant - I'd be the same. I hope you get things sorted. xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Susan30 March 2011 at 22:52

    Thanks :) Rang the school today and have to go in and see them on Friday when C has his review..they get 5 mins per child so not expecting much, but will let you know how it goes x

    ReplyDelete
  5. Carol 31 March 2011 at 14:04

    New to your blog and following. Thank you for visiting me.

    This is outrageous! Making pupils change courses in the final 2 years. I was aware that schools are making all Y9 students opt for either History or Geography but to make Y10 change halfway thru surely puts them at a disadvantage of half a GCSE course?!

    I say that the hardest part of parenting is dealing with schools!

    carol

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jules31 March 2011 at 14:54

    I just stumbled across your blog, that is truly awful what they are trying to do! I hope when you get a meeting with them that it goes well and these teachers can see the mistake in the situation.

    Jules

    ReplyDelete
  7. Susan31 March 2011 at 15:40

    Thank you both for your comments.
    Carol he is in year 9 but his school let him take his options early and he is also sitting some of his GCSE's early..but they have still done a years work, including some coursework. Would be angry if C didnt have autism, but this makes it even more wrong as one thing they find very hard to cope with is having change thrust on them.

    Will update the blog tomorrow once I have been to the school..so watch this space, will either be a very happy post or another venting one.

    Thanks for the follow here and on twitter x

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)