I could never make the eggobox dinosaur. I'd cover myself in glue and green paint. The teacher told my parents I was 'clumsy', which I absorbed to the extent that I expected to fail at anything practical. I don't know if I was merely clumsy. But your account is a salutory tale about not accepting such comments at face value.
Public school numbers have dropped by 13,000 pupils. Could have something to do with a fall in the birth rate, combined with the schools passing on an average of 14% of the VAT increase to the parents. I have noticed incorrect figures in the right wing press of a lovely ‘rounded up to the nearest thousand’ of 30,000.
Great insight into dilemma of ‘learning support’, Rebecca. Too much? Too little?
There are times I’ve been glad it’s available (I suspect my nephew on the autistic spectrum wouldn’t have navigated mainstream education without it). Other times I’ve questioned whether it can make things worse - the kind of over-diagnosis you describe.
I feel quite fortunate that I finished school before labels were fashionable and was left to work things out for myself.
I feel very good about myself having read this, because as a teacher I remember telling some lovely middle class parents of their lovely middle class dyslexic child not to bother with all the extra dyslexia stuff. "She's obviously very bright," I said. "I can see her making her own strategies to work through where she finds things difficult. She's honestly going to be fine regardless."
They still sent her to dyslexia school every Thursday, but at least she had a normal time in my classroom.
Your story is a wonderful piece of evidence for the scramble to diagnose children with something, anything, these days. It's both a cautionary tale about educators not making diagnoses that they can't actually make (not being medics or psychologists) and evidence for the ability of ordinary teachers such as those at your primary school to identify kids who *are* different very early on (often to meet denial from their parents, though not in your case).
How we deal with those differences is another matter, and one which needs very careful thought and a lot of cooperation with a lot of professionals before putting the child through a lot of useless bullshit. I'm so sorry. I can only hope to console you by saying that we try not to make people miss the fun lessons these days, but maybe that makes it worse. We could have been doing so much better.
The way you articulate finding your own strategies is exactly what I was struggling to express! I understand why parents are so worried about their children 'masking' (an oft incorrectly used term) but I really valued being able to find my own coping mechanisms, and I think empowering children do to that can only be a good thing. You sound like a wonderful teacher.
Hard relate, down to being sent to Sharon in Surrey (did her surname start with P?) as a small child, laptop through school, touch typing, extra time in exams etc. I was also given the dyspraxic label but I'm sure now it has always been ADHD (I am about your age I think and yeah, agree, they didn't tend to give bookish young girls that label in the early nineties).
What it all taught me - and this comes through in your story too - is the motivating power of "I'll show you". I amazed all my teachers when I got three As in my A-levels. But it was no surprise to me because finally I could drop maths and science and do the subjects I loved 😆 I found their surprise really annoying quite frankly.
And I think my big lesson to any educators reading this is we don't need those tragic handwriting lessons etc. What I needed as a child with ADHD was someone to teach me practical ways to organise myself. I think practical coping methods is the thing. I never got any of that, had to learn it for myself.
Anyway - sorry about the mini essay but thank you for an illuminating post that took me down memory lane!
I could never make the eggobox dinosaur. I'd cover myself in glue and green paint. The teacher told my parents I was 'clumsy', which I absorbed to the extent that I expected to fail at anything practical. I don't know if I was merely clumsy. But your account is a salutory tale about not accepting such comments at face value.
"toilet is naff" 👏👏👏
Public school numbers have dropped by 13,000 pupils. Could have something to do with a fall in the birth rate, combined with the schools passing on an average of 14% of the VAT increase to the parents. I have noticed incorrect figures in the right wing press of a lovely ‘rounded up to the nearest thousand’ of 30,000.
Great insight into dilemma of ‘learning support’, Rebecca. Too much? Too little?
There are times I’ve been glad it’s available (I suspect my nephew on the autistic spectrum wouldn’t have navigated mainstream education without it). Other times I’ve questioned whether it can make things worse - the kind of over-diagnosis you describe.
I feel quite fortunate that I finished school before labels were fashionable and was left to work things out for myself.
I feel very good about myself having read this, because as a teacher I remember telling some lovely middle class parents of their lovely middle class dyslexic child not to bother with all the extra dyslexia stuff. "She's obviously very bright," I said. "I can see her making her own strategies to work through where she finds things difficult. She's honestly going to be fine regardless."
They still sent her to dyslexia school every Thursday, but at least she had a normal time in my classroom.
Your story is a wonderful piece of evidence for the scramble to diagnose children with something, anything, these days. It's both a cautionary tale about educators not making diagnoses that they can't actually make (not being medics or psychologists) and evidence for the ability of ordinary teachers such as those at your primary school to identify kids who *are* different very early on (often to meet denial from their parents, though not in your case).
How we deal with those differences is another matter, and one which needs very careful thought and a lot of cooperation with a lot of professionals before putting the child through a lot of useless bullshit. I'm so sorry. I can only hope to console you by saying that we try not to make people miss the fun lessons these days, but maybe that makes it worse. We could have been doing so much better.
The way you articulate finding your own strategies is exactly what I was struggling to express! I understand why parents are so worried about their children 'masking' (an oft incorrectly used term) but I really valued being able to find my own coping mechanisms, and I think empowering children do to that can only be a good thing. You sound like a wonderful teacher.
Thank you! I don't often get that, it's usually "you sound awful, I'm glad you don't teach my kids" to which I can only reply hey, me too.
Hard relate, down to being sent to Sharon in Surrey (did her surname start with P?) as a small child, laptop through school, touch typing, extra time in exams etc. I was also given the dyspraxic label but I'm sure now it has always been ADHD (I am about your age I think and yeah, agree, they didn't tend to give bookish young girls that label in the early nineties).
What it all taught me - and this comes through in your story too - is the motivating power of "I'll show you". I amazed all my teachers when I got three As in my A-levels. But it was no surprise to me because finally I could drop maths and science and do the subjects I loved 😆 I found their surprise really annoying quite frankly.
And I think my big lesson to any educators reading this is we don't need those tragic handwriting lessons etc. What I needed as a child with ADHD was someone to teach me practical ways to organise myself. I think practical coping methods is the thing. I never got any of that, had to learn it for myself.
Anyway - sorry about the mini essay but thank you for an illuminating post that took me down memory lane!
Sharon Pratt?? Are we educational psychologist twins??
Yes, yes we are!!