[senco-forum] Assessment

Hello June
  You have every right to be angry.  What has happened to your son is not acceptable.  I'm really pleased that you have finally got a report which will help him and you.
  I am also pleased that the report you have tells you what your son is good at as well as what he is bad at.  I think that this is particularly important for young people who tend to not want to be 'different' from their peers.  
  Amanda
  Secondary SENCO
  Cornwall

June Marriott <june_marriott at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

As previously posted, our son was placed on the special need register of his primary school in Wallasey, Wirral, at the age of four, without our knowledge. When we found out - nine months later - the school flatly refused to explain why this had been done. He had received no actual directed assistance for problems that were later inflated to "serious" by the head teacher when he needed to justify himself to a school governor. We contacted just about everyone we could think of, in pursuit of an explanation, so that we could get the right help for our child. To cut a very, very long story short, we were not successful. In the end, we moved to another county.

Our son has just been properly assessed by an educational psychologist and we are reeling. Her detailed observations could have been written by us, they are so accurate - note, I do not mean that they are entirely what we want to hear, but they are accurate and honest and are backed up by solid examples. The strengths and weaknesses identified have always been apparent and we have been horribly let down by numerous "professionals" who have all acted in the interests of following one line, rather than assisting our child. Particularly horrible is the fact that our son has been identified as being signicantly above average in some areas - we were previously made to feel like people in denial for daring to defend this fact. I'm not sure which was worse, the lack of encouragement for his intelligence or the lack of support for his weaker areas.

I don't believe I have ever been so angry as I am right this moment. Our only comfort is the intense relief of knowing our son is already receiving appropriate assistance at his new school.

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Amanda
Secondary SENCO
Cornwall