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Greg F

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About Greg F

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    Salisbury Hill
  • Birthday 08/23/1973

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    West Midlands
  1. Greg F

    Attendance

    I remember as a youngster myself something vaguely similar happening to me - I had my ear pierced at the age of 10 and was told that I had to take it out as boys were not allowed to have them in school - but it was acceptable for girls. My mother played up about discrimination and I got to keep the earring. Are the girls told to cut their hair short?
  2. Thanks for your help Sally. I have made it into a framework and padded it out. I have taken it into the school SENCO to have a look through and she will let me know what needs changing or adding this afternoon. Why can't things be as simple as "You say your child needs help, your school says your child needs help so here's the help"? Someone in an ivory tower that requires a certain incantation and today's password to get the help my child needs does not fill me with confidence.
  3. Question 6 of this reads: "What do you think would help your child in future? What kind of provision do you feel that your child needs?" My child has AS (diagnosed). I am not a soothsayer, how am I supposed to know what help he will need? I do not want to answer the question without actually understanding the ramifications. What should I put? Thanks for your help, as you will be aware returning the form is time critical.
  4. Greg F

    Attendance

    Thanks Karen, glad I am not alone in dealing with (and not feeling bad about following the party line) idiotic school policies in regard to absenteeism.
  5. Thanks Karen, that thread is indeed very interesting reading. A quote that I forgot to mention in the meeting went along the lines of "We are even getting in touch with parents who have an absent child who we know is currently in hospital long term to show we are tackling absenteeism". A classic line that shows just how little regard the school holds for the pupils, considering them little more than checkboxes and cash cows.
  6. Hi all At the start of this school year my youngest daughter caught impetigo and as kids do she passed it on to her big brother. Said big brother had to stay off school until the infection cleared up as per school policy. My policy tends to be more along the lines of "stick a plaster on it and stop him kissing people" but the school were adamant that he was not getting near the place until all traces were gone. He got over the infection after about 8 days but caught it again shortly afterwards leading to another inevitable visit to the doctor's and more time off school. On Friday I got a nice letter in the post with "URGENT ATTENTION OF THE PARENTS OF " said son and a lovely letter threatening hellfire and damnation if I did not attend an urgent meeting with the school headteacher. The third paragraph goes as follows (sorry for shouting, I am typing it as it is written, caps, spelling mistakes and all): SINCE YOUR CHILD IS IN RED GROUP FOR ATTENDANCE, AN APPOINTEMENT HAS BEEN ARRANGED FOR YOU TO COME TO AN ATTENDANCE MEETING AT SCHOOL. I read the entire letter (which was a barely concealed accusation that I was purposefully withholding my child from school) and got steadily more angry as I got further down the page. I wanted to go into school on Friday when I got the letter and do certain things with said letter which should only be attempted with medical advice and in the case of medical conditions which are precluded from oral intake. Luckily I have a loving wife that can rein me in and she was in two minds as to whether to actually stop me once she saw it. The last paragraph of the letter states "Failure to attend this meeting will trigger Education Welfare Office Intervention". So Monday (today) arrives and my wife and I go to the meeting. In attendance were the headteacher, deputy head, Educational Welfare Officer and someone else that apparently I already know but neither my wife or myself have ever set eyes on. The meeting starts and the headteacher immediately tells us that my son's attendance is very poor and that we should not have let it get this bad, and brings out a new publication that the school has just been given (she stated last Friday) which has the new guidelines on attendance with regard to illness. I stopped her right there telling her that if she has just received the guideline that it has absolutely nothing to do with the matter at hand as the policy is not retroactive. I was going at this meeting with both guns blazing and nothing was going to stop me. I told her (and everyone present) that I was following the existing school policy which specifically precluded his return to school and therefore this meeting was completely unwarranted. She again referred to the publication quoting "Impetigo: Until lesions are crusted and healed, or 48 hours after commencing antibiotic treatment" I told her that it was her own school that had prevented me from allowing my son to return rather than as was being implied I was purposefully keeping my son off. I was lucky in that on a number of occasions I had visited the school with my son to collect my daughter so the teachers (and indeed the deputy head) could see firsthand that his condition was real and that the infection was passing. The deputy head actually stated in the meeting that she had indeed seen my son herself during the times he was missing school and that the infection was visible. When I got home I spent quite some time trying to track down the "brand new" "hot off the press" government guidelines "Guidance on infection control in schools and other childcare settings" I found it not long ago and the first thing I noticed was the date of publication - April 2010. Hot off the press? *insert Ricky Tomlinsonism* Aaaanyway, got it off my chest and even got to tell the headteacher that the tone and layout of her letter very nearly compelled me to file it where the sun refuses to shine. She told me that I was the only person to have taken the tone of the letter negatively and not one single parent had even commented on it. I told her that CAPS is both difficult to read as well as considered shouting and that the letter should be revisited to be less confrontational as well as to spellcheck letters being sent out to parents. When we left my wife stated that she felt that nobody won in the meeting, we had to justify ourselves for following the school's own illness policy and the school was trying to exonerate itself of responsibility by retroactively changing the policy, an act which we definitively refused to accept. The school should know by now that my position is definitely not going to be parallel to theirs unless we actually agree on something, or I can be convinced that my view is incorrect. If I am right I will not alter my position as countless meetings and reviews should have told them. To quote myself in an early meeting "I don't care how many people are in my son's class or whether his behaviour affects them, they have their own parents to deal with problems. My first, last and only concern is to my own child and nothing you can say will change that." Sorry for putting you all through yet another probably completely disjointed rant. By the way, anyone that made it this far, the "hot off the press" publication is at http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1194947358374
  7. I hate using different text sizes in posts, but this is worth it: Click here to block inikey
  8. Edit: I hate using different text sizes in posts, but this is worth it: Click here to block inikey Original post: Hi Just got a PM from member inikey. Please go and do some damage control, I hate forum spammers as much as anti ASD teachers. Greg
  9. I have a mother in law exactly like this - I often joke about it with my better half. A typhoon could hit Australia and somehow it would be the worst thing in the world for her: "This is terrible, I was just going to book a holiday in.. um where was that?" Between that and "Mmm I haven't ate any of (whatever Greg's got) in years" followed by lots of lip smacking. When that one happens I just look at my wife, that statement is one of the caricature mannerisms I have for the dotty old bat - er I mean mother of my wife. Now my son has had a diagnosis she has scoured the internet and is an expert on all things AS, criticising us for not doing X, Y and Z when we do them anyway. I just tell her that we have the internet too, there's nothing she has learned in a few days that we haven't learned in the past 2 years.
  10. How about getting around the lunchtime bit by feeding him before he goes?
  11. I read that article myself a few days ago and thought it was very good.
  12. Greg F

    Saying hello

    Thanks My biggest frustration is that the school are failing him academically - I don't mind in the slightest that he prefers working alone and avoids social contact at the moment. I really do need to find out about better provisioned schools in the area. Our concern as parents are fairly straightforward: We want a decent education for our child(ren) We didn't want our son 'labelled' thus giving him the ultimate excuse to do what he wants when he wants: "oh don't worry about what he does he's the AS kid everyone talks about" Sending our son to a "special school" has a stigma attached - children can and do use it as an excuse to bully children. We genuinely want the best for our child and if that means a special school then so be it. I'll send my son to karate lessons and boxing if any bullying occurs. (is that the wrong way to look at that particular aspect of it?)
  13. Teachers should be able to perform their duties. No ifs, buts or maybes about it. This is your child's education the teacher is messing with. I happily pull up my son's teacher for her errors in spelling, grammar and even punctuation. She is in a responsible position and should therefore be consistent and accurate. I am tired of receiving letters from her that are grammatically incorrect, misspelled or even missing words. It has got to the stage where I read the letters sent as soon as they are handed to me, mark the mistakes and inform her and the headteacher. People don't like to be corrected but luckily for me I have little empathy for people that won't (rather than can't) do their jobs properly. The simplest thing for the teacher to do is type the homework in a computer - the nice red line in word processing software shows spelling errors and can also have a good attempt at spotting grammatical errors too. Other than that the teacher needs all her work peer reviewing before sending it out. By someone that can actually spell. "But I have done 6 months of teacher training!" is nothing special. "I have taught for 30 years" is more likely to get my respect - at least back then schools taught you to spell and use grammar the way it was intended.
  14. Greg F

    Saying hello

    We (his parents) applied for a statutory assessment about a month or so ago. We were advised to by the Parent Partnership. We had a progress meeting with school, ed. psy. etc on Thursday, the headteacher actually said in the meeting we shouldn't have applied ourselves as they were considering doing it themselves that day. I thought that the school sending him home was inappropriate (which reminds me of something - see below), is it illegal before the age of 5? The see below bit: Last Friday my son was sent home because he bit the classroom assistant. I asked him what had happened and he told me the following: "I had gone into the nursery outdoor area and was playing with the cones. I should not have been there. *redacted* found me and grabbed my wrist very hard like this (he then clamped onto his wrist so tightly his knuckles went white) and was pulling me back. I bit her to stop her hurting me." He repeated the story to his grandmother later that day. As you can imaging I was rather concerned. This Monday morning when I took him to school I was going to talk to the headteacher about the event but it so happened that the deputy head was on playground duty. I took her to one side and said what my son had told me. Her response was "That is very inappropriate, leave it with me." In the meeting this week we were told that the teaching assistant would no longer be working with my son as their relationship had deteriorated too far. The next question put to the ed. psy. by the headteacher was "There has been an issue with restraint, is there a course we can send staff on to know the correct restraint technique?" The ed. psy. and the early years coordinator both looked at each other. "We don't advocate restraint training - it tends to become the standard way of dealing with a child after that point. There is one such course available but it actually focuses on alternate methods. Restraint is a small part of the very last session of the course." Surprisingly enough the parents don't advocate restraint either.
  15. Greg F

    Saying hello

    The conversation went like this: Me: Is this the right school for him? Her: (no reply) Me: Well has he learned anything at all this year? Her: I was actually thinking about this over the weekend, he has not made any progress at all. Me: So how is him being in this school actually benefiting him? Her: (no reply) I have spoken with the headteacher about this, and she is rather good at avoiding the difficult answers too which doesn't help: Me: I want what's best for my son. Is your school the best place for him? Her: I want to do everything I can for him. Me: In the almost 2 years he has been here he has not achieved anything, how are you providing for his needs? Her: We spend over £180 per week from our own budget - which is meant for other things - to provide a classroom assistant for him. Me: And you send him home almost every day because his teacher and teaching assistant can't cope with him. Her: It is not as bad as that. Me: He has never completed a full week of school without being sent home since starting, he is still on part time that even though the educational psychologist has told you he should have been in full time a long time ago. Her: We are doing all we can for him. Me: is "all you can" enough? Her: I hate to see a child fail, I take it as a personal failing. I like the headteacher but I do see that she is using non-committal responses when answering questions that she doesn't like. His teacher I detest - she never gave Nathaniel a chance - she kicked him of school out on the second day he was in her class and still does it regularly every chance she gets. I have a couple of questions: My son has just turned 5, which is the legal age for him to be in full time education. Can I 1) Refuse to collect him when they call me and force them to live up to their educational responsibilities? 2) Use the law to force them to give him the education that the law states he should be receiving?
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