10 hours

[pingu]

Hi guys and girls,

 

I posterd a few nights ago to explain i wasnt in the best of moods, and the reason .... I was told by Kierans school that he would be recieving 10 hours TA support when he moves into year three in september. My argument is that he was originally going to be statemneted, but they have now decided that 10 hours can be accomadated by the school.

 

The following (in blue) are extracts from the reports that have recently been done on keiran during observations in school.

 

Please could you let me know if you think i should be pushing for more than 10 hours a week (given that he is in school for 6 hours a day)

 

i really need to know your thoughts and experiences on this, as we are hopefully going to have a meeting soon about this,.

 

direct observation

Two sets of direct observations and playground observations were concluded, In the direct observations, Kierans behaviour was recorded every 15 seconds for 4 periods of 25 minutes. Two of these periods were of kierans behaviour when he was supported by his teaching assistant and two when he was not supported.

the behaviours recorded were as follows-

 

ON TASK

1) ASttending to adult (passive)

2) Engaging in task (active)

3) out of seat (relates to task)

 

OFF TASK

1) daydreaming

2) fiddling

3) distracted by external stimuli (i.e noise)

4) out of seat (not relating to task)

 

The first set of direct observations are with kieran's regular teacher, the session was observed using numeracy and weights

The first 25 minutes of the observation kieran had a teaching assistant with him. Whilse the children sat on the carpet, listening to the teacher looking at the white board. kieran needed continual prompting to listen to the teacher and ebgage in the task. For the last five minutes of the observation the children seperated into groups of 3 to do tavle top activites on numeracy/weights Table 1 shows the amount of time kieran was on and off task.

 

ACTIVITY Percentage of time

 

ON TASKattend to adult 33%

Engage in task 33%

Out of seat for task 6%

 

OFF TASK

 

Daydreaming 9%

fiddling 6%

distracted by external stimuli 13%

out of seat, not nof task 0%

 

 

WITH SUPPORT

Total percentage of time on task 72%

Total percentage of time off task 28%

 

WITHOUT SUPPORT

 

For the next 25 minutes His teaching assistand did not support Kieran. In the first 15 minutes Kieran was involved in tabletop activites on numeracy and weights, in the last 10 minutes the children sat on the carpet, listening to the teacher and looking at the white board. During the table top activities the class teacher had to give kieran a lot of attention as he was disturbing his group by fiddling and playing with the weights. This suggests that without support the teacher has to spend a large part of her time with Kieran and she is unable to work with the whole class

Table 2 shows the amount of time kieran was on and off task

 

ACTIVITY PERCENTAGE OF TIME

 

ON Task 11%

Attend to adult 18%

Engage in task 1%

out of seat for task

 

OFF TASK

Daydreaming 20%

Fiddling 29%

Distracted by external stimuli 20%

Out of seat, not for task 1%

 

Total percentage of time on task 30%

Total percentage of time off task 70%

 

The first observation highlights the importance of Kieran's one-to-one support, as without this support (and even with a large amount of the teachers attention) Kieran still remains off task a vast amount of the time.

 

The second lot of observations didnt get much better, stating that

 

With support Kieran was on task for 58%

and

off task for 42%

 

AND without support

 

Total time on task 29%

off task 71%

 

 

The playground observations stated that

Kieran needed prompting to go and get his coat. He seemed happy to look at the external world but does not seek converation with his peers. On the day of the observation his class were told they were not going outside due to the rain (the year one group which kieran spends some of his lessons with) were outside and kieran went to play with them (though teachers were unaware of this at first)

 

SUMMARY

These observations indicate that Kieran finds it difficult to understand whole class instructions without the support of his teaching assistant, He also struggles to stay on task. With support, on average he was on task for 65% of the time compared to 29.5% without support. (interestingly, part of the time he was on task without support, he was copying another childs work having seemingly not understood the class teachers instructions) It is also of note that it took his teaching assistant a little more time to settle him to task after a period of time without her support initially

 

Sorry its long guys, but as always i would appriciate any feedback, i just dont think 10 hours is going to be enough, as 10 hours would just cover his numeracy and litracy, what about P.E (he cant dress himself) and swimming? what about history, geography, science, ICT?? there will be no help for anything else, at which case he might as well be at home, as he certainly is not staying on task long enough to learn anything additional at school (without support)

Thanks for bearing with me. I hope it makes sense to you.

All advice (as always) welcome

 

Shaz

[jen]

10 hours out of a school budget is generous. But you need to make an appointment and ask how this 10 hours is going to be divided. Ask the questions you have asked here and see what the answer is. Even with statements some children will get 4, 8 ,10 hours so it does not mean having a statement will guaranty you more hours.

 

If you go to tribunal some people on panels believe if a child needs more than 12 hours support they should be going to a special school because it is using funding inappropiately. Other people on panels will award full time LSA support at mainstream school.

 

If your child is in year 1, is there a classroom assistant in the class for part of the day. If so he could have the 2 hours support when the classroom assistant is not there.

 

It is not easy saying how many hours a child needs but it is essental to monitor your child and ask is he accessing the curriculum. I could always tell when my child iwas having difficulties because he would have meltdowns at school.

 

It can take several years to get the right support. You can always ask for a statement it is your right, however lots of LEA discourage you from obtaining one.

 

Jen

[elaine1]

yep it seems generous to me, myu son who is in secondary school gets 7 hrs a week and he had none at all in primary!.

he is statemented too.

[Suze]

My son recieves 10 hrs lsa via a statement, he gets other hours for typing and literacy.The school have been generous, but I agree with you.......what about playground support......that would use 5 hrs...........is he keeping up academically?.............if not I,d push for more hours.

[pingu]

Hi.

 

 

.......what about playground support......that would use 5 hrs...........is he keeping up academically?.............if not I,d push for more hours.

 

Amazingly he can speak a bit of japanise (thanks to the gamecube) but academically he cannot write and read yet, he can write his name, and copy some simple words but this is only if he is having a very good day with concentration. He cannot dress himself and has no sense of danger, and he will be starting swimming lessons in year 3, for which he will get no support (other than whats already at the pool)

 

Playtime is supervised by a rota of teachers and he has no-one with him at the moment, he is a wanderer and has on occasions managed to wander off and make his way into the car park/ and into the junior side of the school.

I know the school are doing all they can and i dont want to seem ungrateful, but i am still unfamiliar with all the educational needs things

Thanks for your replies. I hope you all have a nice evening. (im still dealing with )

Shaz

[jen]

If you child has wondered off and got into the car park then this is a safety hazard. What have the school done about this. If nothing put it in writing to the school governors and LEA stating it is a safety risk and needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Then something will be done.

 

 

Jen

[Suze]

Sounds to me like 10hrs is not enough, Pingu........think I,d confer with the school about statementing.