Back to the numbers – Sat 9th July 2016
By Jeannette | July 9, 2016
After the immense detail in D’s school report yesterday, T’s report reached us today.
I say “report”, it was a table with numbers on, colour coded and that was it. No notes from his teachers or tutor, just numbers – albeit in colourful boxes.
I guess in a busy secondary school, this is how it has to be. After all, we have email addresses for the tutor and head of year, so any potential issues can be dealt with quickly. Which is just as well, because parents evening is limited to a five minute chat early on in the school year and it is five minutes to the second, with bells ringing to indicate commencement and cease – a bit like speed dating I imagine!
What was evident from the colour coding and grading is that T is looking forward to September and concentrating on his chosen subjects. The topics that require a certain degree of imagination he has struggled with – drama, art, food tech (cooking!) – and he has chosen not to follow these to exams, understandably. His commitment to these subjects has dropped, which I knew would happen, once he was aware that he had limited time remaining on them.
I have mentioned in emails to school a few times that T has no interest in whatever he prepares in food tech due to his sensory issues, to be honest, he should he praised for having a go, for preparing and handling strange textures and smells of food that he couldn’t bear to taste. Very little of his cooking ever came home as he wasn’t interested in it, so another bonus is that I’m not going to be spending money on ingredients destined for the bin. As his school is two hours walk away (I know, I’ve walked it!) T is also very dependent on getting out of school and getting to his coach home so that’s another reason why cooking doesn’t reach us.
As a positive, he’s stepped up in the subjects he is taking to exam level. As we’ve always known, he’s over and above his anticipated level for Maths, doing well in PE and if he focuses and steps back from Minecraft occasionally, he’ll do okay.
As with his sister (D), he’s in the right educational setting for him. It does feel like his school don’t take into account his autism diagnosis at times but, I guess, when he’s so good at masking it during the school day, they probably take the view that he’s “fine”.
He will also have a change of tutor and head of year from next term, which he’s seeing as a positive.
Crossed fingers for September!
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