Little Prince's Statement Review

During the last month we've had Little Prince's first Annual Statement Review Meeting at school.  The format of the meeting was a bit odd, each person who had  submitted a report about Little Prince read out their report, despite the fact that copies had been circulated to all participants in advance?!  That seemed a bit of a pointless and redundant exercise to me and Mr Messy, but we just went with the flow.

We then talked about the magnificent progress Little Prince has made since being granted his Statement, and having the support of his TA.  I was worried about this part of the meeting, as I was scared that seeing how much progress he has made the provisions of the Statement could be withdrawn.  I needn't have worried, as everyone present agreed that Little Prince will not carry on making such good progress if he doesn't have support.  Phew!  The TA's hours are going to be "tweaked" so that she can be present during a couple of hours in a morning too, as Little Prince is struggling with the writing involved in morning Literacy Work.

The SENCo also said that school were going to apply for "exceptional funding" to purchase Little Prince a laptop for use at school (that he will take with him to High School) to help him overcome his difficulties with writing, although we all agree that he has to carry on working to improve his writing skills too.  It is becoming apparent that despite all his hard work Little Prince will always struggle with writing, and he is finding this increasingly frustrating.  Hopefully being able to work on a laptop and get all his (usually amazing) ideas and work onto paper that way, will stop him becoming so despondant about his abilities.  His frustrations at the disparities between what he knows and what he can get on paper, are leading him to believe that he is stupid and eroding his self confidence :-(

We discussed the problems we have at home trying to get Little Prince to complete his homework due to him not taking his medication during the evenings and weekends (on his Paediatrician's advice).  His class teacher agreed to start to differentiating his homework, so that Little Prince can work on the written elements of it during school time (when he is calmer and more able to concentrate due to taking his medication) with the TA's assistance, leaving just the more practical work to be done at home.  This will take a lot of the pressure off both us and Little Prince, and we are looking into ways to help him stay calm without medication, so that we can slowly build up his "tolerance" of homework.

The rest of the meeting was spent discussing how and when to start an induction programme for High School with Little Prince, and it has been decided that we will start working on that in February next year.  He is now in Year 5 of Primary school, so only has this year and next before he begins High School.  Due to his issues this move is going to have to be handled patiently and carefully to minimise the stress and upset to Little Prince.  The (only) local High School have an excellent Special Educational Needs Dept, and are, apparently very good at working with pupils with similar needs to Little Prince, and sorting out individualised induction programmes to introduce them to the school.