Annual Review - Some Tips...

Last month we had our Annual Review of Boo's Statement of SEN.  I was dreading it, to be honest, but it turned out to be a very valuable meeting for all who attended.  I've been thinking about the things we did this year that made it a useful, meaningful experience, rather than a box-ticking paper exercise.  How did we really make our meeting work for Boo this year?  This is what we did; it might work for you too.

1.  Find out in advance who will be attending the review meeting.  Boo's support assistant wasn't initially asked to attend our review.  I felt that, as the person assigned the task of carrying out much of Boo's IEP, that it was essential she was at the meeting.  I requested that she be there, and both she and I were very pleased she was able to contribute her views and hear ours.  Ask for the people you want to be there, giving plenty of notice so school can arrange cover if necessary.

2.  Write a list of grumbles and complaints. What has not worked well for us since the last review?  What have we been less than happy with?  (Ideally these things will have been brought up with school as and when they became apparent, if you have good home-school communication, but if any concerns are still unaired or worse, ongoing, then they should be addressed at this review.)

3.  Now write a happy list! What has been going well for us?  What have we liked or found helpful?  It's important to acknowledge the (hopefully!) successful stuff.  It's only fair, right and proper to give credit where credit is due!  And a little positivity can go a long way, helping to strengthen the home-school relationship and acting as a counter balance to any grumbles you may have.  We Special Needs parents often need to be pushy, I know, but we are more easily forgiven for that if we also show our appreciation.

4.  Ask your child to add to these lists, if possible.  What have they liked and disliked about school this year?  Liked and disliked about their support this year? What have they found tricky?  Have they had enough help with the tricky things?  Do they need help with anything else?  Is anything bothering them about school?  What changes, if any, would they like to make to their life at school?  You could get them to draw a picture or do a short piece of writing if appropriate - whatever you think may get their views across.  I tried to make a little video of the conversation I had with Boo around the above questions, but didn't use it because she got stressed out and couldn't answer (not knowing the 'right' answers, bless her!) So for me, trying to gather her views wasn't very successful, but I felt it was important to at least provide the opportunity for her to have a say in the process.

5.  Carefully read through the existing Statement (or EHC plan if you have already changed over).  Cross out any parts that no longer apply to your child, perhaps where significant progress has been made.  (Make a note of any progress on your happy list!) Highlight the elements of the Statement/EHC which are most important to you and your child.

6.  Add anything new that your child may need support with, not already in the Statement/EHC.  Our kids grow and change and their needs don't necessarily all stay the same, although some may do.  Over the years Boo's made great progress and we have been able to cross out many of the objectives in her original Statement.  However, as she grows and matures, there are other issues that crop up, and it's important that these are acknowledged.

7.  Enlist an Annual Review Buddy.  I found it really helpful to have an extra brain on Team Boo, to prompt, to take notes, ask any questions I might have forgotten about, to clarify things, and just for moral support.  It's easy for some of us to get beaten down by the majority when decisions have to be made (there were 3 staff members at our meeting), and it really helps me to stand my ground if I have some back-up.  Brief your buddy prior to the meeting on all of the points you want to cover (2-6 above); if possible give them a copy, so they can cross things off for you.  I took Boo's dad with me, because he's a rottweiler when it comes to getting his own way.  Not a great quality in a marriage, but very useful in a meeting like this.  

8.  Attend the review meeting armed with your lists of positives and negatives, your notes or annotated Statement/EHC, copies of any reports you have from agencies outside school (eg. Occupational Therapy) and your Annual Review Buddy!  Stay calm and listen first. Let the SENCo drive the meeting, but chip in often in order to get all of your points across.  I think even if you have a lot of negatives to bring up, it won't do you any favours to steam in with a tirade of dissatisfaction!  Your views are more likely to be heard and carefully considered if you deliver them calmly, in a way which demonstrates that you have your child's best interests at heart.  We want to get everyone on board with us, working towards the goals that we think are the most important for our child.  What we don't want is some kind of power struggle - the child rarely benefits when school and parents are at odds.  If possible, ask questions rather than making assumptions or accusations.  Make, or ask for some suggestions as to how things could be improved going forward.  If you are told that your time has run out, then arrange to continue the meeting another time.  Keep going until everything you wish to address is addressed!  Our Annual Review lasted an hour and a half, but, with the help of my buddy, we covered all our concerns and shared all the information we wanted to share, with the people we wanted to share it with.  Result!

I hope this is helpful to other parents out there with an Annual Review coming up.  Please feel free to share with anyone who might find it useful! :-)

Inclusion

 If you are a parent, chances are that you know a child with Special Needs.  I imagine your own children, even if they don’t have additional needs themselves, regularly share their learning environment with other children who do.  But how much do you really know about the special needs of your children’s classmates?  How much do you want to know?  How much should you know?  Is it any of your business anyway?  Well, yes; I believe it is your business!  I believe that your knowledge and understanding of the special needs of children like my daughter, is a crucial stepping stone to your child’s acceptance of my child, and all the children like her (and different to her) with special needs.  It is this acceptance which will make the difference between my daughter being able to function happily in society, or being an outcast.  It will also enable your child to build valuable social skills and become a more caring person, by teaching them how to relate to people who are not like them.

My 7 year old daughter, Boo, was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder just before her third birthday, and has had a Statement of Special Educational Needs ever since she was in Nursery.  If you had been a fly on the wall in that nursery classroom, Boo wouldn’t have immediately stood out as being different from the other children.  You might have noticed that she was still in nappies at first,  or that she often preferred to play on her own, but on the whole, she appeared to be very much a typical three year old.  Certainly, Boo’s classmates were unaware of any major differences between her and them, and Boo herself was content to be there, doing her own thing and mingling with her peers as and when she felt like it.  You might not have noticed that she found it hard to have a conversation, or that she was unduly worried by certain sounds, or fascinated by the texture of sand in her mouth.  And you wouldn’t know that she was beginning to read her Reception-aged sister’s reading books and also, strangely but kind of impressively, speaking Spanish with confidence at home.

Boo had full-time one-to-one support when in Nursery, to help her to access all areas of the Early Years Curriculum.  The areas of ‘Communication and Language’ and ‘Personal, Social and Emotional Development’ were particularly problematic for her, so, under advice from the Speech and Language Therapist, Boo was supported in learning the basic skills in these areas of learning, in small groups with other children who would also benefit from extra support.  Boo was also given the opportunity to work with children who were super-sociable and very able communicators, so that they might model speech and other social interactions appropriately for Boo; for example, how to take turns, or to look at the person you are talking to.  While these children were helping to teach Boo about conversations, she was helping them to learn patience and the most valuable lesson of all, I think: that we are all different. 

 Boo is approaching the end of Year 2 now, and is a very able student who has achieved and exceeded the expected levels of attainment for her age group in many subjects.  Socially she has come a long way too; she has two ‘BFFs’ and the three of them, she tells me, are collectively known as the BFC – Best Friends Crew.  I am so proud of her.  Now that the class have grown up and are almost ready for Key Stage 2, I think the differences between Boo and her peers are a lot more obvious than they were in Nursery.  Now she stands out more, and the other children do notice that she is different.  Not necessarily in a negative way, but different all the same.  They have all arrived at the last stretch of Key Stage 1, but Boo arrived there by a slightly different route; taking in different views along the way. 

Of course, nobody says anything about this to Boo or her classmates at school – it’s just accepted as part of the whole ‘everybody’s equal and everybody’s different’ ethos , which is fine.  But I wonder now whether perhaps somebody should say something.  It is naïve of us adults to assume that the children don’t notice these differences between individuals, so maybe we should be addressing it head-on.

I can remember being 13 years old, and there was a kid in my class who had a learning disability.  I realise that now.  But at the time, because it hadn’t been explained to us, we didn’t understand why he was behaving in a way which seemed so odd to the rest of us.  He behaved inappropriately, which alienated him from others.  He was loud, shouted out random or obvious statements, his voice had an unusually slow, deliberate monotone quality.  He was easily angered and often seemed stressed.  He was occasionally physically aggressive.  He came in for a lot of teasing, I am ashamed to say, from many of us.  He was excluded from conversations.  People called him names, behind his back and to his face.  He must have been miserable.

 If someone had just sat us down at the beginning of the school year, and explained to the rest of the class that this young man had special needs and what that meant, specifically, for him, then I think his experience of school would have been totally different.  If we had been taught to understand the ways in which school, and life in general, could be difficult for him, then I think most of us would have wanted to help him, or at the very least, not give him a hard time.  He may have had strengths that would amaze us, if only we had bothered to find out.  We might have wanted to get to know him, not just in spite of his quirks, but maybe because of them.

This vulnerable youngster was able to access the curriculum in mainstream education, possibly with some support -I can’t remember- but at any rate, his educational needs were being met.  Is this what inclusion means?  His personal, social and emotional needs were not adequately addressed, and as such I believe he was let down by that particular high school and by us, his peers.  Of course, education has moved on considerably since the mid eighties when all this took place.  But kids will be kids, even now.  How can I make sure that, going forward, Boo is not so misunderstood by her own classmates? 

At a SEN review meeting at school earlier this year, I did raise the issue, but wasn’t quite brave enough to take the next step in bringing Boo’s differences so boldly out into the open.  When I was asked if I wanted staff to talk to the other children about Boo’s Autism, I was unsure, so I said, ‘…not yet.’

You see, Boo desperately wants to fit in.  She wants to be like her classmates.  Yes, she often prefers to be alone, particularly at home, but at school, she likes to be in the know, one of them.  She doesn’t really seem aware that she is different to her friends, she has never talked about it, at least, not to me.  So I don’t know if I want to burst her bubble just yet.  Would her classmates’ new and improved awareness of Boo’s special needs make things uncomfortable or embarrassing for her?  Would she be patronised, or worse, teased?  I don’t want to do the wrong thing by her.

So, while I think about it some more, I have a favour to ask.  If your son or daughter shares a class with a pupil who has special needs, please talk to them about it.  Talk to their parents, say hello.  Ask questions.  We don’t need to pretend that all our children are the same.  Equal, yes, and in many ways similar… but not the same.  Make sure your child understands that we are all different, and that different does not mean less.  It just means different.  Your child knows which pupils are different (or will one day come to know it.)  If your child is curious about or confused or upset by the behaviour or appearance of children they see or those they already know with special needs, then please discuss this with them openly and honestly.  I appreciate that that might be difficult, and you might not have as much information as you need to feel comfortable discussing the matter.  If that is the case, you can ask a teacher, or better still, ask the child’s parent how to explain it!  I think most parents of kids with special needs would welcome the opportunity to share information which will promote better understanding and more acceptance of their child’s differences and ultimately make life easier for them. 

Boo was invited to a party this week.  It was the only (non-BFF!) birthday party invitation she has received ALL YEAR.  She was beyond excited!  She ran out of school, flapping the invitation in front of her, shouting, ‘I can’t believe it!  At last!! I got invited to a party!!!’  (Actually the whole class was invited, but that didn’t dull her joy at all.)  She has watched the party invitations being flapped by other kids in her class all year long.  She has heard her classmates excitedly discussing awesome pool parties and Harry Potter parties and laser parties, right down to the details of where and when, what time… and then has been utterly baffled as to where her invitation might have got to.  She has watched her older and younger sister trot off to their friends’ parties and come back with party bags bursting with treats.  

Just to be clear, I’m not having a go at everyone we know who had a party and didn’t invite Boo (after all, we only invited the two BFFs to Boo’s party, at her request, and I am well aware of the cost per head of most types of kids’ parties.)  But I am trying to make the point that Boo not being included in her peers social events points to a gaping chasm in the whole concept of inclusion- that educational inclusion is only part of the story, and that society as a whole needs to address the wider issue of social inclusion and true acceptance of individuals with special needs, if children like Boo are going to flourish as adults. There is only so much that schools can do to nurture friendships and promote the many, often hidden, strengths of kids who are different.  The responsibility lies with all of us. 

I’ve said it before, but I hate the word ‘disabled’.  It implies ‘less’, ‘not as good’, ‘reduced’, ‘lacking’, ‘disempowered’.  ‘Disabled’ is only one side of the coin.  Yes, my child may have difficulties, but she also has amazing strengths, which surely make her MORE in those areas specifically, not less able generally.  The word ‘disabled’ describes my daughter only in the negative, only highlights that there are things she cannot do.  What about all the things she CAN do, and for that matter, do better than most kids her age?  Reading, spelling, correct use of punctuation, Maths, ICT.  Her vast knowledge of kids’ computer games!  Her unbelievable capacity for factual information!  Her astonishing visual memory!  Why, when ‘retarded’ is considered offensive, are we still using the word ‘disabled’ to describe people who are very able indeed?  How is that an accurate or inclusive term?  Did anyone see the Paralympics last year?  Hello?!

But it’s not about a word, it’s about perception.  We need to get this message across to kids today, that all people are to be valued for their strengths, not written off because of their difficulties.  It’s important that our children with special needs are supported by their parents and teachers, but essentially, by their peers.  Peers need to be supported in learning how to do this, so that eventually a culture of acceptance can filter through into the workforce and the rest of society.  All children need to learn about the many different kinds of people they will meet in life, including the differently-abled, their challenges and their gifts.  When these issues are brought out into the open, it is an opportunity for all of us to learn more about acceptance, which is, I think, the ultimate aim of true inclusion.