Marguerite
Active Member
A bit of quick background - difficult child 3 is almost at the end of Year 9. Our school year finishes in three weeks. difficult child 3 hasn't completed the course material for most subjects although he's come close with some. Any work he has left to complete, is not going to count towards this year's marks. But because the content of the course work is needed for his exams NEXT year (Year 10) he at least needs to be familiar with it all.
I mentioned a few days ago in the Good Morning thread, that we'd had a meeting at the school about difficult child 3 and how he's just not keeping up, especially in some subjects. It was a quick meeting as we'd already thrashed out a lot of the basics in phone calls.
This is a correspondence school, the head office is right in the heart of Sydney, in a tiny oasis beside the CBD. There are occasional optional study days in at the school but they only have about three classrooms (the library computer room plus one big room which can be divided) which are shared by a mainstream elementary school attached to the site. The teachers each have a desk, a phone and a computer. Walking through the back rooms of the place (which I've done twice, for meetings) it looks more like walking into a business office (partitions everywhere) than walking into a school.
We met in the "playground", we sat at one of the picnic tables in the sun and talked. We had half an hour to deal with the problem. Thankfully, difficult child 3 was already in agreement.
So we have decided - after a difficult year with difficult child 3 putting so much effort into subjects like English, trying to give his teacher the subtleties that were wanted - we're going to put English on hold for a year. In fact, he will do his next year over two years. Next year is Year 10, which for us is a year where your grades have to be assessed on a level playing field across the state. difficult child 3 is motivated to work, but is so distractable and highly strung that he just can't get the work done in the time. I do think his English teacher was asking far too much of him, but if she hadn't, she wouldn't have triggered this crisis which has led to this solution.
Now, difficult child 3 is talented with Maths but when choosing his subjects leading to Year 10, he was not permitted to study Maths at the top level because he just wasn't getting the work back in time. I was sad about that; so was difficult child 3. Now that we've cut the workload in half, we've asked for and finally been told that we can put him back on the top ranking Maths. BUT - he has to catch up on the extra work he didn't do this last year. So over the holidays, difficult child 3 will have to work on his extra Maths so it's all ready to be posted back for the beginning of the new school year.
We left the meeting with a list - the core subjects (the compulsory ones) have been split down the middle. difficult child 3 also has two optional subjects. Usually the suggest if a student is struggling that these electives be dropped; but in this case the electives are what keeps difficult child 3 going, and they really don't take him long. He has completed his electives easily.
So next year difficult child 3 will be studying Maths (top level, hopefully, if he can keep it up); Science; PDHPE (which is physical education, not easy to study by correspondence!) and his elective, IT/Software. He will sit the public exams for these subjects at the end of the year and then they will be done.
The following year he will study the rest of the work - English, History/Geography (one exam for both subjects), Career Education and Electronics.
We're hoping that giving him a break for a year will allow his brain another year to mature. We also kept Maths & Science together because often these subjects interlink.
Part of what we are trying to do, is make it easier for difficult child 3 to show what he is capable of, in each subject. So far, he hasn't been able to do this. Academically he should be top of his year in most subjects, but he has to be able to get through the work in order to do this.
The school is doing what they can to help, bending over backwards. They are applying for all the Special Provisions possible (use of computer; extra time in exams). PDHPE (physical education) is going to try to incorporate the work difficult child 3 does on the Nintendo Wii with Wii Fit and Wii Sport. It was funny - Year 12 had a Study Day in the main classroom where the Wii is kept, but difficult child 3 had brought his data along to upload to the school's equipment. A PDHPE teacher volunteered to help him, so we did it during the lunch break for the study kids (because they were Year 12, it was most important to not disturb them, Year 12 is the final year in our school system. These Year 12 students have only just begun their new school year, it is the one year that begins early). difficult child 3 and the teacher had half an hour only. difficult child 3 is so familiar with the Wii that he was quickly scrolling through the various windows and getting to what he wanted. The teacher, also familiar with the Wii, was left floundering. A couple of times he stopped difficult child 3 and said, "What are you doing?" or "How did you just do that?"
With difficult child 3 saying, "You do it this way," they got a lot done. At one point difficult child 3 was saying, "I will send my data over the 'Net to the school's Wii to show my workouts," and the teacher was saying, "We can't go online with the Wii; the school's protection software won't allow it."
difficult child 3 said, "Let's try."
He didn't do anything without permission, but all the way the teacher was saying, "It will let you get so far, then it will stop you." The Wii screen then dimmed a bit, the teacher said, "I told you," Next thing the bar came up, indicating a software update happening.
difficult child 3 said, "No worries. It's working. Once the update's done it will be able to read my data."
Unfortunately they ran out of time, but the PDHPE teacher left it all switched on and downloading in the background while the Year 12 class came back from lunch and got back to work. We had been using their interactive screen which doubles as a blackboard in the main classroom.
With all the effort going into this, hopefully this will work. difficult child 3 will still have to spend as much time as he already does on his schoolwork but hopefully now he will get more completed and be able to keep up.
The downside to this - we will have to continue this for the next three school years; they will be done over six years. He will be 20 instead of 17 by the time he finishes his high schooling, but it will be the only way to get him matriculated to university. With capabilities like his especially with IT, we think he needs to have this door left open for him. But perhaps taking the extra time will allow his social maturity to begin to catch up. difficult child 1 did better taking longer, although with hindsight we should have got him into an apprenticeship instead of pushing him to complete schooling.
I was asked to write a supervisor's report for the school annual magazine. Not all supervisors are parents, but with a Distance Ed student studying at home, generally the supervisor is a parent. We are not teachers, we are facilitators. It can be challenging, but it can also bring you much closer. In general the children get far more work done this way than in a mainstream setting, I think this is the case also with difficult child 3. But in mainstream he was getting NOTHING done, so even though he hasn't been finishing work, at least he's been getting most of it done.
Needless to say, I was very supportive in my report.
Yesterday I bumped into the man who taught difficult child 3 for one term in Year 6. This man is now retired from teaching and is therefore more able to speak openly. He has been very sympathetic of the abuse difficult child 3 has suffered in mainstream (at the local school, not the highway school where this man taught) and was also very understanding of the need to pull difficult child 3 out of mainstream and enrol him into correspondence. It was good to talk, for him to comment on his observations of how far difficult child 3 has come, the last time he saw him a few months ago.
He said, "Whatever you're doing now, it's working, he's doing very well on it."
So on the one hand, I want to assure you all - it IS possible to get good support form a school, it IS possible for flexible education to make your lives easier. It can work. But it requires a lot of input from all concerned, as well as a fair bit of time in terms of years. difficult child 3 has grown in confidence to the point where I can now leave him to work alone, although I still need to supervise and monitor his output and help him liaise with his teachers.
So wish us luck!
Oh, and one more thing - a few weeks ago difficult child 3's Special Education teacher sent us a link to help him with essay writing. It fits in with our curriculum although it is more designed for our elementary school kids. difficult child 1 used it to help him write his wedding speech!
http://www.writingfun.com/
Marg
I mentioned a few days ago in the Good Morning thread, that we'd had a meeting at the school about difficult child 3 and how he's just not keeping up, especially in some subjects. It was a quick meeting as we'd already thrashed out a lot of the basics in phone calls.
This is a correspondence school, the head office is right in the heart of Sydney, in a tiny oasis beside the CBD. There are occasional optional study days in at the school but they only have about three classrooms (the library computer room plus one big room which can be divided) which are shared by a mainstream elementary school attached to the site. The teachers each have a desk, a phone and a computer. Walking through the back rooms of the place (which I've done twice, for meetings) it looks more like walking into a business office (partitions everywhere) than walking into a school.
We met in the "playground", we sat at one of the picnic tables in the sun and talked. We had half an hour to deal with the problem. Thankfully, difficult child 3 was already in agreement.
So we have decided - after a difficult year with difficult child 3 putting so much effort into subjects like English, trying to give his teacher the subtleties that were wanted - we're going to put English on hold for a year. In fact, he will do his next year over two years. Next year is Year 10, which for us is a year where your grades have to be assessed on a level playing field across the state. difficult child 3 is motivated to work, but is so distractable and highly strung that he just can't get the work done in the time. I do think his English teacher was asking far too much of him, but if she hadn't, she wouldn't have triggered this crisis which has led to this solution.
Now, difficult child 3 is talented with Maths but when choosing his subjects leading to Year 10, he was not permitted to study Maths at the top level because he just wasn't getting the work back in time. I was sad about that; so was difficult child 3. Now that we've cut the workload in half, we've asked for and finally been told that we can put him back on the top ranking Maths. BUT - he has to catch up on the extra work he didn't do this last year. So over the holidays, difficult child 3 will have to work on his extra Maths so it's all ready to be posted back for the beginning of the new school year.
We left the meeting with a list - the core subjects (the compulsory ones) have been split down the middle. difficult child 3 also has two optional subjects. Usually the suggest if a student is struggling that these electives be dropped; but in this case the electives are what keeps difficult child 3 going, and they really don't take him long. He has completed his electives easily.
So next year difficult child 3 will be studying Maths (top level, hopefully, if he can keep it up); Science; PDHPE (which is physical education, not easy to study by correspondence!) and his elective, IT/Software. He will sit the public exams for these subjects at the end of the year and then they will be done.
The following year he will study the rest of the work - English, History/Geography (one exam for both subjects), Career Education and Electronics.
We're hoping that giving him a break for a year will allow his brain another year to mature. We also kept Maths & Science together because often these subjects interlink.
Part of what we are trying to do, is make it easier for difficult child 3 to show what he is capable of, in each subject. So far, he hasn't been able to do this. Academically he should be top of his year in most subjects, but he has to be able to get through the work in order to do this.
The school is doing what they can to help, bending over backwards. They are applying for all the Special Provisions possible (use of computer; extra time in exams). PDHPE (physical education) is going to try to incorporate the work difficult child 3 does on the Nintendo Wii with Wii Fit and Wii Sport. It was funny - Year 12 had a Study Day in the main classroom where the Wii is kept, but difficult child 3 had brought his data along to upload to the school's equipment. A PDHPE teacher volunteered to help him, so we did it during the lunch break for the study kids (because they were Year 12, it was most important to not disturb them, Year 12 is the final year in our school system. These Year 12 students have only just begun their new school year, it is the one year that begins early). difficult child 3 and the teacher had half an hour only. difficult child 3 is so familiar with the Wii that he was quickly scrolling through the various windows and getting to what he wanted. The teacher, also familiar with the Wii, was left floundering. A couple of times he stopped difficult child 3 and said, "What are you doing?" or "How did you just do that?"
With difficult child 3 saying, "You do it this way," they got a lot done. At one point difficult child 3 was saying, "I will send my data over the 'Net to the school's Wii to show my workouts," and the teacher was saying, "We can't go online with the Wii; the school's protection software won't allow it."
difficult child 3 said, "Let's try."
He didn't do anything without permission, but all the way the teacher was saying, "It will let you get so far, then it will stop you." The Wii screen then dimmed a bit, the teacher said, "I told you," Next thing the bar came up, indicating a software update happening.
difficult child 3 said, "No worries. It's working. Once the update's done it will be able to read my data."
Unfortunately they ran out of time, but the PDHPE teacher left it all switched on and downloading in the background while the Year 12 class came back from lunch and got back to work. We had been using their interactive screen which doubles as a blackboard in the main classroom.
With all the effort going into this, hopefully this will work. difficult child 3 will still have to spend as much time as he already does on his schoolwork but hopefully now he will get more completed and be able to keep up.
The downside to this - we will have to continue this for the next three school years; they will be done over six years. He will be 20 instead of 17 by the time he finishes his high schooling, but it will be the only way to get him matriculated to university. With capabilities like his especially with IT, we think he needs to have this door left open for him. But perhaps taking the extra time will allow his social maturity to begin to catch up. difficult child 1 did better taking longer, although with hindsight we should have got him into an apprenticeship instead of pushing him to complete schooling.
I was asked to write a supervisor's report for the school annual magazine. Not all supervisors are parents, but with a Distance Ed student studying at home, generally the supervisor is a parent. We are not teachers, we are facilitators. It can be challenging, but it can also bring you much closer. In general the children get far more work done this way than in a mainstream setting, I think this is the case also with difficult child 3. But in mainstream he was getting NOTHING done, so even though he hasn't been finishing work, at least he's been getting most of it done.
Needless to say, I was very supportive in my report.
Yesterday I bumped into the man who taught difficult child 3 for one term in Year 6. This man is now retired from teaching and is therefore more able to speak openly. He has been very sympathetic of the abuse difficult child 3 has suffered in mainstream (at the local school, not the highway school where this man taught) and was also very understanding of the need to pull difficult child 3 out of mainstream and enrol him into correspondence. It was good to talk, for him to comment on his observations of how far difficult child 3 has come, the last time he saw him a few months ago.
He said, "Whatever you're doing now, it's working, he's doing very well on it."
So on the one hand, I want to assure you all - it IS possible to get good support form a school, it IS possible for flexible education to make your lives easier. It can work. But it requires a lot of input from all concerned, as well as a fair bit of time in terms of years. difficult child 3 has grown in confidence to the point where I can now leave him to work alone, although I still need to supervise and monitor his output and help him liaise with his teachers.
So wish us luck!
Oh, and one more thing - a few weeks ago difficult child 3's Special Education teacher sent us a link to help him with essay writing. It fits in with our curriculum although it is more designed for our elementary school kids. difficult child 1 used it to help him write his wedding speech!
http://www.writingfun.com/
Marg
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