J's report

Malika

Well-Known Member
J got his end of term report the other day. My translation:

J has understood the principle of combining sounds but his decoding of syllables is slow. J needs time to decipher and still has to refer to the class letter display. Complex sounds have not yet been well mastered. Progress is slow but in place and is linked to J's willingness to work or not.

Up until the last half of the last sentence, all well and good and then... you just feel, it's all meaningless, they haven't understood a thing about ADHD, still don't take it seriously...

He has real reading difficulties. We read together every day, morning and night, facilitated by a sweet at the end of each reading session and I have a clearer idea of what is going on. The more we do it, the better he gets but really reading is a major struggle for him at the moment. Neuro-psy evaluation is this Friday... hopefully it will tell us more. ADHD and reading difficulties go hand in hand, I have learned.
 

Ktllc

New Member
This teacher/school obviously does not get it and probably never will... You've known that for a while now. It is time to detach, specially now that you know you won't be sensing J to this school much longer.
Going into explanation that it not about "willing or not willing" will only get your blood pressure up.
Have you made any progress as far as finding a school for next year?
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
ADHD and various learning disabilities DO go hand-in-hand.
ADHD rarely stands alone.[/QUOTE
Almost nothing stands alone. The disorder causes a lot of other sub-disorders (my own made up word).

That's why both kids and adults get a slew of alphabet soup diagnosis. PITA
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
I agree, that it's time to detach and not waste one more bit of energy, even on the sub-atomic level, on this teacher or school. You will be leaving anyway. Just look forward to the evaluation. Hugs to you and J.
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
Have you made any progress as far as finding a school for next year?

Oh dear, there's the thing... Not to bore you all with it further, but it is clear to me that for J to grow up in Morocco is best, now that he has his British nationality (ironical I know....) However, this is the rub, a little bit. There is one Montessori school in Morocco, in Casablanca, opening next year for the primary section, ie 2014, and extremely expensive. There is another, a different kind of thing set up in the mountains by a German woman and her Moroccan husband that uses experimental methods but is for the local Berber children. I've had a longish conversation with my ex-husband about it and he is adamant he doesn't want Jacob to go there, for various reasons. No, he can't stop me, legally or anything, but if I want J to have a full relationship with his dad, I have to take his dad's views into account.
This leaves... Marrakech where I'd like to be based as it's where all my friends and contacts are. There is a prestigious Moroccan private school, very academic and high-achieving but quite interesting and wide in its outlook, where he would be in a class of 32 and obviously totally in the deep end re Arabic, though he would learn quickly. Like all the Moroccan private schools, it teaches half in Arabic, half in French and also concentrates on English. If he were neuro-typical and academic, this is the school I'd choose for him. As it is? Otherwise there is the French school, exactly like a school in France, which I don't really want but where he'd have more chance of learning disabilities being recognised and catered for. Then there are a couple of very small outfits, tiny schools set up by French ex-teachers who work with the French national programme. That could be a solution but the one I preferred has just closed its primary unit and the other the woman didn't impress me greatly for various reasons - we had a LONG conversation on the phone. Finally, there is one woman who sounds great, and more experimental in her methods, some way out of Marrakech in the countryside and I've also spoken to her on the phone... but, alas, she has no space for more children. She did say if she could find a suitable premises, she would enlarge the school...
So that's it! I'm a bit stuck really. Groan, what's new! Of course I could find a better school for him in Europe but that's not best for him overall.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
The only point in being in France was to end up with some nationality other than Moroccan... (or in addition to, really) - so that he has options for his future. THAT part is the easy part to understand!

Finding schools, well... maybe there's somebody about to open up a school that you don't know about yet?
(we can always hope, right??)
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
Well, not quite, IC :) I didn't come to France just to get a passport out of it... It was above all and primarily for J to learn fluent French (though I now realise in terms of his reading difficulties we would have been better off going to Spain or Italy, where words are written as they are pronounced :) ) and also to see and know something of European culture. At the stage when I left Morocco three years ago, I had just emerged from a very bad marriage and was emotionally affected by that, and very "down" on Morocco and Moroccan culture, particularly in terms of male treatment of women... Various factors have kind of healed my relationship with Morocco and I now acknowledge the (many) positives also.

Schools... I pray for a blinding light to come and illuminate me!
 

SuZir

Well-Known Member
Just take the first three sentences (those are useful for you, when considering J's schooling and explaining the situation to possible teachers) and forget the last. Not worth making yourself feel bad with thinking about it or trying to explain to the teacher.

It's unfortunate that there is such a bleak school selection for you in Morocco. If it is a place there you and J like to be, maybe choosing some not-so-ideal-option there and compensating with a tutor?
 
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