Planning for Transition - Pause to Reflect

As you will know from following the blog, we have been almost three years in getting things in place for E going to high school in August 2015.   I’ve worked with an excellent team of therapists, experts and teachers all through primary which has given E a truly successful start to her education.    

Now with the high school chosen and a shared primary school placement in place and working well we are on the final leg of this transition.  Every aspect of the school process is being looked at:

• ·         School, classroom and activity accessibility
• ·         Full curriculum access
• ·         Assessment both formative and summative
• ·         Teaching styles, approaches and resources
• ·         Social networks
• ·         Personal care

We have both been involved in shaping this.  E has worked with the staff at school to create  a set of videos showing her learning and sharing in the classroom and I have met with the existing team and the high school to help create the vision and detail that we are aiming for in August and beyond.

Both myself and E are finding this the hardest parts of whole process.    E is being reminded almost daily that high school is just around the corner and she’s nervous about it. I’m nervous about it too, what parent isn’t.   In addition, I’m having to trust a new group of people who I don’t know well and who don’t know E .   

How we manage this I’m not totally sure but here are a few things we are doing:

• ·         Encouraging E to talk openly to her friends already at high school about their experience
• ·         Having monthly update meetings with the school against a project plan I’ve help shape.
• ·         Having regular discussions with the current team to ensure that everyone is working from the same page.

The final key to keep the stress levels down during this final stage is to remember  that success  does not need perfection and hiccups both mine and the school can be fixed as we go.

Friendships

As I’ve mentioned before, E will not being going to her catchment high school, which means none of her friends from school will be going with her.  Over this year, we are aiming to develop opportunities for E to create some new friendships with those she will be going to high school with.  The school and ed psych are supporting us in this and we hope to meet in the next few months to look at creating a link with a feeder primary school.  To supplement that, we are also looking into after school activities both in the community use part of the high school and other places attended by the cluster school kids. 

This has made me reflect a bit on friendships and the changing dynamics of those between children with additional support needs and those without.  Chatting to other parents, it seems many found  it relatively easy to create opportunities for children to play together and for relationships to develop.  Children always seem very open to this and accept whatever adaptations need to be made. 

As the children get older, and start to develop independence, things become more challenging.  Children start to enjoy the independence of playing without adult supervision, often outside on bikes and the like.  E wants to join in, but she’s slower and less independent than them.  She’s still included but the children have to adapt their activities more to make that happen.  It’s the same for after school clubs, many of which are based around physical activities which become harder to integrate as you get older.

There are other barriers too.   As E’s helper I am learning to give the support she needs while blending into the background at the same time.  Going to someone’s house is not as straightforward either as access is a bigger issue both for the wheelchair and E getting to the toilet.  She’s never had a sleepover other than with family as the difficulties of lifting and transfers seem to daunting.

 Now add into this mix the changes that all children around this age go through and the idea of building new friendships feels a real challenge to me.   I should say that E is a friendly girl who is confident that she has friends and has the personality and empathy to make new ones given the opportunity.

It would be good to hear from anyone who has successfully been through a transition like this and your own thoughts on the changing dynamics of friendships.

School Review Meeting

When I undertook training on inclusive education over 8 years ago, school review meeting were often viewed as horror stories for parents, where they were told about decisions rather than been involved in making them. 

Since then, things should have improved and a review of the legislation and code of practice for supporting children’s learning sets a very positive expectation.  Getting it right for every child (GIFREC) focuses on creating a common approach across all agencies aiming to deliver appropriate, proportionate and timely help as it is needed.  It also looks to take a holistic view involving the young person / family fully both in the assessment and the solution.  Enquire  have excellent resources, both online and by phone, to help with review meeting and all aspects of additional support needs in education.

To my understanding the focus of these meetings is everyone working together to deliver the right support at the right time.  Unfortunately, looking through other blogs, discussion with other parents and even my own experiences, things can still go wrong.    I thought it worthwhile to reflect on what makes a review meeting work for me, and what supports me when things don’t go to plan

I’ll be honest and say that I’m quite proactive and assertive in review meetings.   I will usually have a list of items that I need covered and will have touched base with the therapists prior to the meeting to ensure that their actions and input is being submitted if they cannot attend.   I appreciate this is not for everyone but I do think having key issues written down beforehand helps keep me focused and at times less emotional.

Having someone on your side in a meeting is really important I believe.  For me, I know there are a couple of key therapists and the ed psych who understand what the overall outcome we want for E and will work to help achieve that.  They can be very helpful in communicating an idea or action in a more technical way than perhaps I can.  They also act as an extra pair of ears.  Your supporter does not have to be someone within the team, you do have the right to bring an advocate with you. 

I strongly believe that a review meeting should contain no surprises.  It’s difficult for anyone to come up with ideas, agreements or solutions if they are not aware of a problem beforehand.    Obviously the key to this is communication and this does take time to build up from everyone’s perspective.

As E moves up through school, and especially into high school, the people and level of involvement of the people at these meeting will change.  I would be really interested to hear your experience of review meetings, positive or otherwise, to help maintain and further improve the effectiveness of such meetings.

Planning for Transition - A school visit

So all the school visits are complete.   The questions I prepared were really useful but I was surprised by my emotional reaction to each visit.  I don’t suppose any parent truly knows if they have chosen the right school for their child but the choice was narrowed to one school

With the concept of “nothing about us without us” an integral element of inclusion,  an appointment was arranged for E to visit the school..  E admitted to being a wee bit nervous but didn’t show any of that on the day.  She was keen to see some classroom and specifically art and home economics.  She travelled round looking at everything, even subtly attempting to join in the art class.  She seemed interested and confident and asked questions as we went.  In every case, the responses from those we met was welcoming and friendly.  . 

All going really well I thought until E’s parting comment of what she thought:

  “Not for me mum”

Over a few days we have discussed why and it seems that size is the biggest factor, although she also thinks it’s way too early to even consider high school and she will miss her friends. 

There is a conflict between the need for the people who will make her schooling happen to have the time to plan and prepare for high school and the child being mature enough to welcome the move from primary. 

The balance of this conflict will be different for every family and the transition stage.  I would add it to a factor to consider as part of the preparation for transition.  Lucky for us, E is not totally rejecting the school and has  agreed to visit again over the coming years.

Planning for Transition – Questions, Questions, Questions

So with meetings lined up with three high schools, I needed to turn my vision of inclusion into something to drive discussion and decision making.   I like structure and colour so used my mind mapping software to map out all the things that I need to know about,

I shared this with the educational psychologist who would be accompanying me on these visits.  I think it’s important to be open and up front about what you want and I have learned to trust and rely on the ed psych.

From this he prepared a discussion list to be shared with the schools prior to the visit.  I reviewed it and made small amendments before it was sent.  To be honest it was helpful to have someone to put it into a summary as even though  I work in a school I found it daunting.

So now some questions.  Have you gone through this or other stage transition?  What questions would you ask?  Is there any improvements you could suggest to me?