"Preferential seating: away from distractions, proximal to instruction, and convenient for frequent teacher cueing, reminders, and check-ins."
Yes, exactly. Well said.
And on your other note, 5th grade is the time when all the kids, but maybe especially girls can be at very different stages regardless of being grade-skipped or not. I noticed a girl who was about 5'8" next to a girl who is about 4"8". About the same age.
Well said. Parents may wish to keep physical stature separate from issues of age and/or grade skip.
I guess it does sound like I expect special treatment.
You may wish to consider using phrases like "meeting DD10's educational needs" (or transitional needs, or acceleration needs) rather than "special treatment" which may invoke "special snowflake" syndrome.
DD is the size of a minnow.
While I understand the use of hyperbole, if the need should arise to discuss your daughter's size, you may wish to do so using facts, such as the
CDC growthcharts. For
example at 10 years old your daughter may be the size of an average (50th percentile) 6 year old and/or the height of an average (50th percentile) 7 year old.
(As most children begin school at 5-6 years old, people who do not know her may incorrectly think she is in 1st or 2nd grade, as "most" children that size/height might generally be in one of those grades.) How do middle school gym classes play out for kids who are younger because of acceleration?
How
gym class is handled may depend upon the school policies and the teacher. Up to the 2012-2013 academic year, many public schools used the
Presidential Physical Fitness Test, whose award charts show evaluation of performance by AGE, however some schools still held all students to the benchmarks for the
average age of students in the GRADE, thereby shortchanging accelerated (and multiple grade accelerated) students of the physical fitness awards which they had legitimately earned by performance for
their AGE. This program has since been replaced with the
Presidential Youth Fitness Program, which emphasizes
personal progress over
performance. This program may be something to discuss if your local phy ed program does not currently seem to be based upon individual progress for each student's physical fitness.
If you did not already, you may wish to share that the age range may be about 8-13 years old (and that at age 13 she will be in 9th grade?) as this may provide some personal context or framework so she can relate this to herself. The American Girl books on
The Care and Keeping of You (books 1 & 2, for younger girls and older girls), The Feelings Book, and the books in the "Smart Girls Guide" series are often helpful to middle school girls.
504 for ADHD inattentive type accommodations
There are many sources of 504 accommodations ideas online. The wrightslaw website and their book From Emotion to Advocacy, Understood.org, ADDitude, are some places to find information which you can sort through to see what may be helpful for meeting your child's educational needs so she can access the learning opportunities offered in school. Here is one list from
ADDitude online e-magazine. Interested parents can sign up to receive free e-newsletters with information such as FAQs, tips, and lists. Excellent advice from aeh (as usual) on this
recent post: group accommodations and organize into categories to make them easier to recall and execute.
June meeting about making sure DD would be put in the right LA level. Any advice about how to discuss this topic?
In general, for planning and
advocacy, you'd want to have done research in preparation for your meeting. This may include:
- course descriptions and/or end-of-year outcomes for the various levels of LA being offered,
- information about your daughter's strengths in this area, accomplishments/achievements to date,
- information about any potential weaknesses in this area and/or need for IEP/504 in this area.
Wishing you a successful meeting, and a great year ahead for your daughters!
