Sending more hugs!
We had this all year (our school year runs from end Jan to mid Dec) - and we are moving schools now. Things have gone from unexpectedly good(with his first teacher of the year) to not-great, to bad, to worse, to WHAT-ARE-THEY-SMOKING!?!?! with the second (very young, inexperienced) teacher. We eventually got so tired of them saying he's not working in class/working exceptionally slowly that I provided them with a sheet for them to tick off whether he did the work or not (per subject) - and requested that they send any unfinished work home with us. The teacher replied that it wasn't school policy to send work home (and told DS8 this!), but claimed she would fill in the form I provided. She did it twice, then stopped. Since last week she hasn't replied to any notes we've sent with DS to school at all.
The play therapist DS is seeing for (wait for it) school related anxiety (I wonder why!) told us not to move DS to a different school before she has addressed the anxiety... I basically said screw it, she has NO idea what we are facing, and she hasn't seen day in, week out, month in, year out, what this school has done to him! I highly doubt that it's general school related anxiety, it's rather this-specific-school related... anyway.
So DS spent a day at a private school (way better where we are) last week, and did their entrance exams as they claim to be ahead of our government/public schools, so they check if the kids will cope. Let me add here that DS's current school said they would recommend we keep DS back a year, and then the private school accepted him very happily, and apparently told him he got everything right for the one test - which from what he's said was at least 1 year ahead of his current school's grade level...
So, let me add to the voices who came before - if at all possible, I'd change the school. DS has been happier socially this year, but the psych he saw for IQ testing told us it's because he's learnt to interact with his age peers, but he is still lacking connections to true peers... so while I'm sad that he's going to lose this group of friends, I'm confident that he'll find a good bunch at the new school.
Either way, it seems like it's never easy, doesn't it?!
PS what IS it with schools feeling the need to disprove that these kids are what they've already proven themselves to be? It scares me that these are the people teaching kids in general, not even just the gifted kids they have such issues with...
