[mgbridges]

Well I've just had our first parent/teacher conference of this school year and our wee man is rather behind. So behind in fact that his teachers say they want to refer him to.... er.... well I didn't quite catch it :o which is my question...

Can anyone give me any tips, I'm sure they said something along the lines of writing a referral letter to ELTRB :confused: but I could be wrong. I'm assuming this is special education help and they have said it could be upto a year before he gets assistance even if they refer him at the beginning of next term.

We only had 10mins and there was so much to talk about and I should have written notes... oh bother! :( Hopefully getting more time tomorrow to talk a bit more.

Thanks in advance,
Anneliese

EDIT: Never mind... found it, it means: Resource Teacher: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB)

Anyone have any experience of this?

[Carol]

Only from a teacher's point of view.......
They usually have a lot of knowledge and are very helpful. :nice1

[mgbridges]

Only from a teacher's point of view.......
They usually have a lot of knowledge and are very helpful. :nice1

Thanks Carol! I'm glad to hear they are very helpful but with the school saying it could take up to a year after he is referred to actually get said help I'm panicing and rather worried. Can you give me any more insight into the process and what being referred actually means?

I do plan to ask all these questions of his school but in the meantime any advice would be great as it will help me to sleep tonight! BTW can you tell I'm a worrier by nature? :o

Anneliese

[peebles16]

If you go on to the ministry of education website www.minedu.govt.nz (I think?) you should be able to access information under special needs. I think the also have contact details for local office if you want to ask questions about referral process, assessment, timescales etc.. Looked into this a bit when the wee man was referred to reading recovery and have to agree with Carol was a bit freaked out to begin with but techer was spot on. Has worked out very well for our boy :)

HTH

Karenx

[Carol]

Thanks Carol! I'm glad to hear they are very helpful but with the school saying it could take up to a year after he is referred to actually get said help I'm panicing and rather worried. Can you give me any more insight into the process and what being referred actually means?

I do plan to ask all these questions of his school but in the meantime any advice would be great as it will help me to sleep tonight! BTW can you tell I'm a worrier by nature? :o

Anneliese


Blimey! A year does sound a weeee bit extreme!
I need to go and make dinner Anneliese - but will get back to you later.
In the meantime.... panic not. What will be will be.
And a panic or 8 will make no difference whatsoever......
(old age and experience talking here - having 2 very much "hands on" boys)

[lockstock]

I work with RTLBs and their role is quite interesting. They find out which expert needs to be involved at a specialist level if there's a referral made to them. They also provide advice and information to parents, so get yourselves involved - it's their job. They advise the school (ie teachers involved with the student concerned) on any specialist teaching techniques, equipment, strategies etc and make sure that what is discussed and put in place (usually via an IEP - Individual Education Plan ) and this is regularly reviewed. Parents should be involved at all times - and you will be able to advise and comment on what happens. Basically it's a way to monitor a student's learning and make sure the right action is taken. Don't see it as something to worry about.

[incredible hulse]

As lockstock says they are mainly an advisory role. Our son currently has one following him at the moment and for example is looking at getting additional speech and language hours assigned (unfortunately these are woeful short in our area), OT and physio

[Carol]

aha! Couldn't have put that any better! :)

[mgbridges]

Thanks everyone. I've calmed down a bit and figure our next step is for both OH and I to have a proper (longer than 10min) meeting with his teachers to find out exactly the areas they are concerned about. They mentioned something about him not hitting certain development milestones which are making it hard for him to move on to learning to read and write.

OH and I have had our suspicions that he might be dyslexic but I didn't get a chance to raise that at the meeting yesterday as the time went too fast so that is an area to be explored.

At the moment I just feel like we're a bit in the dark so am worrying about the unknown. Hopefully once we get a bit more info. we can start processing things. Thanks again and I'll let you know how we go.

Anneliese

[napiers]

A longer meeting with his teacher/s would be a good start - you're right, 10 mins isn't enough time to even scratch the surface in this situation. It's important that you are as informed as you can be about it all - I'm a primary teacher and know how important support of parents is, and that you are all 'singing from the same sheet'. If you don't mind me asking how old is your son?

[mgbridges]

A longer meeting with his teacher/s would be a good start - you're right, 10 mins isn't enough time to even scratch the surface in this situation. It's important that you are as informed as you can be about it all - I'm a primary teacher and know how important support of parents is, and that you are all 'singing from the same sheet'. If you don't mind me asking how old is your son?

Hi Napiers,

He is 6yrs 3 and a bit mths. However because of when we emigrated and when the academic years fall he missed out on a huge chunk of Year One. He was at the bottom end of his class in Reception back in the UK so I knew he'd have some catching up to do but it looks like its going to be a LOT more.

I had another brief chat with his teacher this morning which helped but it was rushed and in a busy class room so I am going to go back this afternoon and push for a formal meeting between both his teachers and OH and me. I have raised our concerns about dyslexia which they will now include in their referral to RTLB. In the meantime I'm going to get hearing & sight tests sorted to make sure they are working correctly. Apparently there are some other tests that can be done which I need to find out more about. He will also go into the 'Literacy Enrichment Programme' at school but only when a space becomes available.

At the moment it all seems a bit of a mindfield and it does'nt help that I still have some Cellulitis in my neck and a stinking cold. Still its great to have a Forum family to 'talk' to and get advice from so thanks again.

Anneliese

[Sam B]

Dyslexia doesn't seem to be so recognised here. I often get blank looks when I talk about it at work. I work quite a bit with children who will go on to have difficulties in reading and writing (they are 2-5 years when I see them, but all the signs are there), so please feel free to pm me if you want any ideas for things you can do with your son to help with pre-reading skills Anneliese.

[dharder]

Dyslexia doesn't seem to be so recognised here.

I found in the UK as well, they didn't want to make a dyslexia diagnosis until the child is at least 7 years old.

Haven't raised it here yet, even though he is older now, but seems to be doing slightly better. I never got the impression that they were particularly keen to commit to a diagnosis in England, either, so I just assumed there is a general reluctance to have to use up resources.

Daniela

[lockstock]

Dyslexia was only offically recognised as a learning difficulty here in April last year. However, having said that the SPELD organisation has been working in the area for years. The word 'dyslexia' is much misused though (in the UK too) because it's a blanket term which covers a range of Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD in the UK - SPELD in NZ) related to probelms with reading, writing and comprehension. There are a large number of diagnostic tests which can pinpoint specific areas of difficulty - and then target these areas for specialist help. The proiblem with the term 'dyslexia' historically is that is has tended to be used as an excuse for problems relating to literacy (and often behviour) difficulties rather than a starting point for action to tackle the problems.

When you think about it, it's only over the past hundred years or so that practically everyone has been expected - allowed??- to be able to read and write. Set that against a few millions years of evolution and you can see why some brains have a bit of trouble working it all out. A bit like me with cooking and using a computer. Can't do either really. But I get by.

As a qualified SpLD (Dyslexia) specialist (and not a very good typist!) I have found here that there is widespread knowledge of the difficulties and strategies to tackle them amongst RTLBs and specialist support teachers whose role it is to provide information and support to schools where children have been referred and identified with SpLD.

The problem here, as in the UK, is funding for the support services. Prepare yourself for much filling in of forms!

Please PM me if you need any more info.

[Debbie]

Anneliese
I typed this PM to you about services we used for my son but Im not sure if it sent OK. System had logged me out whilst typing cause I'm to slow. If you don't get it message me.
Debbie

[mgbridges]

Thanks Lockstock.
Got the PM Debbie and have replied.

I've had a longer conversation with his teacher this afternoon and at this stage it seems to be more an overall concern that he hasn't meant some of the development milestones he should have done. We have discussed a few exercises we can do at home to help and she is going to spend more time with me so I know what to do. We also have a meeting scheduled for the week before the kids break-up which my OH will be coming along to as well.

Interestingly she did say that it is difficult to diagnose dsylexia at such a young age and it tends to be when they are closer to 7/8yrs of age. We're also very open minded at this stage and aren't necessarily focussing on getting a diagnosis of dsylexia as it might be something else. Its still early days and we both need to get our heads around the NZ Education system and all the things the school are suggesting that might help.

At least its been picked up when he is still quite young and we can pinpoint the problem areas and get the appropriate help and support now.

Thanks everyone,
Anneliese

[napiers]

Interestingly she did say that it is difficult to diagnose dsylexia at such a young age and it tends to be when they are closer to 7/8yrs of age. We're also very open minded at this stage and aren't necessarily focussing on getting a diagnosis of dsylexia as it might be something else. Its still early days and we both need to get our heads around the NZ Education system and all the things the school are suggesting that might help.

At least its been picked up when he is still quite young and we can pinpoint the problem areas and get the appropriate help and support now.

Thanks everyone,
Anneliese


Sounds like a sensible approach, and if you and the school are working together then that's good. Good luck with it all.

[mgbridges]

Hi folks,

We have a further meeting with both of DS teachers tomorrow morning. I've mulled a few things over and had a bit of a think but in your opinions what questions should we be asking about the RTLB referral to get the most out of the meeting?

I figure a few heads are better than two and you might come up with something we haven't thought of!

Thanks in advance
Anneliese

[peebles16]

Hey Anneliese
Hopefully the school will share any assessments they've carried out and this should give you an idea of where he is compared to classmates and highlight the gaps/issues etc.. If not then you need to ask to see it and get them to explain the testing. I didn't understand some of the terminology when talking to school about my son and I worked in additional needs in Scotland but asked my daft lassie questions and all was well :)

I would also ask what areas of the curriculum they are going to be focussing on, what the interventions are going to be, what kind of support will be provided, by whom, for how long, when will it be reviewed, how will it be reviewed...

Just my thoughts - think that'll do for starters..

Good luck :)
Karenx

[Sam B]

I would want to know exactly which areas of development they are concerned about - with examples, and whether they have any ideas for things you can be doing at home to help him catch up. I would also want to know how they are differentiating work for him so he can still access the curriculum fully, and what his areas of strength are.

[napiers]

Also when will this intervention take place? Will it be in class, out of class etc. I don't know how it works in NZ but there are times in UK where support happens out of class, which is fine as long as it's timed right and doesn't involve children missing out too much. If children in my class have support out of class I try to vary the timetable for them, or make sure we're working on a similar broad area which they wouldn't have found it so easy to access unsupported.

Depending on what they say ask how the extra support will be integrated into the day to day curriculum, not just in terms of differentiating the work but how the class teacher will monitor his progress and use the additional work to support him. I'm not sure that makes sense - what I mean is if, for example, there is a specific area he's been working on then how will the teacher ensure that that is an area of focus in class. It's about everyone knowing what's going on and what their role is. Hope I haven't made it more confusing - if I have just ignore this paragraph (I know what I'm trying to say but as it's school hols here I'm not quite with it).

As peebles said if they talk about things you aren't sure about ask, teachers do sometimes have a habit of using terminology others don't understand (that includes other teachers too I think!)

All the best and I hope it is a helpful and productive meeting. The most important thing is that you come away happy with what will be done - if you come away and then think of more questions go back after school and ask them. As a teacher I would appreciate this and it shows how supportive parents are. Good luck.

[mgbridges]

Thanks everyone you've really helped me get my head around what I want to ask and how to ask it. A few friends here have already told me that (sadly) it seems that 'he who shouts loudest - gets' so I'm going to be (metaphorically) yelling my head off to make sure he/we get what DS needs.

Will let you know how it goes.

Anneliese x

[peebles16]

I'd make a list of questions too Anneliese if you get the chance - I know it sounds really obvious but it's great way to focus the meeting from your viewpoint and also means all your concerns will be raised. I think the "who can shout the loudest point" is a good place to start whether in NZ or wherever sadly :( I used to work in the Scotland supporting parents of kids who needed additional support (langauge difference special needs here in NZ different from Scotland?) and quite often the more articulate the parent the more support the child received...

Hope it all works out well :)
Karenx

[Carol]

I would want to know exactly which areas of development they are concerned about - with examples, and whether they have any ideas for things you can be doing at home to help him catch up. I would also want to know how they are differentiating work for him so he can still access the curriculum fully, and what his areas of strength are.


:nice1