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Fitrix
28-07-2014, 11:37 AM
Looking for advice. I have a 3 year old LO with many many issues - poss learning disability, delayed development, anxiety and sensory issues to name a few. She has incredibly good coping mechanisms and has been functioning well at nursery (mornings only). I then tend to get the backlash as she can hold it together for 3 hours. For example it has taken a year to toilet train as she was able to get through the morning but then released all at mine so to speak!! She is very adept at getting her needs met - usually by other children speaking/doing things for her.
Nursery wrote her end of term report and are clearly missing a lot of things. They have also made the report really super generalised. They have stuck to absolute facts but some of them are inaccurate - smallest issue being they say she can competently use scissors to cut in straight lines. She doesn't have the motor control to operate scissors in one hand let alone make snips! My guess is she took another child's work to show the teacher! (Prob quite innocently as she does love praise!)
Other agencies are involved with her and it has been suggested to me that I do a transition report for reception class to highlight her issues. I really don't know how to go about it without saying the nursery have failed her. Plus - she can and does cope well in mainstream school (so far) - my concern being that she may not cope as well with full days. But my understanding is we can't highlight negative stuff ? I thought you can only write what they can do, not what they can't (but really should be by school age).

Any advice / input would be useful.

Mummits
28-07-2014, 12:36 PM
I think I would be truthful but there are ways of being positive which point up what is not being said if you see what I mean - for example, on toilet training that little one is now usually clean and dry for the morning. You could say that you are working on helping her stay dry all day if that is the case. I wouldn't worry about what the nursery has said, just stick to what you have seen with your own eyes. Nor would I say that I worried she may not be able to do this or that. She may surprise you and then it wouldn't be good to be the one who doubted.

LittleRabbits
28-07-2014, 12:38 PM
I would write a report in sections of each area and write what she can do, what she really enjoys in each area and also what u are working towards/ supporting her with so the school know exactly what she is progressing towards. Include which agencies are supporting her and maybe forward any reports from them to be included with ur report.

I have a child in my keygroup who at times can not be understood straight away as she mispronounces words and phonetic sounds. Everyone else has ignored this fact and i'v not been her key person very long (since feb time), now she is going to school I have included it all in her school report but didnt want parents to take offence, as noone has spoke to them about it before and didnt want it to come as a shock to them. Although to be honest, they must realise the speech is different to sibling. Im glad I have put it in the report though because I dont want the fact she may not be understood to go against the child and not be able to learn as well as expected. She is a very bright child and only just turned 4, I just want the best for her as I would for any other child.

loocyloo
28-07-2014, 04:17 PM
I would write a report in sections of each area and write what she can do, what she really enjoys in each area and also what u are working towards/ supporting her with so the school know exactly what she is progressing towards. Include which agencies are supporting her and maybe forward any reports from them to be included with ur report.
.

Good plan.
I have a child with a few issues that nursery don't seem to be aware of. I wrote a transition note ( just like my summative assessment ) for school with a big emphasis on what we are working towards.
I also wrote that LO has minor mobility issues and will need support. Mum was happy for me to write this ( and in more detail )

Nurseries report was very vague.

Happiness
28-07-2014, 07:09 PM
Silly question but can any of you lovely people attache a copy of a transition report please? Really sorry but I have on,t been childminding since October las year and never done one before :)
TIA x

Fitrix
30-07-2014, 10:39 AM
Well I have just received a copy of an educational psychologist report from Dad (estranged from mum and not often involved) which outlines all the concerns I had so someone somewhere is noticing what I have been trying to share with mum/school/other agencies for a year now. It seems no one thought it necessary to share this report with me..... I've poured my heart and soul into trying to help this child and have bent over backwards to accommodate mum, try and liaise with nursery (who have given me nothing) and really feel like I've been kicked in the teeth. So much for multi-agency working.
Thanks for all replies. I will do a transition report anyway phrasing it as people have suggested. No one will read it!
Happiness: I don't think there is a set way of doing such a report. It's just a matter of outlining where the child is at in all 7 areas of learning & development.
It's a thankless job! Just as well the money is so good.......:(

Simona
30-07-2014, 11:04 AM
Well I have just received a copy of an educational psychologist report from Dad (estranged from mum and not often involved) which outlines all the concerns I had so someone somewhere is noticing what I have been trying to share with mum/school/other agencies for a year now. It seems no one thought it necessary to share this report with me..... I've poured my heart and soul into trying to help this child and have bent over backwards to accommodate mum, try and liaise with nursery (who have given me nothing) and really feel like I've been kicked in the teeth. So much for multi-agency working.
Thanks for all replies. I will do a transition report anyway phrasing it as people have suggested. No one will read it!
Happiness: I don't think there is a set way of doing such a report. It's just a matter of outlining where the child is at in all 7 areas of learning & development.
It's a thankless job! Just as well the money is so good.......:(

If this child has an Educational Psychologist involved it means there is a Team Around the Child (TAC) at work and possibly the Area SENCO is part of it.
The child will have been assessed but it sounds like he/she has well defined additional needs?
That team must include the cm as well and your input valued as are others...has the child got a CAF?

Very frustrating not to be included...I wonder what will happen when the new SEND kicks in in Sept?

Happiness...most...and I say most but not all...LAs have doc called the EYFS Transfer summary to be filled and shared with parents and schools

I recall clearly the inspector seeing my copy in my records...this was evidence of info sharing and multi agency working

As the SEND changes it will have to be reworded as 'Action' and 'Action Plus' do not apply anymore

I would contact your EY Team...if you have one...and ask if they are updating their document

Sadly there is still so much work to be done in the sharing of info and multi agency working...it is still as if it is a new policy?.... but it has been in place for years and years
What is needed is shared training with these professionals so we are all singing from the same hymn sheet :angry:

bunyip
01-08-2014, 08:39 AM
Interesting thread.

Hope nobody minds me 'piggy-backing' on the topic, but I have a very similar situation.

Lo is starting school next month, and school is very rigid about the sort of transition document it will accept: only a county 'All About Me' and only from what school decides is the 'main setting' (which they define not by the hours spent at each setting, but always by a pecking order of nursery>preschool>CM :mad: .) I was invited to offer input for the preschool's consideration, which I did, only to be largely ignored.

I've seen a copy of preschool's report, but it might have been written for a different child AFAIC. :( They have her down as being perfectly able to manage her toileting. Like the OP, this is because she will only very occasionally go for a wee at preschool, so she is bursting even before we get back to mine and often has to stop en route for a 'bush-pee'. She puts off poos until it's absolutely dire, hoping to make it until she gets home if at all possible, then inevitably "skids" her knickers and, being unable to wipe properly, makes our bathroom look like the H-Blocks in Maze Prison, circa 1971-2000. :p

She's also a very fussy eater at mine (and I make no apologies to the CM Thought Police for using the term.) But preschool have noted (as per Development Matters) that she "enjoys a varied diet and makes healthy food choices". I queried this, it being a long way from all the "yuk - I'm not eating that" I experience on a daily basis. She doesn't even have meals at preschool. Apparently it's cos she will eat bananas and blueberries (and nothing else) at snack time there, and had a single bite of a spring roll (hmm, nice, healthy deep-fried spring roll) at their Chinese New Year bash because they conned her into believing it was a new kind of Chicken MacNugget or something.

Of course, mum gladly laps it up and believes the preschool report because it's far more "positive" than anything I have to say. Another of those times when "positive" isn't the great beneficial thing it's cracked up to be. :mad:

I think so much of this is down to the pressure settings are under to 'prove' every child is making progress or, to coin the official phrase: they "enjoy and achieve". A child so much as touches a banana and some 'professional' is there with the camera and chalking up the date in their LJ with the "evidence" that they have a rich, varied diet full of healthy food choices. It's even worse in group settings where I've seen so many children's "progress" marked off, cos the setting assumes that everyone has done something if the group as a whole has done it IYSWIM. I've a lo who is only just beginning to actively participate in story-telling. His previous nursery said he loved stories and could recall things. One nursery assistant confided in me this was not the case. They noted his "achievement" purely cos the rest of the group shouted out answers, etc. whilst he stared round the room with a vacant expression, presumably wondering why he'd been dragged off and plonked on the carpet when he'd far rather be back at the sandpit throwing sand in people's faces. :(

LittleRabbits
02-08-2014, 08:22 PM
It's so frustrating when key persons write reports on children that are not 100% true reflection of that child. I think some of the time, they just don't know the child well enough and just write anything that they think the child should be doing, not what they can do. There was a child in a nursery who had severe speech delay and then it was picked up by an outside agency that his physical skills were delayed also, but then looking at the last report written by the keyperson, it states the child had great physical skills n did this n that.... Which actually he couldnt do and ended up on IEPs for speech as well as physical. People need to be more careful, they dont understand the consequences that could lead to. So much for early intervention when reports arent always truthful

Fitrix
03-08-2014, 06:04 PM
Well, I'm afraid this has all got my back right up and my knickers are well and truly twisted... The report is littered with assumptions and inaccuracies (fed from nursery who clearly don't have a handle on the child at all). So I am writing a letter to the school (under guise of collaborating with her reception teacher who is head of early years for the school and who I have a longstanding and good relationship with) to slam dunk the nursery and right all the wrongs of the EP report and blast them all out of the water for not including me in the Team Around the Child, even though she spends 6 hours a day with me frequently on a one to one basis. I am not going to let this one go......

LittleRabbits
03-08-2014, 11:19 PM
Well, I'm afraid this has all got my back right up and my knickers are well and truly twisted... The report is littered with assumptions and inaccuracies (fed from nursery who clearly don't have a handle on the child at all). So I am writing a letter to the school (under guise of collaborating with her reception teacher who is head of early years for the school and who I have a longstanding and good relationship with) to slam dunk the nursery and right all the wrongs of the EP report and blast them all out of the water for not including me in the Team Around the Child, even though she spends 6 hours a day with me frequently on a one to one basis. I am not going to let this one go......

Good for u!! Well done :-)