So it was Award Day at school today.
Such a difficult time, as most of the end of term is, for many neurodivergent children and their parents. Social media posts from friends and family are full of academic achievements, reward events, first day/last day photos, smiling faces, holiday plans.
For families whose children do not thrive in school, it’s a time of sadness and exclusion. No attendance reward treat for a girl with 33%, no certificates, no photos. Certainly no firm holiday plans for a girl too broken by school to leave the house without me.
But as I dropped my daughter off for what may be her penultimate day at that school, any school, since the LA have not secured provision for her final year, I was beyond proud.
She clutched a bag of flower bouquets she had made herself, with hand written cards and thoughtfully chosen gifts. Gifts for the three ladies who have made the 33% possible, have made toast, made safe spaces, made an effort. They’re not teachers. They’re TAs. Unsung, under-resourced, over worked sticking plasters, holding SEND children together in a place that feels about as safe as a burning building.
School wants children to have good attitude to learning (they score it), resilience, grit. Who scores the school, scores the teachers? Turning up to a school that has let you down again and again, studying subjects no-one is teaching you, aiming for exams you don’t know you’ll ever sit. Well, if that isn’t the definition of all these traits, tell me what is.
So yes, awards are great. I’m as proud of my son’s academic and sporting certificates, his resilience, his attitude to learning. He copes with school, just about, so he gets his moment to shine, he gets his special treats and pats on the back. He also gets expectations and ‘but he’s doing so well, despite being autistic’ when I suggest he might be heading for burnout. Yes, until he isn’t. What then?
My kids are both amazing, both worth celebrating. But in the eyes of our school system, one is a success and one is an uneconomic use of resources.
Both just need to survive school, to finally be free to start living the lives they deserve.
writermummy 
It is such a pity that we parents often talk about ‘surviving school’ when it comes to our children. As a parent it makes me angry to remember it. As a former classroom teacher it makes me really sad. I’m glad I got it as right as humanly possible with the kids I cared for at my schools. I’m sad that schools on the whole don’t. And I don’t think they will ever learn as institutions.
I may need to blog about this…
FWIW I have complete sympathy with your daughter. As a kid at school we had stars and then good and bad order marks. You got stars for good work and then goof order marks for good work. I never got them. If get full marks in a test and be told that normally that’d be an automatic good mark but because my handwriting was so untidy it was an A minus instead and no good mark. ‘Better luck next time’ but next time was always the same. Meanwhile bad order marks were given for stuff like having your shirt untucked, running in the corridor or being late and I got stacks. So many that I was warned I was up for exclusion even though I never did anything antisocial or bad. I only made it through because my mother was one of the governors.
When my mum died my brother and I found all our old school reports. My brother is hugely ADHD but somehow did OK at school. I didn’t. He seemed quite sad as he read mine. He said these days I’d have been straight into learning development as I was so clearly neuro diverse.
Please tell your daughter it will be OK. She is beautiful and brilliant and I promise her it will be OK. I ended up marketing manager for a sizeable chunk of a UK household name company. I have a whole host of undiagnosed stuff. I administered a marketing budget of £1m. I haven’t passed a maths exam since I was 10. My niece struggles too.