Here is our story

[queenligoo]

Hey I am absolutely new here so please bare with me 😄

My name is Klaire and I home school our daughter. Here is how our journey came to be...

Boy oh boy this is slightly nerve wracking and also good to lay it all out there.

 

I am a disabled mum to an outstanding loving daughter who is 7.

We took her out of school aged 4 and we have been very relaxed about her home schooling for the past few years,

After a not so bad experience of her attending nursery we decided to carry on and pursue the next stage of primary school...reception. (- we are in the UK-)  She has always been a very happy baby and child and we have never had any problems with her. she has always been polite and kind and self assured, and an all rounder really.

With my disability from her being a baby she is very used to coming and going to various situations such as hospital appointments, long clinic waits etc and staying at family members houses planned and unplanned if my health at the time needed extra care. She is fully aware of my condition and is knowledgeable and understanding of it.  She has always been very good at lone play and is quick to make friends easily where ever we are. Her communication skills are excellent and shes always been quite happy to entertain her self or with new children in a play centre (for example) for hours if we let her with out even checking on me or who ever is with her.  

So when it came to the last day of nursery and she STILL screamed like it was the first day of leaving her we was rather confused. Once she had settled after i had gone she was fine with her work and fine with the others and scored great with any tests when we had parent teacher evenings. She even still recalls happy memories of the nursery now and says she loved nursery.

And then after the holidays came reception.

Oh boy reception.

History repeated itself. The moment she woke and realized it was a school day. She was sobbing and was adamant she did NOT want to go. We persevered for a few months and even had trips to the Drs as we suspected typical kid fakery when she complained all the time of not feeling well. The disability I have could be passed to her so I was concerned if she had inherited it from me I definitely wanted to catch it early for her after I had years of miss diagnoses when i was her age.

And to our surprise and shock we were told she actually was suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. this is age 4! 

I came home and cried. We set in place different methods and approaches to try ease her anxiety about school. it came to light after this that a boy next to her had been pinching her and i addressed this with the staff. It carried on. And on. to the point where all the good we were trying to do was being cancelled out by this little boy ('il just call him boy)  who sometimes pinched and nipped her that hard she bled. I was absolutely mortified. Fuming.  Even more so when the teacher said to me..

Teacher: 'your daughter wouldn't sit in her spot today on the carpet...'

Me: 'did she say why she didn't want to?'

Teacher: 'yes because she didn't want to sit next to (the horrid) boy' 

Me : 'as you are aware of the problems we are having with boy , I would have thought you would understand why she doesnt want to sit next to him, he will just sit there the whole time nipping her.' 

WAIT FOR IT

Teacher : 'Well it is alphabetical order so I can't (won't she actually meant) move them.'

Me: 'wow , I'm sure you could swap to avoid this happening and it would stop wasting teaching time than you arguing for her to sit next to the bully.'

Teacher: 'I will speak to the TA and see what she says...'

If that was not ridiculous enough, the next day comes and we do our daily struggle dragging our daughter to the school. 

Me: 'Hi Mrs (plonker) did you speak to the TA about the carpet seating arrangement?'

Teacher: 'Yes i did and unfortunately we are not going to change the seating plan. I have had numerous complaints about this boy and I have spoken with his mother about it and she is going to address it.' 

Me: 'oh right , okay, I am not really happy that you are going to still force her to sit next to some one that is clearly physically hurting her. i DO NOT want her sat next to him'

Teacher: 'well he does have 4 older brothers, they probably all pick on him and he is just hitting out'

Me: ' what at the expense of my daughter. I do NOT want her sat near him. ' (class had already begun and our voices had become loud as the children had settled down  listening to the TA.   And I left half in disbelief and half astounded of the excuse for the boy bullying.

On that particular day there was an event taking place in part of the school and my daughters year was to be collected 40 minutes earlier than usual. And here is the final straw.

As we were walking towards the gates we heard a small whispering commotion of 'whose child is that?!' and 'someone should tell someone'

Our daughter had sneaked out of the school and was trying to make her way home!!! Thank goodness we were there early and spotted her! 

'THAT'S MY CHILD!' I exclaimed. We were LIVID. I took my daughter into the school and had raw words with the teacher. I collected her things and went back into the classroom where I saw the teacher shouting at my daughter for getting her in trouble! 

The whole time calling her the complete wrong name?! 

My daughter looking so confused and so was then taken by me promptly home. When we got home we decided she was not going back there. 

How did no one see her sneak out through 1 coded door and 2 coded gates?! she clearly hid and waited until an adult went through and before the gates shut to re lock she snuck through.

When we asked her about it our daughter said she had waited ages for someone to go through the first gate...after she had got through the door which left us wondering how long had she been there?! And outside?!

Thanks for taking time to read all of this lol.

I am currently stressing about schedules for the new learning year. It is exciting to be a part of this community :)