A year ago this week, my then 11 year old was about to go through one of the hardest weeks of his school life. Even though he has dyslexia and anxieties, he had to sit the KS2 SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) English papers, and the maths SATs tests. He was as prepared as he was going to be, and there was no pressure at all from home. We know from the experiences of his big brother that exam results aren’t everything, and even not so good results can actually lead to better than good situations. So, off he went with a heavy heart, and my day (and my week) was spent trawling social media for hints of how good or bad the tests had been.

Social media was full of horror stories of how the top students had ended up in tears as the test was so hard, that the reading age of the comprehension was higher than expected, and that there were ambiguous grammar questions that could have more than one answer. My heart dropped each day, and each day I waited at the school gates with a smile, a hug and something sweet to each (for each of us).

His results were, actually, really good, above benchmark in everything apart from spelling. In a strange way, I think his SEN and barriers helped; he went into the exams with no expectations except that this was going to be the week from hell. He thought they were going to be hard, and they were. He thought that there would be words he had no hope of spelling, and there were. He thought that the reading was going to be ridiculous, and it was. Therefore he was not shocked or stunned when he opened the paper. He just knuckled down and got on with it, got through it, and did very well.

Facebook memories, and posts by friends, informed me this morning that it was SATs week again. I don’t know how much the tests have changed since last year, and I don’t know if the science SATs have been introduced, as we are now Y7 parents, and I teach year 12+.

Facebook and social media posts, and walking through the corridors at work this morning also informed me that this week is Mental Health Awareness week.

If it hasn’t clicked, let me make the ironic connection obvious.

SATs and Mental Health Awareness are the same week.

At a time when mental health is decreasing in school age children, and when there is an increase in primary school children who are being treated for depression, anxiety and other mental health issues, when agencies such as CAMHS is incredibly overstretched and underfunded, we need to take a moment and take stock of what we are doing to the younger members of society.

We make them go to school 5 days a week, 37(ish) weeks a year. From 5 they have some form of testing. At 7, where if they were in Finland they would still be learning through play (see yesterday’s post for more info),  they have government tests. At 11 they have tests that many adults (and many teachers if they are honest) would struggle to pass, and then they go off to secondary school where they now face a new grading system in line with the new GCSEs, and as the schools are under more pressure to hit the benchmarks, so are the children.

In my opinion, more testing does not make a better education system. More homework does not make a better education system. More pressure does not make a better education system. Making teachers work more and more hours ticking boxes and preparing for more tests, does not make a better education system.

All these do is increase the stress in our schools, and increase mental health issues in children, young adults and teachers (who are leaving the profession at an alarming rate).

A further irony within this subject, is that I have booked my students onto tests this week – 4 took them this morning, another 3 will take tests tomorrow, and 4 on Wednesday. The difference is that I haven’t put pressure on them, and I have waited until they were ready before I booked the test. And I have said to all of them that if they don’t pass, in the big scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter.

My priority this week is going to be mental health – my children’s, my students and my own. Mental health is far, far more important than grades, and that’s what I’m going to focus on.

 

School has been back for 2 weeks now, and things are, more or less, settling down. The pre-term anxieties were high, but not as bad as Christmas, and although I have had to face pouts and sighs most mornings, he’s gone in ok, and come home almost happy!  The only real difference is that there has been very little formal homework set, so far, as there are school tests in a week so most of the homework has been revision (which has consisted of chatting about 1 topic within 1 subject most, but not all, evenings – not enough so far). This has meant that school has been about school, and home has been about home. This has meant there is a clear divide between the two, which has reduced the stress and anxieties.

So, where do we go from here, and what do we do once the tests are done, marked and homework is back on the agenda? And how can I/we put things in place now so that the increase of homework over the next 4 years doesn’t result in an increase in stress for us all?

When our eldest was writing his uni assignments, one was on comparative education, and he compared the UK system to the Finnish system.  Proof-reading his assignment for him was so interesting, and led me to read some of his research too.  In Finland, they don’t start formal lessons until the children are 7. There is funded childcare available for younger children, and most children are at school from 5, but between 5 & 7 they learn through play, rather than being made to sit and learn spellings and maths and things that most 6 year olds will learn through conversation and play anyway (and probably better through play).

The schools run from 7 through to 16, so there is no change of school at 11 where they have to change peer groups and make new friends just as they are on the cusp of pupating through their teenage years before emerging as adult butterflies (and I really believe that this happens, metaphorically, that’s a subject for another blog). They have the same teachers and familiarity throughout, and although there are skware pegs in Finnish education, the lessons are student orientated, and if a student can’t learn a certain way, the teacher will change the way they teach or ask colleagues for advice to ensure that the children do learn. Most importantly, as far as this blog is concerned, they are set very little homework, and have very few in school tests.  Homework tends to be project based, or similar, and there is a culture in Finland that the parents will help, either by reading or being with the child while they complete the work.

All this must be working as Finland are consistently in the top 10 countries in the world for education and attainment, and 93% of students leave formal education with the equivalent of a level 3 qualification (A-level or BTEC National).

I don’t often set homework as the students don’t want to do it (and I really don’t want to mark 20 pieces of apathetic, can’t be bothered work either, if I’m completely honest). The homework I do set is things like ‘Read anything and everything, from instructions to menus to newspapers to novels. Fill your heads with words, and criticise what you read.’  That has meaning, it’s easy to do, and it really does help with the subjects I teach!

I’m still not sure what I need to do – any suggestions are welcome – but I think I may trust my instinct, maybe stamp my feet a little, and see if we can have the final term more or less homework free.  I will post updates, watch this space…..

We are 2/3 of the way through the Easter break. As requested, we haven’t done that much as he needed down time and doing nothing time. We have pottered, gardened, cooked, baked, planted lavender, seen a couple of friends, spent time outside, spent time inside and seen family. He has had more than enough screen time, but not too much screen time. We’ve tried to get a balance.

But now the dark clouds are circling. There is only a week left of the holiday. There is only another week before he has to put up with people, noise, lessons, cricket (no rugby this term, which is a big cause of anxiety) and food he doesn’t really like. There are 5 whole weeks til half term (a rather short term in teaching terms, which I am very grateful for), but the thought of 5 weeks of school before a week off is rather overwhelming to an anxious 12 year old.

We had a chat in bed last night (ours, not his) when the dark clouds were far too close for sleep. I asked him if, on the whole, there were more OK days than not OK days at school. He answered yes. Were there more good or OK bits in most days than not OK bits? Again, yes. So, I ventured, that means that if school was like test marks, it would pass. It would actually do OK, probably over 75% OK? He agreed. But, the thing is, it could be 95% OK and the 5% of not OK would bring him down. That’s the problem with anxieties, worries or dark moments. You can have so much good time, you can have hours of smiles or laughter but your over-riding memory can be of the moments of darkness and anxiety. Some times the dark clouds reach through the laughter and grab you just when you feel you should be happy. There is no logic, or sense of rhythm with anxieties. Obviously there are triggers, but there are also unexpected moments of fear and of drowning. Just because it was OK yesterday doesn’t guarantee it’ll be OK today – but just because you couldn’t face a coffee with friends yesterday doesn’t mean you won’t be able to face it today.

As a parent of an anxious child, that unpredictability makes helping them cope (and helping us cope) much harder. If he had an allergy, we would avoid said allergen. If he had a phobia of something, even something unusual such as water or grass, we could work round that and avoid the trigger. But anxieties haven’t read the rule book. They don’t follow a pattern. They don’t make any sense whether you are the parent or partner of someone who is anxious, or if you are the anxious person.

So, today we got out of the house and went for a walk. We were outside, there were people (but not too many), and we climbed and explored and looked. We had a (quick) drink in the cafe and a (quick) look round the gift shop before heading home, and it was a nice, safe morning out. At the moment the dark clouds are only in the distance and I would say we had hazy sunshine overhead at the moment, which is great.

I have no doubt the darker clouds will gather close to bed time, when the busyness quietens and the anxious thoughts have a chance to be heard again, but we will have more conversations (probably in our bed again), and we will do what we do every time. We will listen, we will acknowledge and we will do our best to shine a light in the dark, and allow sunnier dreams to banish the clouds for a little while.

Four years ago we were in the grips of GCSE angst, and it wasn’t a good time. Various factors were having an influence on our eldest, and the pressure of GCSEs made it all so much worse. They were dark days, and ones I would not want to go back to. However, we came out the other side wiser, stronger and a tighter family unit. We weathered the storm, and were possibly better for going through it.

I now have several friends whose children are in Y11 or Y13, and some have children in both (to those of you who are 35+, that’s fifth form and upper sixth in old money).  The stress and pressure these adolescents are under is immense. The schools want them to do well so they can go on to bigger and better things, and I’m sure they also want them to do well as the GCSE and A-level results will, in time, be published and will make or break the school in these days of league tables and special measures.

GCSE results will be the marker for A-levels, BTECs, apprenticeships and training programmes. In an ideal world, every student will get the ‘magic 5’ at C or above, including maths and English, and then they can go on to whatever course they want to. Obviously, some do, some don’t.

A-level & BTEC results will be the marker for universities, higher apprenticeships, training and employment. Competition for more popular courses means AAA isn’t an uncommon requirement for universities – and I’m sure it wasn’t like that in the (very) early ’90s when I was applying.

This means that at the moment in bedrooms, studies, libraries and at kitchen tables all over the country, young adults who should be full of energy, enthusiasm and joie de vivre will be staring at text books, making notes, highlighting important points and planning their planning. Those on BTECs may trying to get the much needed distinction in their final assignment (or assignments), and they will also be staring at text books and notes with a computer in front of them, desperately trying to stay off social media (and probably failing!).

They will be feeling that their whole future will be won or lost on results day.  Their whole life will be decided on a Thursday in August. Nothing else matters apart from those letters or numbers assigned to them. Everything has led to this moment. Everything after depends on this moment. It really is do or die.

No wonder so many are stressed, panicking and suffering burn out.

You see, it really isn’t do or die. It really doesn’t matter very much. In the big scheme of things, it means absolutely nothing. How you handle what happens in August matters, how you manage between now and then kind of matters. But that little slip of paper? Nah, that doesn’t really matter at all.

I did badly in my A-levels. I had already decided I didn’t want to go straight to uni, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do instead. So I am so glad I didn’t do well. It gave me a chance to stop, to think and decide what I really wanted to do. It took me 8 years to find that out, but when I finally went to uni, I went to study, to use my brain and to learn. I did really, really well in a subject (biology) I wasn’t even allowed to take at school as they didn’t think I would get a good mark.

I know someone else who did very badly in their GCSEs, resits and AS levels. Instead of wallowing, they spent a year getting loads of life experience, and are now about to complete their first year of a BA (Hons) degree (that you’re supposed to have CCC at A level rather than 4 GCSEs, life experience and a bucket full of charm and charisma).

So, back to those GCSE and A level students. At a time when, physiologically and psychologically they should be out taking risks, using up energy, finding out who they are and what they’re about, when they should be smiling, laughing, playing and being free, society dictates that they need to sit still in exam rooms and regurgitate everything they have been taught for the last 10 years or so. They need to know facts that they may never, ever use again. They need to tick enough boxes, that in August they get the right grades to carry on ticking boxes. And they, inevitably, get stressed, anxious and worried, which will affect them all in different ways. Some will be fine, others definitely won’t. Some may travel through the darkest days you can imagine, pulling their family along with them. And, as a society, we see this as normal????

Well, it’s not. And it doesn’t matter. Things will work out how they are supposed to work out. Whatever questions are written on the exam papers, whatever marks and grades are on the results papers in August I can promise you one thing. The sun will rise, the sun will set, the earth will keep spinning and life will carry on. Sometimes AAA is the best thing that will ever happen to you, but sometimes DDE is even better.

This was actually written on Saturday night, but due to Wifi connections and forgotten passwords, I’m posting now, 2 days later. An update is that we had a great Sunday morning training with Wasps and meeting a Scottish International, and everything is back to normal (or as normal as our lives ever get!). Maybe that’s part of the problem, in a bizarre way, that everything is completely fine until it’s not. If CAMHS (or whoever) finds us on a good day, then there’s nothing to see. Anyway, the post…..

I am writing this from our hotel room in Coventry with our son while everyone else on the rugby tour is at the pub eating dinner. Right now, I don’t know whether to cry, shout or hide in the bathroom, so I decided it was much more productive and cathartic to write.

We’ve had a fab day, and he’s done really well. He went to the rugby club to pick up his tour hoody & get pre-tour photos. We stopped en route to meet up with everyone else, and then he played the match,  had post match food & went on a mini-tour of the Wasps training facility. We came back to the hotel and he was ok. We were due to have an hour of down time after training, but things ran over so it was a quick change and out of the door.

We walked to the restaurant, and he seemed fine, but quiet. We got inside the restaurant and found our table and he crumbled. His face dropped, he was fighting back tears and the stress headache appeared. I offered eating outside, going for a walk or sitting somewhere else, and that was all too little too late. The silent meltdown had begun, and he needed to get out of there.

So now I’m in a stuffy hotel room with Ant and Dec on TV and no wifi. He’s calmer, and is zoning out. The headache as decreased and he’s ok. Disaster averted.

However, following on from my last post, this isn’t good enough. This isn’t just anxieties. This has made my mind up. He might need the counselling/therapy that CAMHS has offered, but we also need a diagnosis. We need people to listen. We need an acknowledgement of what he goes through every single day. So, our journey to a second opinion starts now.

Our Easter holidays have started (well, they are on holiday, I don’t finish ’til tomorrow afternoon) and not a moment too soon. This has felt like a long, roller-coaster term, started and finished with talk of CAMHS. We have had amazingly good weeks, fantastic academic results, an increased friendship circle and lots & lots of rugby. On the surface, things seem to be going really, really well.

Dig a little beneath the surface (or look closely at the bags under my eyes) and you will see it’s a fragile balance that often falters. We have had highs as well as lows, but there has been lots and lots of angst over various things, happenings and peers, so our trip to CAMHS at the end of the term was our light at the end of the tunnel.

By chance, and luck, we were allocated the same case worker as last time. As we were classed as new patients again, we had to fill out forms (patient and parent ones) which we did, with some rather unusual answers from him. We went in for our appointment/consultation with our case worker, and it was one of the most surreal hours of my life so far. Our son answered as only he can – direct, to the point and with an air of contempt when he thought that the question was stupid. He also took his shoe off, swivelled round on his chair (which wasn’t a swivel chair), poked fingers in holes, and by the time we had finished, he was definitely ready for home. The outcome of the meeting sounded hopeful. He would be discussed at the next case meeting to see what had to happen next, but it may include how to get a second opinion for an ASD assessment. I would have a phone call in a week to discuss the outcome of the meeting.

My phone call came, and it wasn’t what I had hoped for. No ASD re-assessment as it is only 6 months from the last one, but some of his anxieties are of a clinical level which means he can have group therapy (which seems to be a strange thing to offer a child with social anxiety), or 1-2-1 sessions, which is what we have chosen. I was so disappointed and upset that we weren’t getting the assessment that we feel he needs that I dismissed what we were being offered.  I asked about other routes to second opinions, and that afternoon I phoned our GP asking for an appointment to start the second opinion route. I was in Warrior-Mum mode, and I was out to right wrongs and get things sorted.

That night I couldn’t sleep with every scenario running through my head. I had an internal monologue that was full of every what-if, if-only and why-not I could think of. It was quite a dark place, but somewhere I think all parents of SEND children go to every once in a while.

Once I got myself out of my dark place, I decided that whether or not he is as far along the spectrum as we need him to be for a diagnosis is irrelevant right now. He has crippling anxieties that stop him doing everything he would like to do. He finds staying away from home very difficult, he worries about making new friends, he finds social situations hard. All these will be helped by his 1-2-1 sessions. I have probably slept on his floor for 1/5th of nights since December. This, too, should be helped by the 1-2-1 sessions, as will food anxiety, going to new places, new people starting at school, starting a new school year in September (this might feel a long way away to some, but there is only one term left in year 7, which means, at the moment, there is only half a term til the year 8 anxieties start).

I feel that, sometimes, parenting square pegs means that you are always ready for a battle. You expect things to go a little awry, you wait for phone calls and emails, and when you don’t get the answer or solution you want, you panic, get mad and go into battle mode. Or at least that’s what I do. I’ve battled and fought for my children for the last 20 years, since we had to ask lots of questions about hospital visits and tests.  I also battle for the people I teach, wanting them to have access to the help they are entitled to. When you reach a dead end, or a ‘No’ or a ‘That can’t be done’ you don’t accept and walk away; you challenge, you push and you prove them wrong (whoever ‘they’ may be).

This time, however, I paused and thought about the hand we had been dealt. And you know what? I think this is the best direction at the moment. Whether or not he has ASD rather than ASD traits is irrelevant right now. What matters is that he starts to control the anxieties, the panic and the stress. What matters is that we can start to live a ‘normal’ life a little more. We can go to new places without panics. We could have a summer holiday that doesn’t have week by week (or even day by day) planning that is in place before they have broken up. We could help him to smile a little more, and scowl a little less. Before I battle the ASD diagnosis battle, I need to put his current needs above everything else, and trust that this is the right decision, and right direction for us to go in right now, and maybe I can learn a little from the sessions too.

I have often said, as a teacher and as a parent, that I want my students to do well despite having *insert hidden disability here*. Please, don’t misunderstand me, I want them to work to the best of their abilities and fulfil their potential. I want them all to be successful, but recent events have made me question the word ‘despite’.  It is used too many times in education as a subconscious excuse to limit differentiation, to make all students have to fit the round hole. I don’t think this is a conscious thing – it certainly hasn’t been when I have done it. But it needs to stop.

We expect a child to sit still and not fiddle despite having ADHD, when actually they have an amazing brain that is wired for movement and doing rather than sitting and listening. We tell the gifted student they need retake their test and learn the spellings and do well despite having dyslexia, when actually they have a brain that could find a cure for cancer, or discover a lost world but their brain can’t process how to spell Pythagoras.

Hidden disabilities are easy to overlook, to think that we can mould these amazing square pegs into the preferred round holes. However, would we expect a child in a wheelchair to keep trying to run 100m depsite their disability? Of course not. What about the child who is visually impaired – do they need to try harder to see? No, absolutely not. So why make our SEND children do this?

It is the 21st Century. It is time for change. It is time to embrace what our children are good at, to boost their mental health, to stop trying to make them into round pegs, and let them shine like the amazing dodecahedrons they are!

So, last week we had parents’ evening. It was fab. Every teacher had good things to say about effort, behaviour and grades. There were a few comments about spelling and presentation (which is to be expected with dyslexia), but EVERY teacher had good, positive things to say about him, and he is doing really well, even in art (not a subject he has particularly enjoyed before). Therefore everything must be going really well.

Er, no. Everything is going really well for most of the time, but good grades do not necessarily equal good mental health. Good grades equal a smart kid who works hard, sets high standards for himself and works to achieve those standards.

Just 5 days after the praise of parents’ evening, we had the first morning meltdown for weeks. As I walked upstairs with breakfast (no comments about out morning routine and breakfast in bed, please. It works for us and that’s all that matters) I could see his light was on and he was sitting up in bed. I greeted him with my usual ‘Good morning, how are  you?’. His reply was to blink his tear filled eyes at me and shrug his shoulders. Not a great start to a new week. I asked what was wrong, and, again, he shrugged his shoulders. And then he told me he couldn’t go in; couldn’t face another day; he needed a day off. We have had a busy weekend, but we have alternated busy episodes with longer spells of vegging out watching TV (back to back episodes of The Flash as he discovered the series last week, so he has 3 series to catch up on). It’s not as though he’s had no down time since school finished on Friday.

We chatted, he leaned on me, he sighed a lot (A LOT) and then he slowly got dressed and went to school. There have been no ‘rescue me’ texts, nor ‘hey, it’s not been that bad’ texts either. After school rugby club means I won’t know how he’s got on or how his mood is until he gets home at 5.40, so we wait and we hope that this morning was just a blip. We’re nearly at the Easter hols, and sometimes that last push is the hardest. We’re also back at CAMHS on Friday, so that may be playing on his mind too.

So, to come full circle and back to where I started this strange ramble, OK does not mean OK. OK with grades and success with school work does not mean that life is good. And also, bad school grades does not mean everything is going wrong. We need to look at everything in our children’s lives, regardless of whether they are square pegs or not. There will always be highs and lows, and we need to give them the tools to deal with these, but to assess whether they really are OK, we need to look beneath the grades and see what’s underneath.

The clouds have parted as quickly as they arrived. After excellent support from school, lots of talking things through at home, the anxieties and the moods have lifted, for now at least.

The thing that people don’t tend to realise (unless they either have anxiety or live with some with anxiety) is that there is no logic about when the anxieties will hit, or what will trigger them.  HUGE things can be a walk in the park, and yet catching an earlier train or the shops running out of a type of cheese can be the biggest thing to overcome.

What can we do to help? Whatever has caused the anxiety needs to be acknowledged, even if, as an onlooker, you think it has been blown out of all proportion. Don’t say you understand, because you probably don’t, so instead say you’re there, you’re listening and ask if there is anything you can do. It may be a hug, it may be to leave them alone for a little while; but if you do leave them alone, keep checking on them, and keep letting them know you’re there if they need you.

Give them time, space and reassurance that they’re not on their own. Listen without judging, but really listen, not just nodding in the right place. And let them know that their normal is ok, even it’s a different normal to yours.