Peer support is important. Having a supportive friend is important, someone you can talk with, chat through ideas with, someone you can turn to and ask for help, someone you can have fun with. All these are important factors for a young child, especially when facing the transition, which can be so very difficult, from primary school to secondary school. No child should be choosing a ‘friend’ with the main criteria being how well they can spell! So, placing children on a table in ability groups needs to be considered.
Is it better to have a mix of abilities, giving children others to aspire to while also allowing for the opportunity to see good modelling? Or is it best to be on the table with those children who need more support? Some children who need more support may show their frustrations by being disruptive. This then may not be at all a helpful to child with dyslexia who needs a calm environment in which to work. Also important to consider is how children make themselves and each other feel. Dyslexic children are often sensitive and compassionate and have sympathy and also empathy with others.
I have seen this again and again in the children I have taught and assessed with dyslexia. So often when I am chatting with parents, young people or adults before a diagnostic assessment for dyslexia, dyscalculia or even ADHD, they will say their child, or they themselves are very empathetic or very sympathetic. They will always stick up for others, or for the underdog. They do not like injustice and are able to see this and they are always a good friend, always supporting those in need.
So just think, is this level of friendship support offered in the classroom? Or are children deliberately being split up because they talk to each other? Yes, there needs to be a balance and children cannot simply talk their way through a school day. But friendship support is something of vital importance and needs to be considered very carefully.
In reality and so quickly, children are moved, spilt from their immediate friendship group, even isolated and made to work alone. This approach is surely very damaging to the child with dyslexia who desperately needs to be accepted by their peers and the need for support in this way, again must not go underestimated.
My transition to Secondary school was horrific, I hated the place with a loathing. I was bullied, became a bully and my goodness, how I hated those teachers, every single one of them for how they treated me!
The secondary school building was of course much larger than my primary. It was actually a nicely designed building with a central library with corridors and areas leading off that central hub. Each area housed a different part of the curriculum. There was art, I remember doing screen painting there. I made a t shirt with a screen painted picture of Paddington Bear. I am pretty sure the t shirt was dark blue; I think I wore it a few times. There were also areas for wood and metal work and a sewing and home economics area. I remember making a quiche Lorraine and a pizza, neither of which my dad would eat, he was very fussy like that. There was an English and humanities area, a maths area and a science area. Each area had a wide corridor with I think three or four rooms on either side.
I remember one day, the first of April, the teachers played an April fool trick on us. They actually made every child sit downside by side and take their shoes and socks off. The teachers then proceeded to walk up and down examining out feet! I am really not sure what the whole idea was but I remember it not being particularly funny, what a thing to do!
Music was near the gym and there were further science classrooms, a large field, tennis courts and an all-weather pitch where I played hockey. As I have said, I was not bad at sports, I played in the school netball and hockey teams, came second in a long running race and loved playing tennis. I guess playing team sports for the school gave me some credence but I cannot remember being any more popular because of this.
The school layout, everything coming from the central library meant that my only escape was to go through the library and be confronted by hundreds of books. I remember actually being a librarian. I used to love stamping the date on the little bits of card taken from a cardboard pocket on the inside cover of the book. I think I did the role as it kept me in at some lunch times this way I could avoid too many children and of course my bullies.
TRANSITION
The transition to secondary
well what can I say?
I had thought it could be better,
but never, no way.
The walk to and from changed,
I walked alone each way.
Steeling myself the way there,
Decompressing on my way home.
Yes we had a visit
before the dreaded first day
but it is still very much the unknown,
into the depths your thrown,
for this is your life for the next 3 years
and I quickly found my feet,
I also quickly found my ability
for complete defeat.
Teachers were just not supportive,
teachers used anger and hate.
Never trying to understand
or see why I simply,
just could not relate
to the teaching so direct,
right or wrong.
No middle ground,
no time for expression
no time to try something new.
No time for rehearsing,
repeating
re-visiting
Despite trying,
I just withdrew.
Was not in massive trouble,
but continually chastised
for not doing well,
‘Could try harder’ on all my reports.
my errors, mistakes only seen.
Not my trial and effort, not
my toil or work,
teachers eyes just seeing result.
What is sad here is the effect
on the child.
Creativity stifled,
imagination squashed,
as if it’s not right,
it must be wrong.
A conveyor belt of product,
all the same,
no room for an individual,
no room for one with difference,
one with need,
one so desperate for support.
My secondary teachers were a different bread,
no kindness, no patience,
awareness of need.
Just a list to tick off with a
‘just get on with it’ approach.
Still sat at a desk or stood
front of class, child
full of need, but only if you asked.
If you just put your head down,
like I soon learned,
you were quiet
but did not ever succeed.
