“Oh, Oh, I know Miss…Miss!” as Jack thinks of a good reason and shoots up his hand in an effort to gain his teacher’s attention. “Yes, Salu, what do you think?” as the teacher scans the room ignoring Jack’s noisy hands-up in favour of one of the ‘quiet’ hands waiting to contribute. Jack, beginning to feel crestfallen, wonders what he has to do to get noticed. Then suddenly, his teacher turns and asks Jack for his contribution. “Er, erm not sure Miss, it was something about, erm…” trailing off as his thought escapes him, hearing a whisper and a snigger from one of the group on the table next to his. “Why does that always happen?” Jack scolds himself as he buries his head on his desk in frustration. Monday wasn’t off to a good a start after all, despite managing to get dressed and out the door on time, albeit with a lot of prompting by mum, at least he’d earned a reward star for that this morning, he consoled himself. Jack began dreaming about what his ‘Friday treat’ would be if he could make another 6 stars…
“Ok class, we’ve had some good ideas which I have put up on the interactive board, I’d like each of you to write a short paragraph on what you think makes the best…” Jack was jolted out of his reverie by the commanding voice of the teacher giving the next instruction. Writing. What about? Jack’s rising panic at not remembering the last three minutes of what the lesson had been about, joined in with his dislike of his untidy writing and spelling problems to the extent that the clear, calm instructions about the next task were over-ridden by an overwhelming, but somewhat incomprehensible (to Jack) desire to withdraw, get out and avoid the situation…
“I am not sure what happened in literacy this morning”, explains Jack’s teacher to the deputy head as Jack sat outside the room contemplating how he’d got into another scrape. “I really can’t understand how Jack decided to barricade himself under his desk. He waited to be asked to answer a question, then it went downhill from there..it was nearly fifteen minutes before the teaching support and I could coax him out from under the table.
“I do try”, thought Jack, as he kicked his heels against the chair. No, Monday was not looking like it was going to end well.
Alastair Fielden is our Education Consultant with over 20 years experience in SEND Education and assistive technologies.
