Primary 1

T1 had 2 teachers in Primary 1.  The first one left to have a baby during the Christmas holidays and the second one was a young, I presumed fairly newly qualified teacher.  T1's first teacher was involved in the transition planning meetings for T1 going into Primary 1 so was well aware of his difficulties.  I feel she really got to know T1.  T1 coped really well when his teachers changed and he really seemed to get on well with his second teacher as well.  As is the same for any parent, you hope that when you pack them off to start Primary 1 that they will get on well with their teacher and enjoy the school experience. 

During Primary 1 DP and I had a meeting with the Educational Psychologist and T1's Teacher and Head Teacher.  The following issues were discussed:

• T1 told his second Teacher that he had forgotten how to write all of his letters during the Christmas holidays so he was sent home with a white board and a laminated alphabet to practice his letters.  DP and I's take on this is that he was getting bored of his school work and had decided that saying he'd forgot his letters was a convenient way to not have to try too hard in the classroom.  He had absolutely NOT forgotten his letters, the little monkey!
• T1 had some difficulty focusing and working independently in class.  He would often say 'I don't know' which DP and I interpreted as 'I don't want to...' and he sometimes didn't do what was asked of him.  At home we had a chat with T1 about this and related it to one of his special interests.  We told him that pilots don't say 'I don't know', they always say 'I can try'.  We let the teacher know about our chat with T1 and encouraged her to say to T1, 'what do pilots say'? and this helped him to say 'I can try' and get on with the task he was meant to be doing. The teacher also used question prompts such as 'What will you do first'? to encourage focus, independence and confidence.
• T1 was slow to complete tasks and required some additional support (sometimes from support for learning teachers when available and classroom assistants) to encourage T1 to re-focus on his work and complete it.
• T1 got upset if he had to wait for his preferred acitivity at choosing time
• T1's pencil grip was not yet well developed.  He tried hard to keep a good grip on his pencil (even with triangle grip) but he tires quickly and his fingers droops around the pencil.  We let school know that he gets little chance to practice drawing and craft type activities at home.  This isn't because he isn't interested, it's because he sees it as a social activity and doesn't want to join in.  We then encouraged him to draw planes etc. on his own.  His teacher continued to use a multi-sensory approach to helping T1 to learn to write using a whiteboard, felt pens and giving opportunities for larger hand movements at first.  Where appropriate, the teacher considered giving T1 a slightly modified or alternative acitivity if he is got frustrated by not being able to do the same writing or practising of letters as the other children e.g. if the other children were making letters out of plasticine, T1 might get a slightly bigger bit of plasticine to encourage him to join in and complete the task.  At home we tried to help T1's pencil grip along by suggesting that holding a pencil in a tripod grasp was like an aeroplane with the fingers being the wings at either side and the pointy end of the pencil being the nose of the plane.  This seemed to work to encourage him to maintain a tripod grasp for a bit longer than he usually would and we let his teacher know about this too so that she could use the same technique in the classroom.
• T1 went through a phase of making sneezing noises both at home and at school and this was distracting for the other children - DP and I let T1 know that those noises are ok at home but not at school.
• T1's teacher gave the whole class a visual timetable each day but T1 would see the bits he wanted to do and kept going on about them and asking when he could do it.  The teacher used a Now and Next timetable for T1 instead so that he was able to focus on shorter term goals during the school day.
• T1 would often go to the toilet and enjoy talking to himself about aeroplanes or one of his other special interests - the teacher decided to use an egg timer to encourage T1 to go straight back to class after going to the toilet and this worked well.

The positives:

• he coped well with lining up, lunchtimes and using the cloakroom
• the added structure of Primary 1 seemed to be of benefit to him
• a 'chill-out' space was not required as T1 was so settled in class
• he had used a playground buddy well (a Primary 6 pupil) and was able to cope with his decreasing input (originally T1 thought that this meant he was meant to play with his buddy at playtime ALL the time)
• T1 coped well with relief and specialist teachers

 DP and I went along to parents night towards the end of T1's Primary 1 year.  We were pleased to hear that his teacher had had some experience of teaching another little boy with Asperger's Syndrome in a previous job.  She seemed to be clued up on the subject.  It was obvious that she had really tuned into T1.  She said that she took a few minutes every morning to ask T1 how he was doing and that she would often know from his reaction whether he was having a good day or a 'I'm in a grumpy mood today' day.  She showed sensitivity around topics that T1 might struggle with and was ready to give extra support as required e.g. the chilren being shown pictures of how they would respond in certain situations and how they might feel about it - a subject that T1 might struggle with. 

I don't think T1 will ever feel that school is an amazing place and get excited about it but DP and I were so happy that he had completed his Primary 1 year with no major problems.  When we picked him up on his last day of Primary 1, I felt so proud of him! :-)