May

When I was HEing, I was quite anti-school. I still am in many ways. I still think that for many (most?) children, HE is definitely a better education and is better socially and emotionally. However, I am finding I am having to eat my words and revise my opinions, particularly in Jade's case, as very surprisingly it turns out that school is very good for her, so far!

There is no way I could have persuaded her (and still couldn't) to take part in music lessons, sports lessons, language lessons or any sort of performance outside of school, and yet at school in the past month, in a safe and secure environment with which she has become familiar and in which she has grown to learn that the people there care for her and understand her, she has taken part in tennis lessons, hurdling, her class assembly including doing a class 'rap' (I saw her slightly moving her lips and she did all the dancing/actions) and of course normal lessons including French. She is telling me 2 or 3 times a week about a new child she has spoken to for the first time (which is getting expensive - I buy her a present for each new person!). And to cap it all, and this may be the biggest surprise of all - she likes maths!!!!!!!!! The girl who used to end up in tears almost *every* time I tried to do maths with her! I was watching a TED video earlier and she joined me half-way through it, and I explained it was a teacher speaking who was trying to make maths teaching more interesting, and she exclaimed "well, how stupid is that - maths *is* interesting and I *like* maths already!" I had to turn and look at her to make sure it was my daughter sitting next to me!

My attendance at school has got less and less over the past 3 weeks. I just kept needing to be somewhere else earlier each day when possible, going and sitting in the staffroom as early as possible and leaving her to discover that all was well, and this despite her TA being off for the past 2 weeks as her father has sadly died. I've also been not going back at the end of lunchtime, and not picking her up till the end of the school day, and she's been just fine. So at the moment, usually, I go in to school with her in the morning, go to the staffroom after 5-10 minutes, and go home around 9.30-9.45, and not collect her till 3.05pm. It really is so lovely to see her happy, relaxed and participating well in school, and as I said, taking part in things I never would have been able to persuade her to outside of school, due to her anxiety about new people and new situations. She still doesn't talk to any other adults apart from her TA, and even with the TA it's intermittent, but now she's well-established in her attendance again and able to let us go home, it'll be time to start working on 'sliding-in' the class teacher that she will have in September, to see if we can possibly get her talking in class in the new school year.