It’s the end of the school term and we are happy to report that the rapport we have with the school is still very encouraging. Raiyan’s school report was very good (I will post excerpts from that in the next post) and so after the quite rocky start to the school year, our family are now more optimistic about seeing him continuing on in school with no major difficulty, insyaAllah.
Of course, the arrangement that we had with the school as explained in this post had to be reviewed and as seen clearly from Raiyan’s report, one can deduce that it did help. However, what we didn’t want the administration to misinterpret was the fact that Raiyan needed the in class support to “coax” him into doing the work and NOT to “teach” him doing the work. Or more specifically, the in class support was there to address his behavioural issues rather than the academic side. Because we know for a fact that his school work is actually extended by Jo and so he is actually far ahead from some of his classmates, we know that Raiyan wasn’t having any problems in actually achieving the academic standards expected of him in class. His problem is when and if left alone, he gets bored and then there is the risk of him either switching off and withdrawing into his autism world OR he becomes disruptive by shouting in his loud voice to get everybody else’s attention. That is when unfortunately he won’t do his work in class even though he KNOWS how to. And THAT is when the in class support becomes useful.
However, his class teacher reported that there hasn’t been any disruptive behaviour for a very long time and she and the assistant teacher are now able to communicate and interact with Raiyan better after having spent some time getting to know him this term. Thankfully, they share the same objective with Jeff and I for Raiyan to start working towards independence. It seems that most of the time, Raiyan IS able to cope independently in class but there are still the odd times when he doesn’t and those are when it helps to have the in class support around. We are just slightly concerned because financially, this may mean that we are paying someone to be around as “back up” where most of the time she would just be sitting in the background in case Raiyan misbehaves. At the same time, we also don’t want her to be hovering above Raiyan at all times because that will delay his independence even more.
So we had a meeting with the Primary Principal, Raiyan’s class teacher and Jo and extensively discussed all of the above. Everyone agreed that Raiyan is more than fine academically already so even if he was to fall back a bit next term due to a change in the arrangement, he will still be at an acceptable position. Alhamdulillah, Jeff and I were so pleased to see that everyone was on the same boat in wanting to see Raiyan start moving towards independence so cutting back on the support will be essential.
In conclusion, we all agreed that Raiyan will only have full support for the first week of term and then this will be halved for the next 2 weeks and after that he will be getting no more support in class and this will be on a trial basis which we all be monitoring closely.
Of course, Jeff and I were plenty elated after that because we were really expecting the school to insist we keep the support because we had assumed that they will argue that it was because of the support that Raiyan had such a good term report. But thankfully, we are blessed with a really supportive, dedicated and understanding class teacher who is now willing to have Raiyan be independent in class- just like any other child. Believe me, from some of the comments I had from the school when Raiyan first started this term, this is very reassuring and comforting for me as Raiyan’s parent to know.
Of course it’s not going to be easy and naturally we are very apprehensive and not completely confident that he will pass the trial with flying colours but the very fact that he’s been given the opportunity to do this already means so much to our family and all of us will work extremely hard to prove that Raiyan can do this! Will keep you all posted!
But for now, enjoy the holidays!! I know Raiyan is! :D
Of course, the arrangement that we had with the school as explained in this post had to be reviewed and as seen clearly from Raiyan’s report, one can deduce that it did help. However, what we didn’t want the administration to misinterpret was the fact that Raiyan needed the in class support to “coax” him into doing the work and NOT to “teach” him doing the work. Or more specifically, the in class support was there to address his behavioural issues rather than the academic side. Because we know for a fact that his school work is actually extended by Jo and so he is actually far ahead from some of his classmates, we know that Raiyan wasn’t having any problems in actually achieving the academic standards expected of him in class. His problem is when and if left alone, he gets bored and then there is the risk of him either switching off and withdrawing into his autism world OR he becomes disruptive by shouting in his loud voice to get everybody else’s attention. That is when unfortunately he won’t do his work in class even though he KNOWS how to. And THAT is when the in class support becomes useful.
However, his class teacher reported that there hasn’t been any disruptive behaviour for a very long time and she and the assistant teacher are now able to communicate and interact with Raiyan better after having spent some time getting to know him this term. Thankfully, they share the same objective with Jeff and I for Raiyan to start working towards independence. It seems that most of the time, Raiyan IS able to cope independently in class but there are still the odd times when he doesn’t and those are when it helps to have the in class support around. We are just slightly concerned because financially, this may mean that we are paying someone to be around as “back up” where most of the time she would just be sitting in the background in case Raiyan misbehaves. At the same time, we also don’t want her to be hovering above Raiyan at all times because that will delay his independence even more.
So we had a meeting with the Primary Principal, Raiyan’s class teacher and Jo and extensively discussed all of the above. Everyone agreed that Raiyan is more than fine academically already so even if he was to fall back a bit next term due to a change in the arrangement, he will still be at an acceptable position. Alhamdulillah, Jeff and I were so pleased to see that everyone was on the same boat in wanting to see Raiyan start moving towards independence so cutting back on the support will be essential.
In conclusion, we all agreed that Raiyan will only have full support for the first week of term and then this will be halved for the next 2 weeks and after that he will be getting no more support in class and this will be on a trial basis which we all be monitoring closely.
Of course, Jeff and I were plenty elated after that because we were really expecting the school to insist we keep the support because we had assumed that they will argue that it was because of the support that Raiyan had such a good term report. But thankfully, we are blessed with a really supportive, dedicated and understanding class teacher who is now willing to have Raiyan be independent in class- just like any other child. Believe me, from some of the comments I had from the school when Raiyan first started this term, this is very reassuring and comforting for me as Raiyan’s parent to know.
Of course it’s not going to be easy and naturally we are very apprehensive and not completely confident that he will pass the trial with flying colours but the very fact that he’s been given the opportunity to do this already means so much to our family and all of us will work extremely hard to prove that Raiyan can do this! Will keep you all posted!
But for now, enjoy the holidays!! I know Raiyan is! :D
4 comments:
That sounds great Ka! I read your post dulu about the start of his school year and this post just shows how much progress Raiyan's made - which is ever so encouraging! I'm impressed with ISB too, almost as impressed as I am with Raiyan! =) xxx
What wonderful news! Congrats to Raiyan for such great progress and happy holidays to you all!
Hi Nisa, yes we are happy with the way things have turned out. But somehow I still don't feel like we are completely out of the woods yet.. especially since this is going to be on a "trial" basis kan. Somehow I still feel like the school is not all that comfortable having Raiyan or any of the other LL kids because they don't want other autistic kids to go there too.. you know JIS actually blatantly does not accept special needs children?! iatah I guess Abg Jeff and I will always feel like we're at the "begging" end with teh school cause we're still scared that they'll tell us to leave at any time and then we have no place to go..
so that's why we thought it was just such a major achievement for them to be able to give Raiyan this chance. Even though if you were to meet Raiyan, you may immediately think, inda jua big deal meninggalkan ia dlm class ni.. but insyaAllah it will be ok. We'll see how it goes!
Thanks honey! Raiyan really worked hard for it and we're thankful he's been given the chance to prove he can go one step further! Have a great holiday and post lots of Christmas pics on facebook ok! Hugs!
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