Life on a Page

Children up and down the country are finding it hard fitting into the system. Perhaps it’s time we made the system fit them says Nancy Gedge...

It’s a strange experience seeing your life presented in an academic paper. There it is: evidence that you are not alone, that the experience you thought was unique to you is shared by families and schools nationwide. Take the Millennium Cohort Study being carried out by the Institute of Education. It’s all there, in black and white. Alongside children with long-standing illnesses and others with learning difficulties, Sam, my son who has Down’s syndrome, is not alone in finding it difficult fitting in to a mainstream school environment.

At first, it wasn’t so different. He attended nursery with most of the children in his class. They were used to playing alongside each other, and to accessing the Foundation Stage curriculum in their own way and at their own pace. All the children found the ‘all-day-ness’ of school a challenge. All of them were starving when they got home. All of them were tired and grumpy.

But it wasn’t long before Sam’s experience began to diverge from his peers. In the early days, hardly a month went by when he wasn’t invited to a party where he would spend a couple of hours clinging to my leg, only to venture away in the last five minutes or so. Later, the invitations for play-dates were rare. His ability to make and sustain friendships was low. His behaviour in school plummeted.

I see the children I teach struggling with these same issues all the time. Friendships, classwork, routines and changes – all these things play a part. There are those who are never ready to come in from playtime, and those who really ought to come in. In schools where there is setting, there are those who find it hard taking their place in another classroom for part of the day, and that’s before we get to their ability to access the lessons themselves. Often, the thing that suffers is children’s behaviour.

As a mother at home, sometimes I can do something about it, and sometimes I can’t. Take swimming, for example. Sam loves swimming, and he loves our local pool. The difficult thing is getting him out. He is never, ever ready for the fun to end. There he is, clinging to the furthest edge of the pool. And there I am, shivering and dripping, trying everything from threats to begging to get him out. When he goes with school, even the sure knowledge that a detention is on its way has little effect, whether we have talked about it at breakfast or not.

As a teacher, however, thanks to my son, I now know that what looks like bad behaviour can be reinterpreted as something less terrible. My approach, and their reaction, changes. Instead of expecting them to leap to attention the instant I require it, I give them time to settle in. Instead of always assuming that bad behaviour is a deficiency in them, I wonder what I could change about my teaching, my classroom management and my understanding in order to ease their passage into their education, and to make it a success.

One of the things about Sam that is on the one hand so refreshing and funny, and on the other completely terrifying, is how he never looks before he leaps. If he is bored, or unhappy, or cross, or frustrated, he says so, or his behaviour does, straight away. His behaviour is a barometer for his emotions, if you like. And if Sam feels bored, or frustrated, or unhappy, or cross, you can pretty much guarantee that other children do too.

He isn’t the only child to find mainstream primary schooling hard. He isn’t the only one to struggle with his learning, or friendships, or behaviour. And I think maybe we ought to look at that a little harder. Instead of trying to make the child fit the education, perhaps we should make the education fit the child.

About the author

Nancy Gedge is a primary teacher in Gloucestershire. She blogs at notsoordinarydiary.wordpress.com