As promised I submitted all my paperwork last Monday, complete with obligatory rubber stamp, in good time for the big meeting last Thursday.
As predicted, I had to reprint it a couple of times between handing it in and the meeting, in order to incorporate some requested insignificant changes.
At the meeting, to which I wasn’t invited, I am told they said that my paperwork was in perfect order. Unlike the paediatrician, who was apparently asked to produce a complete re-write. On the strength of volume of trees sacrificed, at the meeting, the health provider accepted the case made by the parents and approved the funding for one-to-one classroom support. So I received a text message late last Thursday evening which said “Ready for work?” Excellent.
The next step is meant to be a written plan agreed between myself and the classroom teacher, outlining curriculum content, adaptations, and aims and objectives. The teacher was not able to see me on Friday, and then Monday and Tuesday were bank holidays (yes, they come in twos these days), so I was told to be at school at twelve thirty today.
At twelve twenty I arrived, and unsure of where I was supposed to be, I came across the head teacher, who claimed to have no knowledge of who I was, or, more concerning, who the child was, or which class he was in. She suggested I wait for the teacher to arrive. When the teacher arrived shortly afterwards, the head appeared to recover from her amnesia. They stood in a little row of two, and informed me that they had had a meeting this morning, at which they had decided not to start his classroom support for at least another month because they don’t want to damage relationships with the original organisation who had previously provided his support (and subsequently cut it to two hours a week without informing the parents), because the school uses that organisation to carry out other tasks on their behalf.
I expressed surprise at this decision, and particularly that the mum hadn’t contacted me to tell me about it. It then transpired that not only did the parents not yet know about it, but that they hadn’t been invited to the meeting, nor indeed were they aware that any meeting had been arranged. The teacher said that she would tell the mum when she saw her tomorrow. I said, don’t bother, I’m off to see her right now. Which probably didn’t earn me any charm points towards the day when or if we ever do have to work in the same classroom, but I was incensed.
The family live three blocks from the school, so I was in the grocery shop in their front room n under a minute. “Right” said the mum, “I’m off to sort this out”, and she jumped on her motorbike and I haven’t seen her since. The Dad, with the weary experience of too many battles fought, said “If you have something else to do today, I should go and get on with it, because nothing will happen right now. Everyone will have a big row today, and then they’ll call a meeting for another day”.
So that’s where we are tonight, and tomorrow I need to go and find out from the family what happened next and where they are going from here. Prayer mats at the ready.