Downs With Ups

We’re still waiting to determine which school Poppet will attend next year. She has been offered a place at our local secondary school, however as I mentioned in my ‘Claytons Choices’ post, this school could only cater for her until Year 10, then we’d have to find somewhere else for her to complete her Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning, (her final two years).

Even though Poppet doesn’t fit all the criteria of the special school to which we’re zoned, this school is also considering taking her on as a student. With this as a possibility, my partner, Poppet and I visited the special school a couple of weeks ago. After some time reflecting on our visit, my belief that this school would be a good place for Poppet has been thrown.

One of my concerns is that Poppet will need to begin her secondary schooling at this school in Year 8, skipping Year 7. The reason for this? School funding for children with special needs expires the year the student turns 18. If Poppet were to go to a mainstream secondary school, this would not be the case, so she could start in Year 7 then go through to Year 12, just like everyone else. For some reason, the Government believes that children with special needs need to be out of school at the age of 18. Not so for regular kids who can repeat a year’s schooling, without any issue.

Funding, by the way is significant. Some schools as we’ve experienced, will only consider taking on a student based on their level of funding. “What level of funding is she?” is a common question asked, giving you the impression that if there isn’t enough funding, then you can forget about that school.

As I mentioned in my ‘One Sleep’ post, the level of funding a school would receive is dependent on the rating Poppet is given by the bureaucrats, based on a comprehensive assessment of her self-help skills, personal hygiene skills and capacity for interpersonal relationships.

There are five ratings, ‘five’ being the highest level of funding available. At primary school, Poppet was given a rating of ‘four’. Typically, this drops down a level when the student reaches secondary school level, although Poppet has been rated a ‘four’, once again. This is good in some respects, as it means the school will receive a good deal of funding to help Poppet in her learning. I just hope it’s put to good use at whichever school she ends up attending.

At our visit, I also got the feeling that Poppet’s learning needs would be assumed to be the same as the other students, which in some cases may be true, but we need to remember that Poppet is not one of their typical students.

For example, when I asked if I could ride with her on the school bus for the first couple of days to help her become familiar with the process, (not to mention helping her get to her classroom at the other end), I was advised, “No that won’t be necessary. Every student has their own seat and the bus drops them right at the school grounds.”

Poppet will be able to catch the school bus on her own eventually, but she will need practice and time to become confident in the process. There’s no way Poppet will be able to do this one small thing on her own without some assistance initially.

Children with Down syndrome need tasks broken down into smaller pieces, then they need to practice these repeatedly, a bit like building with Lego. This is especially important when they are experiencing change. The time and practice needed for Poppet to become familiar with something like starting at a new school is critical, otherwise we’ll encounter some of her typical defiant behaviours. These behaviours include her Ghandi-like passive resistance of standing or sitting still and not budging or her propensity to nick off.

With advice from the Down Syndrome Association of Victoria, we agreed that it would be beneficial for Poppet to visit her new school for an hour each week over a period of five weeks, at different times of the day. This way she could become familiar with key features of the school, in her own way at her own pace.

I haven’t broached this idea with the special school as we were advised there is a student orientation session, (which is in December, only two weeks before the end of the school year), at which time new students will all be shown around the school. There is an information evening however at the end of November where we can meet some of the teaching staff. Perhaps that will be the time to ask about our plans for Poppet’s transition.

I need to take a moment to mention how incredibly important it is to have teaching staff who are on your side. Teachers, principals and aides who are open to learning about Down syndrome, who are keen to include your child and who are willing to modify the curriculum are absolute blessings.

In our case right now, we are fortunate to have this and words cannot describe how grateful we are to these people. Poppet’s teacher and principal even visited the various schools available and offered us their professional opinions as to which they believe Poppet best suited, (which, by the way are the special school and special development school). I’m hoping that I’ll meet people like this at the information evening in November.

(Note to self: I need to balance my thinking against the fact that we didn’t meet any of the teaching staff, during our visit. We met with the Admissions Officer, who obviously is very much focused on administration.)