My son has just started junior school in Brighton.
Anxious about the transition to year three, over the summer his reading and writing have both regressed to the standard he was at in year one.
In infant school he was lucky enough to receive regular support and is a child who needs to “over learn”. Without this continued specialist support, I fear that he will be lost in the crowd – unable to keep up with the expected level for his age, already being so very far behind his peer group.
He is positive and receptive to extra support, without it – as the summer break demonstrates – he becomes anxious at being perceived “babyish” by his peers and fabricates ideas of bullying.
He has no label of a specific learning difficulty, he’s just a bright and sunny little boy to whom letters mean nothing as yet. The cuts in Literacy Support Service will seriously impede his progress in learning to read, write and, no doubt, the impact of this on other school subjects as well as his morale.
He needs more help than I, as a parent, can give him and the class teacher will be far too busy to give him the time and attention he needs to progress.
It seems that cutting the Literacy Support Service is already decided, but there is the faint hope that stories like my son’s will make it obvious what a false economy cutting the service is.
Yours sincerely,
C, mother
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