A. Caitlin Smart (Dudley)

Caitlin’s class teacher, Penny Sullivan, is talking to the head teacher:

I’m really worried about Caitlin, but it’s hard to be clear about exactly what it is that is worrying me so much. We have a meeting with Children’s Social Care coming up when the whole family will be discussed, and I know I need to present a clear picture of my concerns if anyone is going to take any notice of me.

It’s easy not to notice Caitlin. She’s no trouble in class, quiet and rather withdrawn. She’s slow and hesitant about engaging in her work, and seems to be terrified of getting things wrong. She was in Mr Carter’s class last year, and he thought she just wasn’t very bright, but I have a feeling that it’s more a lack of confidence that holds her back. When I’ve been able to spend a bit of one-to-one time with her, reassuring and encouraging her, she finds it a bit easier to get started, but as soon as she encounters something she isn’t sure about, she dries up again, and if I’m not there to encourage her she’ll just sit there staring at the page. She won’t ever ask for help.

As you can see from the records, she’s getting behind in her reading and writing, but there’s nothing to suggest that she has any specific learning difficulty. She would really benefit from extra input in the classroom, but the teaching assistants don’t often have time to help her. There are others in the class who need the support more, and who will disrupt everyone else’s learning if they don’t get it, which isn’t like Caitlin at all. If you’re not careful, you can almost forget she’s there. It’s not just lack of confidence; she doesn’t seem to be motivated either, or to be able to see the point of it all. I can’t find a way to capture her imagination, to find that spark of interest that stimulates learning. She seems unhappy, and I wonder if she might be depressed. I know there have been problems with her two older sisters recently, and I wonder if that’s affecting her.

She’s a bit of a loner; the other children tend to avoid her, and she doesn’t have any close friends. Quite different from her little brother Josh in Year 2, who’s much more confident and outgoing, though he can be a bit of a bully and difficult to manage. She often smells faintly of urine, and her hair is usually uncombed; she generally looks unkempt. I worry that she will become a target for bullying. She won’t have anything to do with the boys in the class at all; she seems frightened of them, especially the louder, more confident ones, and I know now not to ever ask her to work with them, because she just freezes completely. And I notice that she seems a bit intimidated by the male teachers too. I know Mr Carter found her difficult to relate to. I taught her a bit a couple of years ago, and I don’t think her social isolation and lack of confidence were as extreme then.

She does relate to some of the girls, but she’s usually on the edge of different groups, and doesn’t belong consistently to any one circle of friends. Recently, a couple of girls came to me and complained that she was ‘being rude’ and ‘using dirty words’. They wouldn’t tell me exactly what she was saying, except that it was ‘about willies and – you know’. But it must have been more than that usual sort of 8-year-old talk; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been so shocked. They’re not little angels themselves. After that, I noticed that they steered clear of her. When she’s in the playground, I often see her hanging around the older girls, but of course they don’t want anything to do with her.

Her attendance isn’t great, and she’s often late for school. Her parents never come to parents’ evenings, or anything else at school, and there obviously isn’t any support for her learning at home. When I do see her mother at the school gate, she reminds me a bit of Caitlin; always on her own, not talking to any of the other mums, looking a bit scruffy. I think these days Caitlin often comes to school by herself, although she doesn’t live very close to the school. That worries me too. Once her stepdad came to pick her up from school, and he came marching into the classroom with her brother Josh in tow before I’d let the class out, and demanded to be allowed to take her there and then because ‘he couldn’t stand around all day waiting while we faffed around’. I told him he needed to talk to the office, of course, and then he just huffed and puffed and stormed out. I couldn’t tell how Caitlin reacted to this; she doesn’t give much away. But she was slower than usual leaving the classroom, I noticed.

The dinner ladies say that she often seems to be hungry. She’ll finish her dinner very quickly, and then she’ll eat up other people’s leftovers if they let her. It’s a struggle to get her dinner money; the office is always having to send out reminders. I think her stepdad earns quite good money, and she doesn’t qualify for free meals; it’s just a very disorganised household, I think.