My youngest daughter had her school’s Year 12 Information evening recently. She went with anticipation, and a fresh, open mind, ready and waiting for what lay ahead. Her HSC year has been talked about for years, she’s watched her older siblings go through it and now it’s her turn.
At this point, I could segue off and discuss the single-minded narrative that the school preached that night. “Band 6” this and “high 90’s” that and ranks, and rankings and averages and fear mongering. With many students in the hall that night knowing those marks and ranks were out of their reach but listening respectfully to the Head of Academic, as if they weren’t. But that’s for another time.
Because for me that night, I was unexpectedly slammed straight back into the hell pit that was my middle son’s HSC year only 18 months earlier.
It seems for some schools there is one vanilla model of student – we can see him and her and many neurotypical students potter and blend around the edges. But what about those that don’t? How are they looked after and taught? How are their nuances catered for?
“If you’re not sure of something, just ask – ok mate?” my son’s teachers offered. “Come and see me, send me in test answers, let’s talk”, knowing full well that talking isn’t my son’s jam. He’d rather not know than go through the challenge of asking a question in class. So those that can’t, miss out. There are only a few colours in the rainbow when it comes to how many schools perceive their students and cater for them. They’re simply too busy and too focused on too many students. I get this.
That night, as the Head at my daughter’s school enthused about special provisions and how to get them and how helpful the school would be with these students, I plastered on a blank mask while silently screaming “Bullshit”. My son’s Head and his team had promised me he’d be supported and helped through the most stressful year of his life while at his very most unwell and vulnerable. Yet they failed to do that. “Calm down Mum”, they’d told me. Yep, that should work.
My son is a solid mid-range performer, he’s quiet, he’s gentle, he flies under the radar and he’s gloriously neurodivergent, he’s always walked a different path. He’s also crazy gifted in some areas, just not where school needed him to be. Sound familiar? He also lives with a debilitating mental health condition that demands phenomenal strength and resilience to continue to put one foot in front of the other each day.
During his HSC year, I got the call while out on a walk, that his application for Special Provisions had been declined because “the teachers don’t see what he has”. White rage had me tearfully ranting on the street “you try walking a day in his shoes, you front up each day dealing with what he deals with.” Appeals and fresh applications followed with his medical team shaking their heads in disgust as they rewrote supporting documentation to make his conditions seem “more impactful”. He eventually won his appeal and received his provisions.
But the reality check for me was realising that his school didn’t seem to care – too many other students, too much stuff going on, ‘not our monkeys’. And so there we were, on our own. Which I guess I always knew was the case. As a caregiver you look for someone to share the load with, to have your backs and to hold you up as you hold your child up. But the reality is in the school arena, you’re largely alone. So alone in fact that when a few days out from his final exams, I messaged the senior staff at the school to ask what the process was if I physically couldn’t get my boy to his exams (which was a real possibility), I got crickets back. No reply. Alone.
Once I realised this, I leant into it. No blaming, no frustration towards his school, no pity party – instead we built a crew of supportive tutors who got our boy, who catered to his nuances. Who cared. And together as a team, he got through.
So, when I sat in that school hall with my youngest, hearing the same spiel, the same stats and facts, ‘laughing’ at the same jokes in the same places, I was triggered. I went back to a place of clarity and cynicism. But I’m walking forward into the start of Year 12 with an open mind and with hope for my girl, but with a wisdom and understanding that when it boils down, we’re on our own, no matter what we’re told.
Anonymous for The Village Northern Beaches
