acer100

My son is a late talker because he could not hear well when he was a toddler.

Now at 5 he is in reception year, obviously behind the rest of the class, but catching up quickly with the effort of his current school in Bahrain, of his speech therapist and also of his parents and family.

Problem is that we have to move to Dubai, we applied for 4 schools (Regent, Repton, Jebel Ali and DESS). All have declined his application. This means that they are not going to offer him a place ever - it is not a matter of time. Some have places but would not offer it to my son on the basis that his academics are not good enough and would instead demote him.

Other schools do not accept applications full stop (JESS, JPS).

Others that we have seen (Horizon, Royal Dubai, Star, Uptown) seem to be organised very similarly to those that have already rejected our application.

I wonder what children with dyslexya, autism and other more severe learning difficulties than my son do in Dubai?

Any suggestion welcome

Kix

Sorry to hear your predicament.

Best thing I can suggest would be to get appointments with the principals and discuss it face to face.

Obviously if you can pay the first term or year up-front it helps.

Cash is a great door opener.

My son went to JPS, we got in there and jumped a massive queue because the fees were guaranteed by my employer. The teachers are great there but the owners are total and utter *****.

scrubbedexpat141

Wankers.

I'll ask my mrs, she works at one that you've listed. She may know good schools or if her place will help.

OriginalSunshine

I'm in Oman, but it's not that far from Dubai. If you need specialist support e.g. INPP programme, Johanssen sound therapy etc, let me know as there is a lady here who provides it.

acer100

Thanks to all for your comments. It is already an help to meet sympathetic people.

@Kix - Not easy to discuss face to face, although we try. Some schools engage more than others, although it is always the admission officers that receives us

@ Scamp - thanks, any help is very welcome.

@OriginalSunshine - thanks for your offer, we are still not in Dubai but once we are we will certainly seek for professional help for our son

scrubbedexpat141

I'll update you when she replies....although I sent an email and teachers work best part of 40 minutes a day.

Fingers crossed she's at home cooking dinner so I'll get an answer for you.

Kix

Admission officers are Indian paper Jockeys. Go to the school and walk into the principals office.

Seriously.

Sandboy

I've seen first hand DESS do some excellent one to one work with kids although I think they were all already in the school

if it's not a case of the school just being full ( which it usually is ) it might be worth stamping your feet and going straight to the head

mentalist

My 9yo daughter has been at Cambridge International School for the last 3 yrs and tells me that she has a slow learner (for want of a better phrase) in her class, who gets special assistance. Its English managed but mostly Indian students. She enjoys herself and the fees are very reasonable.

Poshy

Emirates International School - The Meadows are open minded to Children with extra needs, they may insist on a 'Shadow' at first though until the child is seen in a true light on a day to day basis, if you don't know a Shadow is a personal Teaching assistant, employed by you but chosen by the School....with your input I would presume. You can have full or part time.

They also have a School at Jumeirah.

http://www.eischools.ae/

Poshy

...hmmmm...surprised at DESS, when I went to the New Parents meeting at DESC The Headmaster took pride in saying they were an inclusive School not Exclusive and did announce that they have an Autistic child in the School ( odd but he did say that ).

Arn't both Schools supposed to have the same ethics ???

Come to Dubai with your Son and make some appointments to meet the Head Teachers, they need to meet your Son and assess him, how dare they judge a child from an application form ??



Principal at EIS Meadows for the Junior School is called Alistair ( Surname escapes me ), very nice Man, go and see him, he does the School Tours.

I'd also only tell them what they ask on an Application form, sometimes if you go into too much detail it can make your child sound worse that what they actually are.

trust me, been there, bought the T Shirt

acer100

Please see the correspondence with DESS, just removed the names:

THIS IS FROM THE SCHOOL
"Dear Acer100,

Please be advised that Mrs XXXX spoke with your wife on the 3rd March and mentioned that we would unfortunately have to decline "your son" but "your daughter" was acceptable and would be placed on our waiting list until vacancies arose.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,
XXXX

THIS IS MY REPLY

"Dear XXXX,

my wife said that she received the phone call that you mentioned, but we did not understand that MY SON's application was simply declined.

I suppose that this mean that your school would not offer a place for him at any time. I have few queries for my better understanding.

1. Would you please expand on what grounding this is decided upon? Is your school not equipped to provide for children with moderate learning delays?
2. And if so would you suggest what schools would instead provide for him in the same way his current school in Bahrain is doing?
3. Would you instead consider his application for reception, with us accepting him to be demoted?

thank you in advance for any clarification you would provide."

THIS WHAT THEY REPLIED (YESTERDAY) and not heard back since

"Dear ACER 100,

I have asked our assistant headteacher to contact you in relation to your queries as she has dealt with the applications.

Kind regards"

Sandboy

like I said a friends boy is dyslexic and DESS were excellent - they also gave my son 1:1 when he joined in year 4 as they considered he wasnt up to speed with the rest, they were spot on

Poshy

acer100, if it helps, my youngest son has just repeated Grade 3 at our request...for several reasons but it hasn't done him any harm at all, in fact it's brought him more up to speed with his peers.

One of the reasons is that his Birthday is LATE August so was by far a lot younger than his classmates, he's now the oldest in his Class and just fits in better.

Is that what you mean by 'demoted'...going down a year/repeating a year ??

Sandboy

if you take the place for one child the 2nd is much more likely to get in too, bit of a leap of faith but it worked for us