School terminology - RTLB ?

[mgbridges]

Well I've just had our first parent/teacher conference of this school year and our wee man is rather behind. So behind in fact that his teachers say they want to refer him to.... er.... well I didn't quite catch it which is my question...

Can anyone give me any tips, I'm sure they said something along the lines of writing a referral letter to ELTRB but I could be wrong. I'm assuming this is special education help and they have said it could be upto a year before he gets assistance even if they refer him at the beginning of next term.

We only had 10mins and there was so much to talk about and I should have written notes... oh bother! Hopefully getting more time tomorrow to talk a bit more.

Thanks in advance,
Anneliese

EDIT: Never mind... found it, it means: Resource Teacher: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB)

Anyone have any experience of this?

[Carol]

Only from a teacher's point of view.......
They usually have a lot of knowledge and are very helpful.

[mgbridges]

Only from a teacher's point of view.......
They usually have a lot of knowledge and are very helpful.

Thanks Carol! I'm glad to hear they are very helpful but with the school saying it could take up to a year after he is referred to actually get said help I'm panicing and rather worried. Can you give me any more insight into the process and what being referred actually means?

I do plan to ask all these questions of his school but in the meantime any advice would be great as it will help me to sleep tonight! BTW can you tell I'm a worrier by nature?

Anneliese

[peebles16]

If you go on to the ministry of education website www.minedu.govt.nz (I think?) you should be able to access information under special needs. I think the also have contact details for local office if you want to ask questions about referral process, assessment, timescales etc.. Looked into this a bit when the wee man was referred to reading recovery and have to agree with Carol was a bit freaked out to begin with but techer was spot on. Has worked out very well for our boy

HTH

Karenx

[Carol]

Thanks Carol! I'm glad to hear they are very helpful but with the school saying it could take up to a year after he is referred to actually get said help I'm panicing and rather worried. Can you give me any more insight into the process and what being referred actually means?

I do plan to ask all these questions of his school but in the meantime any advice would be great as it will help me to sleep tonight! BTW can you tell I'm a worrier by nature?

Anneliese

Blimey! A year does sound a weeee bit extreme!
I need to go and make dinner Anneliese - but will get back to you later.
In the meantime.... panic not. What will be will be.
And a panic or 8 will make no difference whatsoever......
(old age and experience talking here - having 2 very much "hands on" boys)

[lockstock]

I work with RTLBs and their role is quite interesting. They find out which expert needs to be involved at a specialist level if there's a referral made to them. They also provide advice and information to parents, so get yourselves involved - it's their job. They advise the school (ie teachers involved with the student concerned) on any specialist teaching techniques, equipment, strategies etc and make sure that what is discussed and put in place (usually via an IEP - Individual Education Plan ) and this is regularly reviewed. Parents should be involved at all times - and you will be able to advise and comment on what happens. Basically it's a way to monitor a student's learning and make sure the right action is taken. Don't see it as something to worry about.

[incredible hulse]

As lockstock says they are mainly an advisory role. Our son currently has one following him at the moment and for example is looking at getting additional speech and language hours assigned (unfortunately these are woeful short in our area), OT and physio

[Carol]

aha! Couldn't have put that any better!

[mgbridges]

Thanks everyone. I've calmed down a bit and figure our next step is for both OH and I to have a proper (longer than 10min) meeting with his teachers to find out exactly the areas they are concerned about. They mentioned something about him not hitting certain development milestones which are making it hard for him to move on to learning to read and write.

OH and I have had our suspicions that he might be dyslexic but I didn't get a chance to raise that at the meeting yesterday as the time went too fast so that is an area to be explored.

At the moment I just feel like we're a bit in the dark so am worrying about the unknown. Hopefully once we get a bit more info. we can start processing things. Thanks again and I'll let you know how we go.

Anneliese

[napiers]

A longer meeting with his teacher/s would be a good start - you're right, 10 mins isn't enough time to even scratch the surface in this situation. It's important that you are as informed as you can be about it all - I'm a primary teacher and know how important support of parents is, and that you are all 'singing from the same sheet'. If you don't mind me asking how old is your son?