EARLY TO BED , EARLY TO RISE

Since the end of the Whitsun holidays it has been difficult to get Beauty back into a good sleep routine. Late to bed and late to rise is her new motto(typical teenager).She has been back to going to sleep at midnight but thankfully last night she went to sleep at 11pm so we are slowly getting there. However, it is still difficult to get her to co-operate with dressing and washing first thing, you would not believe how uncooperative such little toes can be when trying to put socks on.

I am impressed however with her cooperation when it comes to toothbrushing, for a long time I literally had to hold her down to get the toothbrush in her mouth. We do still have the problem that she doesn't understand the concept rinsing and spitting the toothpaste out. The dentist has said that this is not a problem as long as we manage to brush the teeth and leave a layer of toothpaste on her teeth to protect her teeth then we are OK. When Beauty was tiny we went to the dentist and the dentist said that Beauty's enamel was quite thin but last time we saw the dentist he said that her teeth we really good so we must be doing something right. Beauty will not hold the toothbrush herself but she will let me do it when I tell her that Elmo brushes his teeth.I have even resorted to telling Beauty that Dora the Explorer always brushes her teeth.

Beauty got bitten in school yesterday by one of the other children in her class and she has quite a nasty bite mark on her arm. It seems that the little boy involved has got the type of personality that he can turn at any time. I am not worried about it being just the once, incidents like this occasionally happen but if it happened again then I would not be able to allow Beauty to be in the same class as this child as I would not believe that she would be safe.The Educational Tribunal when Beauty started school said that Beauty needed one-to-one but they would not order it as this would start a precedence(an illegal statement), therefore the LEA were ordered to put an extra teachers aid in the class because of Beauty but not labeled as a one to one helper- it is obvious that they were wrong as Beauty would not be vulnerable if she had a specific one-to-one. What can you do when special needs education funding is governed purely by financial considerations?