I JUST CAN’T DO IT, MOM

What if your child is failing a subject no matter how hard they try? Here’s advice for parents on how to apply for a concession

IT BROKE their hearts to see how their daughter struggled. Every day for hours on end Nina* (13) would sit poring over her maths textbooks but when she received her test results it was always the same disappointing story: fail. Karel and Stephanie Kriel* from Groblersdal, Limpopo, were mystified. How was it possible that Nina, a Grade 7 learner, could do so badly when she was putting in so much effort? They tried sending her to extra maths lessons and put in plenty of hours themselves helping with homework but nothing worked. Nina failed maths at the end of 2015 and again this year in the second term.

“She does well in all her subjects but simply can’t master mathematics,” Karel says. “No matter how hard she tries she just can’t crack it.”

Nina’s school initially refused to believe she had a problem. Karel and Stephanie were told what their daughter needed to do was work harder.

At their wits’ end, the couple eventually took Nina to see an educational psychologist. After forking out thousands of rands for a battery of tests they finally received a diagnosis. They were told that no matter how hard Nina tries she’ll never be able to do maths. That’s because she suffers from a learning disorder formerly known as dyscalculia, which means she has difficulty working with arithmetic and numbers.

Now the couple are struggling to persuade Nina’s school to accept the psychologist’s report.

“They wanted to keep her behind a year because she’d failed maths but then I involved the department of education and they agreed to let her go through to the next grade,” Karel says. He hopes that by creating awareness about Nina’s condition she and students like her won’t have to spend every term fearing they’ll fail.

“We want Nina to be exempt from maths. She tries really hard but she just can’t do it.”

If Nina’s parents succeed in getting the waiver she’ll have to take a subject to replace mathematics, says Catherine Radloff, an educational psychologist from Cape Town.

“Children are supposed to pass their home language, an additional language and mathematics. If they have the learning disorder formerly known as dyslexia they can, for example, be exempted from taking an additional language.”

If you can prove that your child has a problem with a specific subject or suffers from learning disorders or attention deficit disorder (ADD), you can apply for them either not to have to do the subject at all or you can appeal that a special concession be applied to make it easier – for example that they receive extra time during exams or have someone to transcribe their answers for them.

Parents who feel their child deserves By MIEKE VLOK an exemption or concession need to start by applying to the school. They’ll be referred to an educational psychologist and be given guidance about what the report supplied by this expert should contain in order to qualify.

It’s more difficult to get an exemption from a subject than it is to get a concession. The official list of concessions is determined by the national department of education, Johannesburg educational psychologist Rayhanah Hassim says (see box far right for a full list of concessions).

“Concessions granted are to prevent a specified disorder or disability from impacting on the child’s ability to realise their intellectual potential,” explains Brenda van Rooyen, an educational psychologist from Cape Town.

But don’t think this is just an easy shortcut to shield lazy children who don’t want to make an effort with their academics, Van Rooyen warns.

“Any concession is the last step in a long process of parents, child and teachers working with a learning difficulty. For it to be granted there needs to be a history of identification of the difficulty, intervention such as remedial therapy and persistence of the difficulty despite remedial and learning support.”

“Learners in schools that follow an independent curriculum, better known as IEB [independent examinations board] schools, have stricter requirements,” adds Jenny da Silva, a Johannesburg-