Abstract
Fred burst into our school in September 2003, aged 7, demanding to know why he was ‘in a class with backward children’ and where the ‘advanced textbooks’ were kept.
His admission notes from the private international school he had previously attended in Germany included a WISC-III test report placing him in the very superior range at the 99.7th percentile. His cognitive abilities, at 6:00 years, were considered equivalent to children of 12:06 years.
His first few weeks were traumatic for everyone. He shouted out; he showed contempt for everything and everyone; he offended his peers with unkind words and injured them with clumsy, boisterous play; his writing was indecipherable; and he regularly disrupted lessons with his antics. We clearly had a child with complex needs in our midst.
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