The school day, drawn as a line

The sheet

Your child draws their day from gate to gate and marks the heavy parts. Your page is for taking one of those moments to the school, and leaving your conclusions out.

To make together · A4 landscape, two pages · Two pages · PDF, 52 KB

How it helps

A child who is struggling at school often can’t say what’s wrong when they are asked. Drawing the day as a line lets them show you which parts are hard, and gives you one specific moment to take to the school, which a teacher can act on.

How to use it

1. On a calm afternoon, ask your child to draw their day along the line, from the gate in the morning to the gate at home time.
2. They colour in the heavy bits and leave the all-right bits blank. Ask about what they have marked, and take their answer as it comes.
3. If your child marks a moment they are frightened of, or one when an adult frightened or hurt them, don’t question your child further, and don’t take it to their class teacher as a question. Thank your child, tell them what you’ll do, and speak to the school’s designated safeguarding lead that day.
4. On your page, write down the one moment your child marked, in their words, and what you’ve noticed yourself.
5. Tell them what you’ll say before you say it. Then take that one moment to the school, and leave your conclusions out.

How to get this sheet

This sheet comes with a subscription. It is also yours with its chapter, if that is the chapter you read free, or if a teacher or therapist sends it to you. School staff and therapists signed in to their shelf can print it too.

It goes with What to Do When School Is the Problem and The Move to Secondary School.

Free to print

These are free to anyone, with nothing to sign up for.

• A plan for a bad dayTo fill in together · A4
• Before you ring the schoolFor a call or a meeting · A4
• What to say: school and friendsCards to cut out · A4, eight cards to cut
• Before the SENCo meetingFor a meeting · A4
• Three reports, side by sideFor a meeting · A4 landscape
• The return-to-school meetingFor a meeting · A4
• The move to secondary school, for a parents’ eveningFor a parents’ evening · A4, five pages
• The last half-hour before bedFor the fridge · A4
• The worry ladderTo fill in together · A4
• Before you see the GP about your childFor an appointment · A4, two sides
• A record of what happenedFor a call or a meeting · A4, two pages
• The people I can tellTo make together · A4, two pages

Every sheet, marked free or with a subscription, is at theparentbook.com/printables.