A Parent's Story

From day one we experienced additional behavioural challenges with our daughter that our friends didn’t seem to be going through with their children.  In daycare, she would have troubles transitioning from one activity to the next, she didn’t like to write, her drawings were quite different from her peers, but she was (and still is) a bright, funny and loving individual. 

When school started, within the first few months, her teacher indicated to us that our daughter had ‘a great deal of difficulty paying attention in class, needed to practice her printing daily, was not understanding the math being taught and that perhaps we should consider getting her tested.’

She was finally tested in grade 2 and tests revealed that she had a Learning Disability – specifically difficulties with Math and Writing, as well as ADHD.  Although the public school system tried the best they could to help (with the limited resources available), it wasn’t enough for our daughter.  She needed small classrooms, a lot of individual attention and repetition of subject matter until she understood it.

She was loosing interest in school because she had difficulty understanding the lessons and as a result her self-esteem was decreasing because she was measuring herself against her faster-learning peers.  She was beginning to “hate” school.  She was disappointed in herself, but didn’t understand why.  This was affecting her home life as well.  She was frustrated and depressed about her lack of achievements in comparison to her peers and consequently acted out at home.

We searched the internet looking for help and thankfully we found Bridgeway Academy.  The first year at this designated special needs school was amazing for our daughter.  We were astonished at the progress she made academically as well as emotionally.   Before attending Bridgeway she had extreme difficulty writing a sentence, she was constantly frustrated with her lack of understanding and she hated school.  Now, she can write sentence after sentence, she is doing much better in math and school in general.  Her self-esteem took a beating during her first few years in public school and so we are working on that, but most of the time she feels good about herself and her accomplishments.  She still has a long way to go before she’s ready to go back into the public school system, but at least now she is making slow progress rather than consistently falling behind.

Her future is bright; thanks to the consistent, focused, specialized, and individualized attention that a designated special school offers.  We are so very proud of her progress to date and know that she will go on to do amazing things in life.