Rylee and Safa

When Rylee was in year 1, she started experiencing anxiety and refused to go to school. A paediatrician diagnosed her with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), executive function difficulty, learning disorders and anxiety.

Following her diagnosis, Rylee started taking medication and the school implemented a detailed independent learning plan. In addition, her mother, Safa, paid for a specific learning difficulties (SPELD) tutor to work with Rylee in the classroom.

Safa, who also has ADHD, told the Royal Commission she found the acting principal and teacher to be supportive and encouraging during this period.

But in the final term of year 3 a new principal started. They would no longer allow Rylee’s SPELD tutor on school premises. They told Safa the year 4 teacher was experienced with students with learning difficulties.

On the first morning of year 4, Safa did her best to settle Rylee in but her anxiety levels were ‘clearly very high’. By the end of the second day, Rylee was in tears and refusing to go back to school.

Safa spoke to the assistant principal who agreed there should have been more interventions to manage Rylee’s start to the new school year. He reassured Rylee ‘she was very safe within the school, and that she could visit him at any time she felt upset’.

Rylee seemed to settle down, but it didn’t last long. Her anxiety increased and she began telling her mum everything was ‘too hard’. She often had meltdowns at home and refused to go to school.

Safa took her to a psychologist who was concerned Rylee was not receiving reasonable adjustments. They suggested this was likely a trigger for Rylee’s anxiety.

‘I pressed the school for a case conference … to have the support reinstated that we had experienced previously,’ Safa said.

A meeting was held, without the principal, and some ‘fantastic interventions’ were agreed on.

One strategy was to limit Rylee’s choices to reduce her anxiety. However the librarian refused to do this, saying it wasn’t her role to ‘restrict and censor what the students can and can’t borrow’.

Another meeting was held, this time with the principal and deputy principals.

The principal complained the requested adjustments amounted to Safa ‘dictating to the school’. She told Safa she was ‘becoming somewhat of a nuisance’.

Safa showed the principal a letter from the paediatrician explaining Rylee’s disabilities and prescribing antidepressants. The principal refused to look at it.

Safa also questioned why NDIS funded tutors were allowed in the classroom but Rylee’s SPELD tutor wasn’t.

At this point the principal shut her down. ‘[She] told me it was apparent that it was my anxiety that was ramping up,’ Safa said.

‘I felt incredibly offended that [the principal] thought it appropriate to call my mental health into question, and perhaps suggest that my mental health was somehow impacting my daughter’s.’

Only a few weeks later the community went into lockdown because of COVID-19. Safa said that in lockdown Rylee’s anxiety almost disappeared.

The paediatrician told Safa this suggested it was the school environment that was directly responsible for much of Rylee’s anxiety.

When school was able to resume onsite learning, Safa made the decision to send Rylee to a new school.

‘My daughter has a fundamental human right to an education. She is very bright, happy and extremely sociable. There has never been, at any point, anything to suggest our daughter’s needs make her in any way unsuited to a mainstream classroom.’