Deliberate ‘failure’ with Year 6 school work?

Hello!

My son is in Year 6. Up to the start of Year 6, he was consistently achieving very well in all aspects of his school work right from starting school. In the last few months, however, his scores in English have dipped considerably to this week not even an age expected score in SATS mocks. He is a capable student, and often achieves perfect scores in maths. He claims to not to be able to read, that he can’t spell, yet his prior achievement in school and when doing homework or reading with me, does not bear this out. He’ll go from using more complex language with a high degree of accuracy, such as ‘spherically’, to consistently writing ‘tabel’, even after I’ve corrected this.

His teacher, the SENCo and I all think that there’s an element of him deliberately trying to almost ‘fail’ in all other aspects of written school work apart from maths. 
None of us have come across this before - his dad and I are also both highly experienced teachers. We’re at a loss of how to support him.

I’ve been trying to find something online which discusses this but with no luck, so am wondering if anyone else has had this experience or can point me in the direction for support?

Thank you for reading this.

Parents
  • I recognise it all too well. My son (11) has a lot of trouble with school work, he has a very spiky profile when it comes to what he can do. 

    He's very bright, and absorbs information, to the point his teacher said she would say he was gifted - the problem is although quality is brilliant, he can produce very little, an amazing paragraph to everyone else's page of writing. He gets locked up trying to get his thoughts in order to put them on the page, sometimes his little sister will try help him do his homework. Spelling went down this year too, he's doing words a level down from what he was doing last year. Maths is excellent, but he's allowed to do every other question to do it in time. His teachers thought he'd catch up with spelling as he was hyperlexic and could read from 3 1/2 years, so at first the teachers called him distracted and 'bad' as they could see he was capable, but thankfully now they get what he can do and can't do. 

    I worry for his ability to do exams when he's older. He's like a rabbit in headlights with any sort of pressure. They don't think he's dyslexic. He just doesn't always know how to start work. 

  • Yeah... I recognise it to - it's heartbreaking watching him freeze when he's got so much brilliance locked up. That spiky profile? Classic for autistic kids: genius-level absorption, but the "getting it out" part - executive function - crashes under pressure. Not dyslexia, not laziness - just the brain's wiring saying, "too many steps, too scary." And hyperlexia early on? Makes teachers think "he'll catch up," until spelling slips and output stalls.

    The rabbit-in-headlights thing? That's demand overload + perfectionism. He knows he can do amazing work (that paragraph!), but starting feels like climbing a wall. Exams later? Valid worry - but you're ahead because teachers get it now.

Reply
  • Yeah... I recognise it to - it's heartbreaking watching him freeze when he's got so much brilliance locked up. That spiky profile? Classic for autistic kids: genius-level absorption, but the "getting it out" part - executive function - crashes under pressure. Not dyslexia, not laziness - just the brain's wiring saying, "too many steps, too scary." And hyperlexia early on? Makes teachers think "he'll catch up," until spelling slips and output stalls.

    The rabbit-in-headlights thing? That's demand overload + perfectionism. He knows he can do amazing work (that paragraph!), but starting feels like climbing a wall. Exams later? Valid worry - but you're ahead because teachers get it now.

Children
No Data