Getting Help for Your Child
You will need to talk to your child’s school about providing suitable help and support. If the school has a good understanding of dyslexia and adequate funding, it may not be necessary to go through all the stages below. In other cases, you may need to take a more active approach to get the help you need. You should always discuss with the school what you intend to do – because in the end it is the school which will have to implement any action plan.
1. Speak to the class teacher (primary) or head of year (secondary).
Tell them about your concerns and why you think your child might be dyslexic. They may be able to identify support that your child needs and find ways of providing it.
2. Contact your local dyslexia association.
Your Local Dyslexia Association can provide you with information about support that is available in the local area.
3. Make an appointment with the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) at your child’s school.
After a meeting with the class teacher or head of year, if you still have concerns, you should make an appointment to see the school Special Educational Needs Coordinator.
The SEN Code of Practice (2002) requires schools to provide appropriate support so that all children have the opportunity to benefit from an inclusive education. In line with the Code of Practice, the SENCO should create an Individual Education Plan, setting out the steps which the school will take to provide appropriate support for your child’s needs.
It is advisable to read the SEN Guide for Parents and Carers before your meeting with the SENCO. This booklet sets out the main points of the Code of Practice, explains procedures and tells parents their rights. It is a very helpful guide to understanding what your child is entitled to and what should happen when you talk to the school.
4. Individual Education Plan.
Once the school has established an Individual Education Plan, you should expect to have regular meetings with the school (perhaps once a term) to monitor progress. If all goes well, your child should now receive appropriate help and support.
If, however, the Individual Education Plan is not working or, for some reason, is not properly implemented, it may be necessary to get a full assessment by an educational psychologist, or a suitably qualified teacher.
5. Getting an assessment by an educational psychologist.
You could request that an educational psychologist at the Local Education Authority (LEA) does a formal assessment. If the school is unwilling to refer your child, you can apply for this yourself direct or get help from the Parent Partnership Officer at the LEA.
The LEA service is often over-stretched and there may be a long waiting list. So, if you can afford it, you could consider having a private assessment done either by a suitably qualified teacher or a Chartered Educational Psychologist specialising in Specific Learning Difficulties. This would cost about £350 and give you a full written report with recommendations for educational support.
For information on where to go for independent assessments, please refer to your Local Dyslexia Association or a supporting corporate member assessment centre. Alternatively, search for a psychologist on the British Psychological Society's website.
6. Discuss the assessment report with the school.
Once you have an assessment, meet with the SENCO and discuss the findings of the report. The report should form the basis for an action plan to help your child.
If you obtain an independent assessment, however, the school may not automatically accept the findings. In this case, you should contact the Chief Education Officer for your LEA and ask him or her to ensure that the school implements an action plan.
If you continue to have difficulty getting the school to provide adequate support, you may need to enlist the help of the school governor in charge of Special Needs. With a diagnosed disability, your child could be entitled to support under the Disability Discrimination Act at school.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linking screening and diagnostic assessment to effective intervention through successful teaching and learning strategies.
TRAINING - ASSESSMENT AND TUTORING - CONSULTANCY AND ADVICE
MISSION STATEMENT
From screening and diagnostic assessment to successful intervention and effective teaching strategies combined with liaison with fellow professionsals, whatever is required to help each and every learner, infant to adult, early years to workplace - become more successful and independent learners, we will seek to provide.
We are all trained in specific learning difficulties, especially Dylsexia, although we specialise in all learning difficulties such as Apserger Syndrome, Adhd and have training and experience in Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia and Speech and Language Difficulties. We also appreciate that many learners have learning difficulties that are co-occurring with others.
Via a free initial consultation with the learner we will be able to screen and diagnose difficulties, suggest suitable teaching strategies or refer to other professionsals or simply offer advice. This is why this first consultation is free of charge - so that the next course of action is discussed without undue stress and free of any pressure on the learners, parents, family or loved ones.
We have a learner-centred approach and believe on basing our teaching and diagnosis of learning profiles on what has been learnt already, individual skills and strengths and by identifying different learning styles. All learners are unique! We believe in using strengths to overcome weaknesses and that learners are encouraged to reach their potential. We believe all learners can if they do what is required.
We have worked in primary, secondary and tertiary education and are available for consultation in workplace assessment and advice also. We have also been accredited to assess for Disabled Student Allowance as well as for JCQ extra examination time and other concessions.
The service we offer learners.
The service is split into initial and ongoing assessments of learning strengths, difficulties and styles and teaching programmes which are tailored towards this learning profile.
We will often use a positive multi-sensory teaching programme which has been advocated by many respected dyslexia specialists as being the best way to teach pupils with specific learning difficulties, particulary Dyslexia. We feel that Literacy and Numeracy, in particular, have to be taught in a different way in relation to pupils with learning difficulties to be effective.
We will often use a positive multi-sensory teaching programme which has been advocated by many respected dyslexia specialists as being the best way to teach pupils with specific learning difficulties, particulary Dyslexia. We feel that Literacy and Numeracy, in particular, have to be taught in a different way in relation to pupils with learning difficulties to be effective.
Screening and Diagnostic Assessment
During our initial meeting we will look at whatever types of assessment have been carried out by either teachers, informally through class observation or formally through screening assessments, or diagnostic assessments by an Educational Psychologists before deciding how to proceed. We can carry out a wide range of screening asessments, to look at various areas of cognitive abilities and skills before either using them with other previous assessments or as our foundation for further teaching intervention. By intervention, we simply mean taking particular interest to certain areas of learning difficulty and deciding how we are all going to improve these areas and educational performance generally. We means, parents as well as learners, and other learning assistants such as teaching assistants in school and teachers. Anyone with an input into the learner's learning. It is important that the learning plan is as integrated as possible with everyone involved following the same direction to ensure the greatest success.
TRAINING AND AWARENESS RAISING
We have developed a number of Powerpoint and interactive learning packages to raise awareness of various learning difficulties, particularly, Dyslexia, in order to illustrate what it is like to have a specific learning difficulty, literally what it is like, and, with this new awareness in mind, how best to design most effective classroom and teaching practice to allow for various learning differences. These courses and relevent Powerpoints can be easily customised to suit any learning environment, through pre-school, primary, secondary, post-compulsory and workplace scenarios, all tailored to your particular need. We have included a number of Powerpoints on this blog to help illustrate some areas that can be covered - some are incomplete as they are waiting to be accustomised for whatever learning environment or are rather extensive, waiting to be appropriately cropped to fit whatever training scenario they are required. For now, they give very important information about various learning difficulties and one of them was created by a Year 7 pupil himself, to show his classmates what it is like to have ADHD and raise his own self-esteem in the process.
Consultancy and Advice
We aim to provide consultancy in providing for learners and employees who experience learning difficulties and on appropriate adaptations to both learning and working environments. We also give advice on various areas of legislation relating to various learning dificulties to teacher/pupil and employer/employee alike.
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Multi-Sensory Teaching
We believe the best way to teach dyslexic learners, especially in relation to phonetic awareness is via a cumulative, structured, multi-sensory approach and using visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and auditory channels to retain information and help allow learning become more automatic and the learner more independent. It is also more fun! The teaching programmes we use are as follows:-
Speech and Language Difficulties
DYSCALCULIA
Raising self esteem - Check out this link www.olchfa.org.uk/whatsthedifference/?p=196
We firmly believe that a proper assessment and the right teaching strategies should be allied with and, in fact, aid the raising of self-esteem. We have found that improving self-concept is essential to enabling learners to improve and become more independent. We will encourage leaners to think and act on their own awareness about their learning strategies and also counsel those who have had negative experiences of school and the learning process.
While working in a secondary school setting, one of our tutors decided the best way to raise awareness of learning difficulties while simultaneously raising awareness of those with learning difficulties in the class was to collaboratively write, direct and produce a play with the class! This was then performed to over 250 pupils and teachers at Year assembly.
Whatever technique or approach works!
While working in a secondary school setting, one of our tutors decided the best way to raise awareness of learning difficulties while simultaneously raising awareness of those with learning difficulties in the class was to collaboratively write, direct and produce a play with the class! This was then performed to over 250 pupils and teachers at Year assembly.
Whatever technique or approach works!
You Can Do iT!
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