The British Dyslexia Association (B.D.A.) has launched a petition to the government requesting that sufficient dyslexia training be provided as part of Initial Teacher Training.
We need 100,000 signatures to trigger a debate in Parliament, so we need to pull out all the stops on this one. If you agree with the petition would you please sign it, and even more importantly, join with us by passing on this request and link to everyone you know or meet who might be willing to do the same.
Here is a link direct to the petition:
Hi DanniiI am assuming from your post that your son alreday has a statement so the issue is school transfer. You need, however to approach it in a similar way. Gather evidence as to why the school you want is so perfect (including OFSTED reports, perhaps the school could write something saying how they could support Jake) and, more importantly, why he won’t cope in the LEA school. Use reports from the current school, even commission an Ed Psych report to support your case (of how he needs to bein a specialised environment) if you think it would be worth the money. You could ask for a meeting with the Area Special Needs Manager to explain your case. You should also visit the LEA school and SENCo yourself if you haven’t alreday done so and include in your parental preference form or whatever, solid reasons why it isn’t suitable from your own opinion of visiting. You should stress how you have been happy within the state system until now but this new school will be detrimental to your son’s learning and his psychological state and how you believe the LEA school will not be able to provide the educational environment or support to enable your son to be prepared for adult life. How it cannot offer training in the social skills that he needs etc etc. State your case rationally, think of any arguments the LEA may come up with and have answers for them before the arise. You could also do a cost analysis of the new school you want (fees) against the base cost of the LEA school and all the support (including any external OT, SLT) You may be able to find these figures on your council website if you look closely and extensively enough (use google rather then the website’s search engine) Good luck and do let me know how you get on. Tamia