home index by author index by subject

Talk; Good Practice - Secondary

Wednesday stream 3 Session 14.00 - 15.40 Length 25 minutes

Dyslexia Friendly Education

Cliff Warwick

Swansea LEA Gail.Lewis@swansea.gov.uk

Abstract

There are powerful reasons for considering dyslexia as an issue which is essentially about human rights and inclusion. There is a growing acceptance that there is a continuum of dyslexia which encompasses up to 10% of the population. Given that the specific difficulties associated with dyslexia are evident across the ability spectrum, it is reasonable to assume that all teachers, irrespective of the school and its organisation, will teach pupils with dyslexia on a regular and on-going basis. This means that effectively including pupils with dyslexia is an issue of improvement of mainstream provision and the concern of every school and LEA. The recently developed strategy for developing dyslexia friendly education within one LEA (Swansea) is having a significant impact on its schools and has met with some degree of enthusiasm by parents, voluntary organisations and teachers. Most importantly it is having an impact on learning not only for dyslexic pupils but other learners as well. An analysis Swansea's success indicate that the key elements of the strategy are: € clear leadership, € an effective funding system, € appropriate training, € close partnership with parents and voluntary organisations. The lessons to be learned from Swansea, however, go beyond getting it right for pupils with dyslexia. They extend to the wider issues of school improvement and inclusion.