Select Committee on Education and Skills Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by Bristol Dyslexia Centre

  We are the Directors of the Bristol Dyslexia Centre and would very much like to contribute to the Select Committee inquiry into special educational needs. We both have a professional and personal interest in the SEN field. Pat is a mother of two dyslexic sons and founder of the Bristol Dyslexia Centre and Belgrave School. Over the past 35 years she has taught and lectured widely. Michael is dyslexic, a law graduate and has taught SpLD students for 10 years.

  The Bristol Dyslexia Centre has over 300 students and 30 teaching staff. The Centre has been established since 1989 and during this period has firmly established a reputation for excellence by successfully transforming thousands of struggling students from academic failures into pass grade candidates, with many attaining exceptional A grade results. The Centre incorporates Belgrave School, providing full-time education for dyslexics and school phobics for ages six to 12 years, an Assessment Centre that caters for five independent chartered educational psychologists, and three floors of the building are dedicated to part-time specialist tuition for adults and school-age students. We have also developed our own approach to learning which has been incorporated into two software titles, the Nessy Learning Programme, a phonic-based learning programme for dyslexics and BrainBooster, study skills for the ages 13 to adult.

  We would like you to consider the Nessy Learning Programme when examining the need for SEN resources, expertise and provision in mainstream schools. Nessy has achieved outstanding results from a recent study of students using the programme (please refer to supplementary materials). Following this success, the school using the programme expanded use of the software to the whole school.

    —  The Nessy programme differs from others in several key aspects. One key aspect of Nessy is the structured game-based learning. We believe that learning should be fun as we all learn best when we are enjoying ourselves and that this approach should not be restricted to the Foundation stages of education but become a general principle even at secondary level. The Nessy game-based learning is effective because it is set in the context of a structured programme of incremental and cumulative learning. The Nessy programme advocates learning to read, spell and write through games, both computer and paper based card/board games, and the results of a recent survey demonstrate that this multi-sensory approach is successful and inspiring. Effective phonic-based learning is necessarily repetitive and SEN students in particular need stimulation to become motivated and engaged.

    —  Another key difference is the extensive range of ability covered by the Nessy programme. By addressing abilities from five to 16 years this programme allows students to maintain learning consistency during the transition from Primary to Secondary education. Programs addressing SEN at secondary level has often been poorly resourced.

    —  The Nessy programme has been successfully used by LSAs and NQTs who lack specialist experience. They have found it an invaluable resource because Nessy includes all the reading and spelling rules with supporting paper based activities in 1,500 printable pages.

    —  Experienced specialist teachers, rather than academics have developed Nessy over many years. This means it uses unique learning strategies that have already proved effective in the classroom. These strategies capitalise upon dyslexic learning strengths in areas of creativity and by associating concrete meaning with intangible learning concepts that are otherwise difficult to grasp eg the prefix-root-suffix becomes a head-body-tail of a word.

  Other aspects that we feel the Committee should investigate are the inconsistencies in teacher training for the recognition and addressing specific learning difficulties in the classroom and the inadequacies of the assessment process. Many teachers lack the training or ability to identify dyslexia let, alone incorporate effective classroom strategies. In 90% of our enquiries by email and telephone it is the parents who identify their children as at risk and not the professionals. This is surely a poor indictment of the current teacher-training curriculum and many NQTs that we encounter still find that their courses include only a token and arbitrary mention of dyslexia. In our experience many teachers feel defensive and do not like to admit a lack of knowledge when approached by concerned parents.

  This is the situation in our LEA and I am sure in many others. It can take anything up to two years to be assessed by an educational psychologist and then the child needs to be functioning at several years behind their actual age to qualify for funding support. As reading assessments begin at a level of five to six years in practice this means that only the most dyslexic children are assisted and then not helped until nine to 10 years when the secondary problems of low self-esteem, frustration and disenchantment with school learning are entrenched, often with lifelong detrimental consequences. The usual standard of proof for identification of dyslexia is an assessment by an educational psychologist. Parents desperate to halt this destruction to their children's personality seek private help. The assessment process takes about two and a half hours and costs in excess of £300. The end result is a report which is often unintelligible to anyone but the most experienced specialist teacher and must be renewed after two years, yet this is the standard of proof required by official bodies such as universities, tribunals, examination boards, LEAs and schools etc Surely government could endorse an assessment which was quick and cost effective but that focused upon practical remediation and jargon-free language.

  We hope that you will consider the points raised in this submission and would be delighted to supplement these comments if you consider they include areas of relevance to the inquiry.

September 2005


READING AND SPELLING ASSESSMENT SCORES


Student Nov-04 Sp Age spelling June-05 progress 18 hours Nov-04
R Age reading
June-05 (single) progress 18 hours Nov-04 R Age Reading June-05 (context) progress 18 hours Nov-03C A age June-05 CA

A

6y 5m

6y 10m

5m

6y 4m

7y 5m

13m

6y 6m

7y 0m

6m

6y 5m

7y 0m
B6y 4m6y 10m 6m6y 8m8y 9m 2y 1m6y 9m8y 3m 1y 6m8y 3m8y 10m
C6y 10m7y 0m 2m6y 4m7y 3m 11m6y 9m9m 8y 4m8y 4m8y 10m
D7y 0m7y 8m 8m6y 9m7y 9m 12m7y 0m8y 0m 12m8y 5m9y 0m
E7y 7m8y 2m 7m7y 2m8y 0m 10m7y 0m8y 0m 12m8y 5m9y 0m
F7y 0m7y 5m 5m7y 5m8y 0m 7m7y 9m8y 0m 3m8y 6m9y 1m
G7y 7m8y 6m 11m8y 0m10y 0m 2y 0m8y 6m9y 3m 9m8y 7m9y 2m
H8y 2m9y 10m 1y 8m10y 0m9y 9m (3m)9y 0m 9y 9m 9m8y 8m9y 3m
I8y 6m9y 0m 6m9y 7m10y 3m 8m8y 8m9y 6m 12m9y 4m9y 10m
J8y 6m9y 4m 10m10y 7m11y 0m 5m9y 0m9y 6m 6m9y 5m10y 0m
K9y 2m10y 1m 11m9y 0m9y 9m 9m8y 6m9y 0m 6m9y 6m10y 1m
L11y 2m12y 1m 11m10y 6m12y 6m 2y 0m11y 0m12y 0m 12m9y 6m10y 1m
M7y 1m8y 8m 1y 7m8y 9m9y 7m 10m10y 3m11y 6m 1y 3m9y 10m10y 4m
N9y 8m11y 4m 1y 8m12y 6m16y 0m 3y 6m10y 4m11y 4m 12m9y 10m10y 3m
O9y 2m10y 5m 1y 3m10y 6m12y 6m 2y 0m8y 9m11y 3m 2y 6m9y 11m10y 6m
P8y 8m9y 6m 10m11y 0m15y 0m 5y 0m13y 0m14y 8m 1y 8m10y 2m10y 10m
Q7y 10m9y 4m 1y 6m9y 4m10y 6m 12m9y 6m9y 9m 3m10y 5m11y 0m
R8y 2m9y 6m 1y 4m8y 3m10y 6m 2y 3m10y 3m11y 3m 12m10y 7m11y 2m
S11y 2m12y 4m 1y 2m12y 6m14y 0m 2y 3m9y 9m10y 3m 6m11y 6m12y 1m
T11y 6m12y 4m 10m11y 0m13y 0m 6m12y 0m15y 4m 3y 4m11y 1m11y 8m
U8y 2m9y 8m 1y 6m12y 9m11y 0m 0m11y 3m11y 3m 0m11y 2m11y 8m
V10y 3m10y 8m 5m12y 9m16y 0m 3y 3m13y 0m15y 4m 2y 4m12y 2m12y 9m
W8y 10m9y 9m 11m11y 9m12y 9m 12m10y 6m10y 9m 3m12y 5m13y 0m
X11y 8m12y 4m 12y 10m12y 10m16y 0m 3y 2m13y 4m8m 12y 10m12y 10m13y 5m
Y11y 2m11y 8m 10y 9m10y 9m14y 8m 3y 11m12y 3m12m 13y 5m13y 5m14y 0m
Z11y 2m13y 0m 10y 0m10y 0m13y 0m 3y 0m13y 0m1y 8m 15y 10m15y 10m16y 5m
Average improvement 1y 1m 1y 9m 10m

Assessment information—

Vernon single word spelling, WRAT single word reading (decoding skills), Holborn sentence reading (up to 13 years), *Kirkless contextual reading and vocabulary

  These assessments show results attained at the Bristol Dyslexia Centre using an age range of students covered by the programme. Results were taken before and after 18 hours of using the Nessy Learning Programme over a period of six months from the end of November 2004 to the beginning of June 2005. All students are dyslexic.


READING AND SPELLING ASSESSMENT SCORES FOR FLAX BOURTON PRIMARy SCHOOL YEAR 6 JUNE 2004


Student Reading Comprehension Age September 2003 Reading Age Comprehension June 2004 Increase in Reading Comprehension Age Spelling Age September 2003 Spelling Age June 2004 Increase in Spelling Age
A 8 yrs 6 mths 9 yrs 3 mths9 mths8 yrs 3 mths 10 yrs 5 mths2 yrs 2 mths
B8 yrs 6 mths 9 yrs 7 mths10 yrs 2 mths 1yr 7 mths
C7 yrs 9 mths 5 yrs 10 mths7 yrs 1 mths 2 yrs 0 mths
D9 yrs 0 mths9 yrs 9 mths 9 mths12 yrs 0 mths12 yrs 4 mths 4 mths
E9 yrs 6 mths12 yrs 0 mths 2 yrs 6 mths12 yrs 0 mths 12 yrs 9 mths9 mths
F8 yrs 9 mths10 yrs 8 mths 1yr 11 mths9 yrs 2 mths 11 yrs 2 mths2 yrs 0 mths
G7 yrs 6 mths9 yrs 7 mths 2 yrs 1mth7 yrs 1 mths 9 yrs 8 mths2 yrs 7 mths
H8 yrs 0 mths9 yrs 3 mths 1yr 3 mths8 yrs 3 mths 11 yrs 8 mths3 yrs 5 mths





  June tests were administered by Backwell Comp. The June reading Test was a different and more difficult test to that used in Setember. The same spelling test was administerd in both September and June.

  Tickenham Primary School PANDA report has shown improvement since introducing Nessy.

  During the trial Nessy has been used extensively in Jersey as part of the curriculum rather than as an exclusive resource with monitored results in a comparative study. Feedback from teachers and children has been outstanding (see endorsements).



 
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