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 News Events and
Projects
The Helen Arkell Centre are providing the Government funded specialist Teacher Training for OCR Level 5 and Level 7
Diploma courses. For more details
emailcourses@arkellcentre.org.uk.
They
are also providing free
training for TAs on: (dates to
be
confirmed)
-
supporting numeracy
-
supporting dyspraxia
-
supporting speech and
language
-
supporting ADHD
Wednesday 23rd &
Thursday 24th June 2010 PATOSS CPD Training
Develop you Skills
in Diagnostic Assessment from Tests to Reports. Delegates will
have an opportunity to tell us their concerns in advance. Come
and gain some solutions to your asessment questions. All age
ranges from primary through adult will be covered.
Venue: Regent’s College,
Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London NW1 4NS.
Contact www.patoss-dyslexia.org/eventspage.html
Wednesday 30th June South Hampshire
Patoss 1930-2100
A talk on: 'SpLDs and assessing them in the workplace'
followed by the AGM. Dame Judith Professional Centre,
Sundridge Close, Cosham, PO6 3JL. Details from patosssouthhants@hotmail.co.uk
or telephone Angela Higgs on 01794 323716
Wednesday 7th July
BDA 0945-1630
'Screening for Dyslexia' a course for Teachers and TAs.
£125. Reading, Berks. Contact Paulb@bdadylsexia.org.uk
or phone 0845 251 9004
Wednesday 3rd & Thursday 4th
November Patoss
CPD training: "Develop your skills in diagnostic
assessment"
Venue: Arden Hotel, Bickenhill, Solihull, West
Midlands
For more info or to book email Patoss@sworcs.ak.uk
Monday15th & Tuesday 16th
November Learning Works
Module 1 Advanced Certificate in 'Teaching children
with SpLD' led by Dr Geraldine Price. This course is designed
for non-specialists. (Module 2 dates to be
confirmed.) Module 1: Understanding SpLD, Module 2:
Meeting the individual learning needs of children with SpLD.
Accredited full 4 day course £850 + VAT. High Wycombe,
Bucks. For full details telephone 01672 512914 or go online to
www.learning-works.org.uk/index.php?id=1351 .
Wednesday 24th &
Thursday 25th November
Patoss
CPD training: "Develop your skills in diagnostic
assessment"
Venue: Regent's College, Inner Circle, Regent's Park,
London NW1 4NS For more info or to book
email Patoss@sworcs.ak.uk
NEWS
Dragon
Naturally Speaking 10 at sale prices.
Nuance are offering their Standard
version at £39.99 and the Preferred at £99.99. Both prices are
inclusive of VAT. Details can be found on www.nuance.co.uk
Actress
draws lines over dyslexia
Hazel Burrows is well established in the
Southampton amateur
theatrical scene, having been acting for over 40 years. What
many people don’t realise about this skilled thespian is that
she is severely dyslexic, and Hazel’s role in Once a Catholic -
Southampton University Players’ current production set in
a Catholic girls’ school in the 1950s - brought back memories
of struggling with the disability during her own fifties
schooling.
Throughout her childhood, Hazel struggled
academically, but loved art and story telling, and left school
with few qualifications – just enough to get into Art
School.
Following this she was an art teacher and she is now a
successful commercial artist, but her difficulty with words
put her off activities involving reading and memory, such as
drama, which she loved. It was at a week of intensive
Shakespeare workshops 30 years ago that Hazel realised she had
to do something drastic, or risk getting left behind on stage:
Hazel’s artistic skills lead her to develop a unique method to
help with learning lines.
“I use a kind of
Egyptian shorthand, small drawings to illustrate my lines.
Pages of painstaking drawings: the more detailed the easier it
is to learn lines, often in full colour.”
In Once A Catholic,
Hazel’s character, strict nun Mother Peter, has several long
speeches to learn. Hazel uses her own shorthand: a circle with
a tick in it always means yes or a cross mean no....it is
this picture she remembers. “A drawing of a log
means NOT like a knot of wood, or a drawing of a well is
....Well, let me see now.” Hazel also has
dyslexia with numbers, so draws pairs of objects when
necessary. There are other tricks and mnemonics Hazel has to
make things more memorable: “an alliteration like 'around the
rugged rock', miming to get the rhythm of the text.”
or onomatopoeia
“Knock-knock! Who's there?” Hazel’s method has helped her
learn more easily, abandoning the script long before her
non-dyslexic cast mates.
Hazel believes that
modern technology has made certain things easier for people
with dyslexia: “Today’s mobile texting is the perfect
fashionable excuse: as in .... C U soon, lol, -a perfect
excuse for the dyslexia victim not to worry about
spelling or die of embarrassment!” When handwriting, Hazel
can’t see mistakes, writing letters back to front, or missing
out words completely - typing on a computer makes everything
much easier. “I think FASTER or ahead of what I am writing at
that moment.“
“I do drama because being dyslexic makes me
'face the fear and do it anyway' - reading out loud in
public!” Hazel has recently passed the technique onto her son
Andy, also dyslexic, to work on learning lines for The Servant of Two
Masters with Maskers Theatre Company. If one parent or
child is helped by this example of her learning pain, or
someone feels able to take up drama, she will be happy!
Tickets are available to come and see Hazel in
action at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton from
22nd-26th June 2010 via the box office
on 023 80671771 or go to www.nuffieldtheatre.co.uk/events/detail/once_a_catholic.
28th
May 2010 The
Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) today launches a new ‘Print
Disability Licence’
This free licence allows organisations to
reproduce copyright works in a format accessible to people
with print disabilities, such as large print, braille or
audiobooks, and circulate
them to people with print
disabilities in the community.
The licence has been
upgraded to reflect a recent widening of the definitions
of print disability to include not just those people
who have a visual impairment but also those with another
disability that prevents them from reading books as
easily as others. The definitions now include dyslexic
readers following a request by the
industry’s Accessibility Action Group and the Right to
Read Alliance.
IMPORTANT - Request for
information: Following on
from the Rose Review, we hope that some of you will be taking
advantage of the 4,000 free training opportunities to
acquire Dyslexia teaching skills.
It would be most helpful to the HCC SEN
service if you could let them know that you - or someone you
know - is signed up for such a course. Please email Liz
Flaherty (Education Officer SEN) liz.flaherty@hants.gov.uk and keep her in the picture.
Chloe
is
new software from Nevolve. It offers text to
speech, a text reader, text to audio, an overlay option and an
automatic spell checker. If you go to www.nevolve.com/Chloe
you can download a free 14 day trial. When you
run it the first time you have to do so as an administrator.
To do this, just right click on the desktop icon and highlight
'Run as administrator'. The current voice is female and
American, but there are plans to produce new voices.
There is an RSS feed to keep in touch with the company.
The software retails at just under £40
Specialist Teacher
Training
In response to the
recommendations of Sir Jim Rose's report
entitled
Identifying and Teaching Children and Young People
with Dyslexia
and Literacy Difficulties, the Department
for Children, School and
Families has committed to funding
the course fees of 4,000
teachers, in England, wishing
to study towards an ATS or AMBDA
level qualification which
has been accredited by the British Dyslexia
Association
(BDA). Funding will also be considered for those already
in possession of an ATS qualification who wish to enhance
this to
AMBDA level. The British Dyslexia Association is
keen to encourage
the take up of this opportunity to train
additional specialist teachers.
The aim of funding
these additional training places is to build
capacity
within the school system to improve access to
specialist and high
quality support for children and young
people with dyslexia. Access to
this type of specialist
support can be significantly improved by
encouraging
schools and Local Authorities (LAs) to work in partnership
and to pool their resources.
Head Teachers are
being encouraged to look at existing cluster
arrangements
and to be proactive in thinking about how they might deploy
the expertise of a specialist teacher across a number of
schools in their area. For this reason, priority will be given
to those nominated teachers who can demonstrate that upon
completing training they will be willing to work across a
cluster of schools to share their knowledge and
skills.
This process is being managed by The
Dyslexia-SpLD Trust*. Please see attached further details,
the eligibility criteria and the procedure for registering
interest using the form on the The Dyslexia-SpLD Trust website
- www.thedyslexia-spldtrust.org.uk/government-funding-criteria/
A set of frequently asked questions will be published on this
website but if you still have a query you would like to raise
with the Dyslexia-SpLD Trust, please e-mail the following
address:
training@thedyslexia-spldtrust.org.uk
*The
Dyslexia-SpLD Trust is a consortium of organisations,
including the BDA, Dyslexia Action, Helen Arkell Dyslexia
Centre and PATOSS among others involved in promoting improved
practice and outcomes for individuals with dyslexia and
specific learning difficulties.
British Dyslexia
Association
Unt 8 Bracknell Beeches
Old Bracknell
Lane
Bracknell
Berkshire
RG12 7BW
Telephone: 0845
251 9003
Website: www.bdadyslexia.org.uk
DCSF
Funding Criteria for National Dyslexia-SpLD Specialist Teacher
Training
On 22 June 2009 Sir Jim Rose published a
report entitled Identifying and Teaching Children and Young
People with Dyslexia and Literacy Difficulties, which included
a recommendation that the Department for Children, Schools and
Families (DSCF) should fund a number of teachers to undertake
appropriately, accredited specialist training in teaching
children with dyslexia.
The DCSF have endorsed all
the recommendations in Sir Jim'’s report and made available
around £10m over this financial year and next to support their
implementation and other dyslexia projects. The majority
of this money is committed to funding the course-fees of
4,000 teachers, in England, wishing to study towards an
ATS or AMBDA level qualification which has been accredited
by
the British Dyslexia Association (BDA). Funding will
also be considered for those already in possession of an ATS
qualification who wish to enhance this to AMBDA
level.
Applicants for funded places must meet the
following funding criteria setout below.
Eligibility
Criteria (1)
All applicants must hold Qualified
Teacher Status (QTS) and have completed their induction
year
AND
be working in schools in England and have
the full endorsement of the Head Teacher of their school,
confirming their professional and personal suitability, their
commitment to successfully complete the training and their
ability to deploy their skills/knowledge
post-training;
OR:
be working in England for a Local
Authority Support Service, the Voluntary sector or living in
England if between posts and have the full endorsement of
their Line Manager/Senior LA Officer OR a suitably qualified
Head Teacher confirming their suitability as set out
above.
This process is being managed by The
Dyslexia-SpLD Trust.
If you meet these criteria, please
register your interest using the form on the The Dyslexia-SpLD
Trust website
-
www.thedyslexia-spldtrust.org.uk/government-funding-criteria/
A
set of frequently asked questions are published on this
website but if you still have a query you would like to raise
with the Dyslexia-SpLD Trust, please e-mail us at the
following address:
training@thedyslexia-spldtrust.org.uk
(1)
These are the criteria for being eligible for DCSF funding for
specialist training. However, the question of a candidate'’s
eligibility for a course is a matter for the course provider.
Please note, teachers who meet the funding criteria and are
accepted onto appropriate courses are not automatically
guaranteed funding.
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