Special Needs Provision in State Schools

The following letter was published in the Daily Telegraph in January 2007, along with many others, commenting on the apparent hypocrisy of a Government Minister Ruth Kelly to send her son to a private specialist school rather than relying on state provision for specialist educational needs.

Sent: 08 January 2007

To: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk

Sir,- I was pleased to hear that Ruth Kelly has decided to send one of her children to a school which specialises in helping children with special needs.

I am a Befriender with our local Dyslexia Association and we have been kept very busy this last year by anxious parents whose dyslexic children are failing to make progress in their state schools. This is mainly because the only assistance that schools are able to provide is some extra help by a teaching assistant in small groups, when the children with these specific learning difficulties actually need SPECIALIST HELP, one-to-one, on a daily basis, to make enough progress to have success in school. Schools are rarely able to provide this.

In Cumbria we had, until last year, Literacy Centres which were very successful in helping these children. We could have done with more.

What happened? The LEA closed them down.

Anne Mackenzie
St. Bees
Cumbria

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West Cumbria Dyslexia Association: Contact Doris Pearce 07863 329747

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