Minutes:
The following question, received under Standing Order 34, was put to the Chairman of the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee:
Mrs Sue Whiting asked the following question of the Chairman
of the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee:
Could the Chair please confirm that there will be Dyslexia
Awareness Events planned for the International Dyslexia Awareness Month in
October according to the three year cycle that has happened previously, with
the last Dyslexia Awareness Event for Children and Families being held in 2018
at County Hall?
Mrs H Fryer CC
replied as follows:
The department plans to write a ‘Dyslexia Awareness’ briefing that will
be sent out using various methods during International
Dyslexia Awareness Month in October (this will include SEND news, the
Headteachers briefing and governors newsletter). Unfortunately, many planned face to face
events have been delayed due to Covid restrictions,
although the department is planning to start up the Local Offer Roadshows in
the near future in line with guidance; these will have information about
Dyslexia and Support available at them.
Unrelated to the awareness month, the department launched a
virtual training and learning platform in August which schools can sign up to;
this includes Dyslexia Awareness training designed at a universal level and
signposts to the Learning Support team for more information. It is hoped that
this tool will make this training easier to access for more staff working in
Leicestershire Schools.
Supplementary Question:
Mrs Whiting asked a supplementary question which asked for the
following information:
·
An outline of exactly
what will be included in the Dyslexia Awareness Briefing
·
The approximate number
of families who will be reached by the SEND news and whether this correlates
with the latest figure from the Government Statistics of children identified in
Leicestershire with specific learning difficulties
·
For Councillors to also
receive the briefing as Dyslexia is life long and affects adults as well as
children
·
What is included in the
‘Dyslexia Awareness training designed at a universal level’
·
Whether schools have to
pay for the information from the Learning Support Team
·
Whether parents have
any direct access to the information provided by the Learning Support Team.
At the invitation of the Chairman, the Director of Children and
Family Services replied to the effect that work was still taking place on
developing the Dyslexia Awareness briefing.
In relation to the number of families reached by SEND news, the Director
reported that a new sign up process had recently been created to ensure that
this was in line with GDPR and to date, approximately 400 individuals had
signed up. Many of these were SENCOs
within schools so the reach was not currently measurable. The information was shared on Facebook and
internally within the County Council, so after an addition was published, it
was possible to look at the data on how many views there had been.
The Director stated that it would be possible to consider sharing
the briefing with Councillors. In terms
of the information in the training, the Director reported that rather than just
focussing on difficulties with reading and writing, the presentation looked at
the bigger picture of dyslexia, considered the Rose definition of dyslexia and
what were considered to be the defining, underlying characteristics of dyslexia
and the impact of these on the learner.
The training notes took around 15 minutes to watch although there were slides
available afterwards and it was also possible to provide a transcript of the
training.
The Director reported that the support from the Learning Support
Team was free to Leicestershire schools and that parents did not currently have
direct access to information from the Learning Support Team. The service provided by the Learning Support
Team was provided directly to schools.
However, there was a range of information on the Local Offer website
which parents could access and this included a list of resources.