I have, unintentionally, upset a lot of people.
Talking about how dyslexia friendly classrooms have become tick box exercises.
When a parent shared a specialist dyslexia report recently, the teacher stated ‘we don’t need to do any of these recommendations because our classrooms are already dyslexia friendly.’
The parent said, ‘great can you give me some examples.’
The teacher listed , yellow paper, less spellings, copying from a white board, extra reading with a volunteer and phonics groups.
As a dyslexia specialist this made me feel sad, the teacher genuinely thought this was dyslexia friendly practice.
For years, my approach has been to work around the system.
Accepting schools don’t have the funding, the training, or the capacity they desperately need and to encourage parents to fill the gaps where schools can’t. That’s what I did as a parent. This is what I’ve advocated for others to do.
This week it hit me. If I don’t encourage parents to gently question what’s really being put in place and stay quiet about what I know isn’t working. I become complicit.
This is why I stepped away from being a SENCO. I knew deep down, that I couldn’t deliver what children, families, or staff truly needed within the constraints of the current system.
This isn’t about blaming teachers. I have nothing but respect for them. Teachers are being asked to do the impossible:
classrooms full of children with a huge breadth of needs, limited support, training, and relentless pressure.
A great classroom teacher is a different skill set to being a specialist. Both matter and are essential.
Falling budgets have seen stripped back specialist provision. Support has been watered down. Experienced, trained specialists, the people who could advocate, guide, challenge, and support teachers and parents are disappearing.
I en devour not to create a blame culture and to collaborate, but the truth is: when you question the norm, and push for better outcomes, naming what isn’t working, you will rock the boat.
Does that make me a bad person?
I’ve been a teacher who was underskilled to meet the needs in front of me.
I’ve been a SENCO with a constant knot in my stomach, trying to advocate for children, staff, and families in a system that was already breaking. I have been the trained specialist that was made redundant. The system and curriculum are broken, it doesn’t work well for any child.
We are pushing children through something that is failing them and it feels like it’s getting worse, not better.
I know incredible people still working in schools. I know they are doing their absolute best with what they’ve got.
But when you know what you know, when you have the expertise, when you can see children still being failed.
Do you stay quiet? Or do you speak up?
Right now, it feels like whatever I do is wrong. But staying silent doesn’t sit right either.
Maybe rocking the boat isn’t the problem. Maybe pretending the boat isn’t sinking is.
