11. 11. Short Debate: Dyslexia — Life Through a Different Lens

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:34 pm on 23 November 2016.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 6:34, 23 November 2016

Would you take another intervention? Thank you, and I’m very, very grateful for that very positive response. There is one area, though, that I think is completely within your power today to make a difference, and that’s on the subject of when a dyslexic child is told, ‘You are on such a place on the scale’ and, therefore, ‘When you go to do your GCSEs, you’re going to get 25 per cent extra time’ or ‘50 per cent extra time.’ That’s great, but the problem is that, all the way through, having been diagnosed, they’ e not allowed that time in any other statutory testing. So, children end up feeling terribly demoralised because they think they have been failures. They don’t get that extra half an hour, extra 50 per cent, for the mocks, et cetera.

The other area, which perhaps your Cabinet Secretary colleague, Kirsty Williams, might take on board, is the early examination system, because, again, if you’re a dyslexic child, you need your two years to get that subject under your belt and you’re having to sit it a year early or six months earlier because the school’s decided to put everyone in for early examinations and you’re not allowed to pull out of it at present, according to schools. Those are two items where you, as a Minister, and the Cabinet Secretary can make an enormous difference to the lives of the children today.