Parent Govenors - why so they/can they do?

[carocaro]

I want to push for our school to become Dyslexia Friendly, is this somthing they can help with?

[trickerg]

You could go and talk to the governor who reports on SN, but I think it would be better to go direct to the SENCo.

[carocaro]

I have, she's all 'it's up to them, I'm not invovled'

USELESS.

[trickerg]

You mean the SENCo or the governor?

Our SENCo dealt with this, with the help from an adviser (not sure whether she was a county adviser or not).

If you do see the SENCo, I would advise you to offer your help printing/ laminating labels, visual timetables, etc, as it is VERY time-consuming for the teachers and TAs. You're bound to wind someone up if you expect them to do everything!

I speak from experience. We had a cohort of VERY demanding mothers who pushed for this (not a bad thing in itself), and we teachers were landed with a lot of extra work, which we were a bit miffed with!

[throckenholt]

doesn't have to be a parent governor - you can approach any of them, or the head. Certainly worth asking them to discuss it anyway.

[Hassled]

There should be a Governor who's linked with Inclusion. Speak to him/her. Assuming you;ve already tried the Head?

[carocaro]

Thanks all, will approach the Govenors direct. Head said 'he is thinking about it' It's been a year!

trickerg - why am I winding a SENCO up if I ask her a question?!? I don't expect them to as you put it 'do everything', TBH she's done not very much besides tell me to get audiobooks for DS1, I get more from the teacher and TA. Just because you ask a question does not equal pushy mother, nor does moaning teacher equal a good one.

The term 'pushy mother' miffs me off also, as do teachers who moan about workload, my jobs no picnic either, but if it help people in my department, as it might your kids in class, you might not look upon it as a burden but as a help.

[trickerg]

Caro - you won't be winding her up if you ask a question - you misunderstood. Noone got wound-up with the idea, and indeed the practice, of being dyslexia friendly.

However, we had a lobby of about 6 parents who pushed the SENCO to make the school dyslexia friendly. They pushed in a very pushy way - often to the point of rudeness!!

I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to be dyslexia friendly, it's just that when it was introduced, all the teachers had to make visual timetables, relabel all of the classroom drawers using beige paper (with writing AND pictures of what was in them), re-display our months and days, etc. These may sound like little things but they took ages (trawling round the internet looking for pics of unifix and multilink!) and it would be really nice (and I daresay, appreciated) if you could offer your services to help with this.

[carocaro]

OK I understand now, but instead of my SENCO shrugging her shoulders and the head taking a year to make up his mind, they should actually communicate to the concerned parents what it may involve and how we could help.

I have no idea what is involved and they should talk to the parents about this and see how we can work together. I am not a mind reader.

Did you ask the 'pushy parents' to help and did they say no?

[trickerg]

These parents were very much on their own agenda and it all got a bit out of hand really.

SENCos are really busy, particularly if they are class teachers, so you have to take that into account.

Here is information about the dyslexia friendly classroom, just to let you know what is involved.
www.ttrb.ac.uk/attachments/8979ee7e-be56-4398-8aac-302a17acfc7d.pdf

We just followed these guidelines at our school.

There is a Dyslexia Friendly Quality Mark that schools can apply for. This probably entails filling in about 60 pages of form, but might be worth looking at.