School suggestion for HLP/DME kid with dyslexia

[Denka]

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for recommendations for secondry schools that are supportive of children with dyslexia. My daughter is HLP/DME and has dyslexia and we’re hoping to find a school in south-west London that not only offers appropriate learning support, but also recognises and nurtures her strengths.
If you have had positive experiences with schools that understand and support dyslexic learners, I’d be so grateful if you could share them with me. I'm particularly looking for schools that:
-Respect individual learning profiles,
-Take educational psychology reports seriously,
-Offer tailored interventions and enrichment—not just remediation,
-Have staff with awareness and training around dyslexia
Feel free to comment or message me directly—any insight or suggestion would mean a lot. Thank you so much in advance!

Are you looking for independent schools? If so, Fairley House is worth a look- they specialise in teaching kids with dyslexia and follow the standard mainstream curriculum, kids come out with good GCSE and A Level results Fairley House - Fairley House School.

Fairly house doesn't do A Levels and their GCSE offer is very limited, but that's because they usually have the more severely dyslexic/ dyspraxic kids staying on for GCSEs. Saying that, since GCSEs have got a lot harder, they've had a lot more staying on. They have their own EPs, SALTs and OT staff so yes, they do stick to EP reports. They're incredibly oversubscribed though, and expensive.
What areas does your child struggle in and what areas are they 'gifted' in? Just fyi the term HLP/DME is very American not commonly used in the UK so you might get some confused looks if you ask schools about it.

I am not looking a dyslexia school my daugher is HLP/DME just school for dyslexia is not suitable for her.

This doesn't exist in the UK. That term is also not used here.

Unfortunately you are highly unlikely to find what you are looking for.

There are specialist dyslexia schools.

There are selective schools that should cater for HLP.

DME has more provision available if you’re talking about high functioning ASD.

HLP/DME and with one of those being an SpLd… maybe in the private sector but you’d probably need to fund a lot of additional help yourself.

IIRC there’s a girl’s state secondary in Richmond with a dyslexia unit that might be worth looking at.

It is going to be sifting through and looking at schools which suit your DD’s interests. For my DD being in a special set in year 6 for English that taught them study skills for their individual needs gave her the skills along with extra time and permanent use of a lap top meant she needed no other interventions. But you have to talk to all the individual schools to work out which is right.
The School we chose was in west Berkshire.

Agree, you’ll have to sift through schools, and talk to them.
My son is similar, but his school is boys only and too far for you, so I can’t help you with a recommendation.

HLP/DME isn’t a term used in the U.K.

I looked it up (ex teacher) and it seems to mean twice exceptional ie gifted and talented plus a Sen.

you mention she has dyslexia as well.

a lot depends on her actual level of attainment and her specific special needs.

if you are looking at state, then many have limited funding. I’ve never seen any state school that had the funding to implement an EP’s report in full.

if you are looking at private then this is completely do able. I’m not in your area so don’t have recommendations.
If you do want state you will get more useful recommendations if you can say for example “my DD is three years behind in reading and has autism but is exceptional at maths”.

What is HLP and DME?

HLP - Higher Learning Potential (basically means highly gifted in a particular area or very high IQ - say 98th centile or higher).

DME - Dual or Multiple Exceptionality, or 2e - Twice Exceptional.
This is children with SEND who are also exceptionally gifted.

Terms are more common in the US - although DME is used in the UK.

It's the subset of kids who have SEND at a level where they need significant support for their disabilities but are capable of extremely high achievement.

Think of say, the 9 year old maths whizz that is A Level standard, but also on the autistic spectrum and struggling to the point where mainstream is unsuitable, but special schools can't provide teaching at the right level.

Thank you for the explanations @OhCrumbsWhereNow

I would actually go against the grain and disagree with this. I think OP would be far better off in a good state school, unless the 'exceptional' part is in an area that would get her child into a good selective private. They usually have the learning support departments that work well for kids like this. The average private schools are now full of SEN kids who need support at levels the school is not staffed or trained for and it's causing a lot of issues in the sector.
A good state school is able to give substantial support and when it's big enough, they have enough sets in subjects to account for spikes in ability.
What worries me more about OPs request is actually, sticking to an EP report to a t isn't always wise. It's just a snapshot of how your child does on that day, and it is very useful, but when you take into account logistics and social bits, sometimes their suggestions can cause more problems than they fix. Kids also change a lot, and most people don't repeat EP assessments every 6 months or every year to account for change, and if you're sticking to it too closely, you'll soon find yourself giving inappropriate support. It's always best to be flexible.

@Foxesandsquirrels our experience is quite different the apparently “very good” state school we’ve got assigned to. Our schools puts kids in 2 categories- “might possibly pass GCSE” and “has potential to do well” early on. SENDs automatically mean “target is to pass gcse”.
My dyslexic son automatically went into the “target is a 5” category - with CAT scores between 125 and 130.
He’s at a specialist private school now, with much higher targets.
There are good and bad schools in both sectors , it really needs looking in detail for each school.

Unfortunately there is little to no help for SpLd in State anymore - especially if it's on the severe end, and even more so if they are going to scrape a pass.

We've been lucky with individual teachers doing their best to support, but there's no specialist help without an EHCP and good luck getting one of them.

DD has CATs over 135 and targets of 8. But as long as she's getting a 4 then she's not a priority as they just have too many needing support these days.

And that's in an 'outstanding' big comp.

And for dyslexia you really need to have 'fixed' the problems with literacy and SPaG back in early years of primary. It only gets worse in secondary.

My dd was basically like this, exceptionally gifted in multiple areas but autistic, dyslexic and dyspraxic. She attended her local school with personalised interventions.

Did you have an EHCP?

Hi OP, schools differ widely on how dyslexic students are supported. Just a general piece of information, most mainstream secondary schools allocate TA support into lower attaining class groups. I have had to move several SEND students including dyslexic ones out of bottom sets so they could fulfil their potential.
Funding for SEND in state schools isn't great and a lot of schools struggle to know how to adapt teaching to make it accessible to dyslexic students.
Most advice available emphasises that the student themself really needs to learn and develop learning strategies that support their academic progress. Like listening to audio books, using a mind map to make notes during teacher talk.

I agree with you 100% which is why I said there needs to be a distinction made when people say go private. It's not as simple as that. It's very much a school Vs school thing. And when I say a good state school, that might not be what you think I'm talking about. I don't necessarily mean the leafy state school with 4% FSM, although those can have excellent SEN support, but it's rare. I think you're talking about flightpaths with your son though and those would be given based on SATs and sometimes CAT scores. They change though and SEN kids very rarely end up with the grades they were on 'path' for in Y7. My DDs flight path was something like 1s and Us. She's on track to pass all now, with a couple of 7s predicted.
I also don't think you can label specialist private as just private. It's a different kettle of fish. Saying that, those can be famously shit too, so shop around. We learnt the hard way, and lasted a term in a very expensive specialist private school for kids with SpLD. It was the worst teaching I've ever witnessed. The mainstream private sector is struggling and they are taking on far more than they can chew unless they're very comfortable financially. Small class sizes don't take away SEN and a shit teacher is a shit teacher to 30 kids or 3 kids. It really depends on the school as you say, and it's impossible to give advice without knowing the kids profile a bit better at least. It sounds like OP needs to do some more research on English system anyway.

I think it's also worth deciding what is actually important.

I'm not talking about children who just need minor support with a bit of dodgy spelling here, but where the entire mix of dyslexia issues, processing speed, working memory and other potential comorbidities mean that there are struggles across multiple subjects - as well as areas of outstanding ability or achievement.

I looked at some specialist dyslexia schools - and while they might well have helped DD enormously with her reading/writing, it would have meant sacrificing the music.

Instead we went the other way. It's very hard as a parent not to want your child to fulfil their potential in all directions, but sometimes you have to make choices (with no crystal ball in hand).

You also have to make peace with the fact that the system up to 16 is going to really work against them in so many ways. The GCSE exam system is not kind to children who use tech to work around their disabilities or who find it hard to memorise vast amounts of information.

It's a bit like taking a child who can keep up with their classmates all year in a walking race with their electric wheelchair. And suddenly giving them a manual one (that's got steering like a shopping trolley) and expecting them to compete. The playing field isn't level at all.

You need to grieve what might have been possible in another system, find the paths that do work, and do everything to boost your child's self-esteem and celebrate the things they can do.

If you know the areas they are excelling at, could you ask at schools that are well known to focus on those subjects? They might be able to help point you in the right direction if they can't help themselves. I imagine the maths schools have a few kids with these SEN?

If you mean, as in KCL Maths School, this is only a post-16 provision. Certainly, the UTCs offer a targeted, less broad range of GCSEs than comprehensive/ grammar / secondary modern schools, but don't have an intake at age 11. Are there any in south west London anyway?

@Denka how is your DD being educated at the moment? In school or at home? Does she have an EHCP? How old is she? If it's a state school you are looking for, then without an EHCP, unless she is far enough off secondary transfer age for you to be able to move to somewhere which guarantees entrance on distance (or you meet other criteria, such as membership and observance of a relevant religion), then a recommendation of a school 'somewhere in SW London' doesn't necessarily help much.

If your DD is already of secondary age, then you are relying on a place being available in the relevant year group.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow I don't think OP is coming back, but I agree with you 100%. I think it's important to accept that perfection doesn't exist. Even with a good specialist school (there's a lot of awful ones that just use EHCP kids as money cows) the reality is, as kids get older, the intake becomes skewed towards a more Autism comorbid with SpLD profile. The socially typical kids go to mainstream. Whilst there's nothing wrong with that, it can make it really difficult socially for the kids that aren't autistic, esp when these schools very often have year groups of 20-30.

@Foxesandsquirrels we have found that as well.

Having an ND child with no mental health issues, no social struggles, but major challenges with executive function and SpLd has been tricky.

We get offered all kinds of help for regulating emotions, counselling for anxiety, groups for social skills... but we don't want or need any of those. I did rather lose it once when I was offered 'emotional literacy' sessions and asked if we could just have the plain old 'literacy'.

Agree that OP doesn't appear to be returning.

I was looking at Maple Hayes school website yesterday - which seems like a very interesting and less 'orthodox' way of teaching dyslexics. But the curriculum offer is tiny and not much in the way of a friendship cohort.

My guess is that you either do what we have done - find a mainstream school that caters for your child's positive abilities and then perhaps put a very reduced exam load in place. Or alternatively home ed - I have a friend doing an amazing job with her DC where they take 2 GCSEs every 6 months since they were 12 and everything is taught 1:1 and at their pace.

We are in sw London - son with adhd and ASC but higher achieving. Has an EHCP and goes to Canbury School - near Richmond Park, Kingston Gate. Very happy with the support he has had.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow We're in the exact same boat. It's really, really hard to find a school for a child that's typical in everything but academics. There's so much out there for kids with ASD, even the Speech and Lang units in our borough are now all ASD units. Whilst I don't want to underestimate the struggles those parents have, I know it's not easy to get those places, there is literally nothing for kids with purely academic support needs. Even Fairley House gets quite ASD heavy in the upper years which makes it really difficult to meet the social needs of kids without ASD, given the year groups are about 25 kids.

There's a few schools popping up with Dyslexia ARPs attached to mainstream schools, like Orleans Park, but these are so rare and you can't guarantee quality. Plus, based on their SEN report, my DD actually gets more support in her state school without an ARP than what's on offer there. We've been through a few secondaries now, and I've worked in a few too. My experience is that the more SEN kids flow through your doors, the better the provision is likely to be. Which is why it's rare for those "leafy 4% FSM" type schools to have good SEN provision. They attract high achieving kids, the kids who need support often get it from home. Obviously not always the case but that's my experience. Even without specialist training, as a teacher when you have 30% with dyslexia or other SEN in every class, you will quickly learn the best scaffolding to use. You don't need to do ELKLAN or Level 5 SpLD training. Mainstream private schools just don't have that, those teachers are unlikely to get have that experience.
Also, on an emotional level, for a child to be in a school where there's lots of other kids with SEN, lots of others who are just like them and need support, it's very important. I think parents forget this aspect when they see the lovely tiny private school.
State schools also get a lot more access to cheaper LA training, access to their EP and SALT etc, and charities that are willing to work with them. Privates have to pay for everything. I'm not saying state is superior, but in my experience, for SEN profiles like my DDs, it has been.

Homeschool is great and DD did well over lockdown. My very close friend home eds and it is very popular with SEN families. It's brilliant but again, a lot of the older kids have an ASD profile, the socially typical kids tend to go back to mainstream around secondary, so socialising with socially typical kids can be difficult to arrange.