§ Mr. KidneyTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what improvements he(a) has made and (b) intends to make for meeting the special educational needs of dyslexic pupils. [141958]
§ Jacqui SmithWe are committed as a Government to helping all children with special educational needs (SEN) to develop their full potential. We are taking a number of steps to raise the awareness of dyslexia and help teachers to improve the identification and assessment of children who have or may have dyslexia, including through baseline assessment, which—although this is not its primary purpose—can be a useful first screen to help teachers identify where a child has learning needs which may require further, more specialist investigation and assessment. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is now consulting on our proposals for revising statutory baseline assessment, including our proposal that the 90 current baseline assessment schemes be replaced by a single national scheme, which should help to improve the identification of learning needs. Any national scheme will incorporate the features of local schemes that have been most successful in identifying possible SEN. Training for teachers to support the new scheme would focus on how to use it to identify learning needs needing further investigation and how to devise strategy to help children progress.
The National Literacy Strategy has raised standards for all children, including those with dyslexia, and we have started to build on this success by introducing pilot projects in September in 17 LEAs involving over 200 schools to transform standards in English and mathematics for 11 to 14-year-olds. We will implement this nationally in 2001.
We are also taking work forward in partnership with some of the voluntary organisations that support children with dyslexia, including the British Dyslexia Association and the Dyslexia Institute. This includes the Department, together with the National Lottery Charities Board and WH Smith, funding a two year "Spell It" (Study Programme to Evaluate Literacy Learning through Individualised Tuition) research project run by the Dyslexia Institute to evaluate the effects of structured programmes of intervention, targeted at seven year old pupils who are experiencing specific difficulties in learning to read, write and spell. Two key aspects of the project are to develop activities that parents can do at home and to share the knowledge and skills of specialist teachers more widely.
Following a seminar convened by the DfEE in July 1999 to bring together bodies with an interest and expertise in the field of teaching children with dyslexia, the Pathways Group was formed consisting of representatives from the DfEE and key partners in the field of dyslexia. The Group has been engaged in producing a leaflet designed to help teachers interested in pursuing further training on specific learning difficulties to access relevant training. It is envisaged that the leaflet will direct these teachers towards more detailed course information which will be available via the Department's Inclusion website.
21WChildren with dyslexia, along with all children with SEN, will also benefit from more general measures we are taking to support children with SEN. These include: the Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill, announced in the Queen's Speech in 6 December; the revision of the SEN Code of Practice, and the Standards Fund, through which we are spending £82 million in 2001–02 to improve support for children with special educational needs, which represents a 50 per cent, increase from the £55 million this year.