How students with dyslexia are spelling out success with speech recognition technology. Mark Geremia, vice president and general manager for Dragon Professional and Consumer, explains.

Dyslexia Awareness Week will run from Monday 1 to Sunday 7 October and this year, will focus on 21st century dyslexia. The week, organised by the British Dyslexia Association, will include activities in classrooms, workplaces and online (using the hashtag #21stcenturydyslexia), competitions and much more. 

Lord Addington, President of the British Dyslexia Association, said: “With modern support and assistive technology, being dyslexic is a major advantage. We dyslexics are all great problem solvers, can get to the crux of the matter and see the bigger picture, and make the connections to bring together successful projects. I hope our focus on 21st century dyslexia for this year’s Dyslexia Awareness Week will mean more people see dyslexia as the ability it is.” 

The results of a survey of nearly 400 school leaders from secondary schools across England, focusing on residential school trips, has been released today. The research was carried out by the School Travel Forum, the not-for-profit professional trade association for educational travel providers, dedicated to promoting safety in school travel.

Dr Margot Sunderland, Director of Education and Training at The Centre for Child Mental Health, writes about trauma and loss and how teachers and other agencies must be well-informed to ensure correct diagnoses…

Of course many diagnoses given to children are accurate. Moreover, for some conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder, there is indisputable neurological evidence. That being said, what follows is a concern with misdiagnosis, which, in so many cases is utterly preventable if we are trauma informed.

Even those of us too old to remember it as a personal experience will probably have revisited it as a parent – that terrifying moment when we were first abandoned in a big, scary and unfamiliar place – School.

For most new learners, the initial trauma is brief and school soon becomes a familiar part of growing up. At the heart of this familiarisation process there will be some apparently mundane but nevertheless important little “milestones” for the new pupil.  And there will almost certainly be, at the heart of that journey, something that becomes the home for the child’s activities in school which teacher, child and parent will use to share successes and milestones along the way.

It can be a daunting task for schools to independently choose providers of good quality and safe school trips and also for teachers to deal with the associated risk assessment paperwork.  

With a growing body of evidence showing that learning outside of the classroom opportunities contribute to raising standards and improving students’ personal, social and emotional development, it’s good to know that there’s a benchmark that can help in the selection of quality LOtC providers.

New York-based director Olivier Bernier has been selected as the recipient of the $400,000 Videocamp Film Fund 2018. Bernier wowed the judging panel with his proposal for an intimate documentary following his own search for inclusive education for his son Emilio, who was born with Down Syndrome. 

Olivier Bernier says: “As a director, this is not only a story I will be telling – this is a story I am living. When I was a child, I didn’t go to an inclusive school. I was never exposed to anyone with intellectual disabilities and I was ill prepared for my own son’s arrival. I want to use this opportunity to make sure this never happens to anyone again.

Robyn Johnstone, Chief Executive Officer, Education Placement Group – specialists in matching school staffing needs with the best available teachers and teaching assistants – discusses the need for flexible working conditions, such as job sharing, and strong professional support in the recruitment and retention of teachers… 

According to figures released by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, applications for teacher training courses fell by one-third this year – plummeting from 19,330 in December 2016 to just 12,820 in 2017 – a drop that will have a significant impact on schools across the country which are already facing considerable challenges recruiting qualified staff.

Today sees the launch of the Great School Libraries campaign – a three year campaign spearheaded by SLA, CILIP SLG and CILIP. The campaign has three aims: to secure school library funding; to produce a national framework for school libraries and recognition of school libraries within the Ofsted framework.

Thousands of children have returned to school for the new academic year to new-look menus. A range of healthier, more sustainable meat-free menu options have been introduced as part of the new School Plates programme launched by food awareness organisation ProVeg UK earlier this summer.

A total of 110 primary schools across two local authorities in England have been working on new menus in collaboration with ProVeg UK ahead of their launch this term. Changes include the adoption of Meat-Free Mondays, new daily meat-free meals, and new descriptions for the meat-free and plant-based dishes to make them even more appealing to the students.