Primary school dyslexia screening concerns — am I being unreasonable?
Hi all,
I’m looking for some outside perspectives on a situation with my child’s primary school, particularly around dyslexia screening and how the school has handled it.
We first raised concerns about possible dyslexia in person around two years ago. We then raised it again by email about 18 months ago. At parents’ evening in October, we were told that dyslexia screening would be arranged, but we heard nothing further after that.
More recently, the school placed us on a TAF process. I understand that TAFs can be useful, but in our case it has felt as though it may have slowed things down rather than moved things forward. Our main concern — dyslexia screening — still did not seem to be progressing.
Last week, after further pushback, I escalated the matter. When I still felt we were not getting anywhere, I passed the issue to the governors. Following that escalation, the screening has finally been done.
However, we are now concerned about how the screening itself has been handled.
As I understand it, my child completed a first screening/test, but the result of that has not yet been shared with us. The following day, a second test was completed. On that second occasion, my child was helped by a teaching assistant to read the questions, understand what was being asked, and work through parts of it.
The school then appeared to present the second test as the relevant/genuine result, despite the fact that assistance had been given. I am concerned that this may not accurately reflect my child’s independent ability, particularly when the whole point is to understand whether there are underlying literacy/dyslexia-related difficulties.
We have also been told that other children appear to have had dyslexia screening more readily, which makes it even more frustrating that we have had to push for so long.
My concern is not about attacking individual staff. I just want my child properly assessed and supported. But after raising this for such a long time, being told it would happen, hearing nothing, having to escalate to governors, and then being given unclear information about two separate tests, I feel trust has been badly damaged.
My questions are:
Is it normal for a dyslexia screener to be repeated the next day?
Should a child be helped to read/understand questions during a dyslexia screening?
Should the school disclose both test results to parents?
What would be the appropriate next step if we feel the process has not been handled properly?
Would you raise this formally through the school/trust complaints process?
I’m trying to be fair and constructive, but I also feel we have been pushing for nearly two years and are only now getting movement because we escalated.
Any thoughts from teachers, SENCOs, parents, or anyone familiar with primary SEND processes would be really appreciated.