For Derby parents

Waiting for an assessment? Don’t wait to start.

This is the position an enormous number of Derby families are in: you’re fairly sure your child is dyslexic, school has been slow or non-committal, and the assessment is either months away or hasn’t been agreed at all. Here is what I’d tell you if you rang me tomorrow.

The teaching doesn’t need to wait for the paperwork

This is the single most useful thing I can tell you. A dyslexia report doesn’t change what a struggling reader needs to be taught. The structured literacy work I’d do with a child who has a report is essentially the same work I’d do with a child who doesn’t.

So the months spent waiting are months of teaching lost, not months of necessary preparation. If your child is seven and stuck, the seven-year-old is the urgent part, not the queue.

Be clear about what a report will and won’t get you

What it does get you: a formal record of need, evidence when you’re asking school for support, a basis for exam access arrangements later on, and — not to be underestimated — an explanation your child can hold onto instead of the one they’ve invented about themselves.

What it often doesn’t get you: automatic extra help. Parents are frequently shocked by this. Schools have limited budgets and wide discretion. A report lands, and the following Monday looks exactly like the one before. Many reports don’t even recommend specialist tuition.

Go for the assessment — just don’t bank everything on the day it arrives.

Who can actually diagnose dyslexia?

Not everyone who says “dyslexia specialist” can produce a formal diagnostic report. Look for one of these:

• A specialist teacher or assessor holding AMBDA (Associate Member of the British Dyslexia Association).
• Someone holding a current Assessment Practising Certificate (APC), usually through the BDA or PATOSS.
• An educational psychologist, which is typically the most expensive route.

The PATOSS Tutor Index and the British Dyslexia Association’s own tutor list both let you filter by area. Ask the assessor directly whether their report will be accepted for exam access arrangements later, because not all are.

For the avoidance of any doubt: I am not one of these. I hold BDA Accredited Practitioner Status, which covers informal assessment and specialist teaching — not formal diagnosis. I’ll happily point you towards local assessors who do.

What to do while you wait?

1. Write down what you’re seeing

   Dates, examples, actual sentences your child has said. Keep the pieces of work. Vague worry is easy for a school to absorb; a written record of eight specific things is not.

2. Ask the school three direct questions

   What have you put in place, what evidence do you have that it’s working, and what will you do if it isn’t? Put them in an email. Ask for a meeting with the SENCO present. Emails create a paper trail; corridor conversations don’t.

3. Get an informal picture now

   An informal, curriculum-based assessment won’t give you a diagnosis, but it will tell you what your child can and can’t do and why — and it gives you something in writing to bring to that meeting.

4. Start the actual teaching

   Structured, multisensory, one to one, regularly. Once a week over a school year does far more than an intensive burst before an exam.

5. Protect how they feel about themselves

   This matters more than any of the above. Read to them well above their reading level so books stay interesting. Separate “reading is hard” from “I am stupid” out loud, repeatedly. Find the thing they’re good at and make a fuss of it.

Where to get help in Derby that isn’t me?

Genuinely useful, free, and local:

• Derby SENDIASS — free, impartial advice for parents on SEND, independent of the council.
• The British Dyslexia Association helpline — free and confidential.
• Derby’s SEND Local Offer on the city council website, which sets out what schools are expected to do.

If you take one thing from this page: the waiting list is a queue for a document, not a queue for help. Help can start this month.