Moon Hall in Dorking for dyslexia?

[mystery]

Me again!! Just looked at the website and ISC report. Had not realised it was a 7 to 13 prep school. 7 seems earlyish to decide a child needs to be funnelled off into a school for dyslexics, but the ISC report looks reasonably complimentary and gives you some idea of standards achieved.

The ISC report refers to a specific literacy programme that they use ---- they don't name it as it is presumably a commercial programme - can't remember exactly what phrase they use when describing it. Do your know what the programme is? Presumably if they are well trained in the programme, their success in teaching children to read and write will be as good as the programme itself is, if you see what I mean. Once you know what the programme is you can see if it's likely to do much for your niece or not?

You did mention that extra tuition had failed with your niece, in part to do with her being tired after school. It is legal to flexi-school. Some kind of half-way house could be for your niece to be privately tutored part of the school day, and attend her current state primary the rest of the time. Just a thought; it might of course not be practical for various different reasons and would depend on finding a tutor with the right skills available during the school day. But such people do exist and would be extremely grateful for the rarity of a pupil during the school day. Or try the tutoring during the holiday and see if you niece gets anywhere - maybe with the same programme the Moon Hall uses?

I might be speaking out of turn, but I don't think there's anything magical about "dyslexia support" - at the end of the day each child needs to be taught to read and write and with a method that works for that child. Synthetic phonics is most likely to be the answer in some shape or form, but in a few cases is not, but I'm presuming that the ISC report is referring to some synthetic phonics programme or other.

[menagerie]

mystery,

I'm not sure that 7 is too young. I agree that some children are late starters, but the signifiers for dyslexia are pretty clear by the age of 7 and if the child has severe dyslexia, continuing in mainstream schooling is a great disservice to them. The learning approach for dyslexics is very different, and the danger is that mainstream teaching methods can make dyslexic learners feel stupid and then they might act up, either to cover for having fallen behind or because they're angry. Then they're labelled disruptive. There is NO evidence that dyslexic children have lower IQs or are in any way less G&T than non-dyslexics. Many dyslexics are very gifted, with very high academic potential.

I'm not speaking as a dyslexia expert but as a literacy tutor. I come into contact with dyslexic children and then refer them, as it's not my specialist area. The techniques I use to help reluctant learners work wonders with reluctant learners, and don't make a scrap of difference to dyslexics.

[mystery]

It's a controversial one this. Many would say that the majority of dyslexics would benefit from a very thorough synthetic phonics programme with plenty of overlearning, and involving multi-sensory skills. Yes the majority of state schools would not be able to offer this to a 7 year old who needed lots of this extra help. And nowhere did I say that I thought that children with dyslexia or dyslexic tendencies were IQ wise different from the rest of the population.

I am confessing though to being a bit cynical about an independent school being the only way forward for age 7 for children who have dyslexia or dyslexic tendencies. I personally think that there is a lot that could be done at home, or during flexi-schooling.

It looks as though Moon Hall school follows some particular programme or other (not clear from the ISC report or their website what it is) and I don't think any of these things are magical.

[mystery]

Sorry I did not quite finish my post. I meant to say that there probably isn't anything that a prep school can add for dyslexia that a parent and / or specialist tutor could not do at home if the child was disengaged from part of the school day each day, or that a tutor (with proven success in getting dyslexic pupils reading and enjoying reading) visiting the state school could not do. Moon Hall clearly follows a particular literacy programme, and if this is an effective one, what I am trying to say (but badly) is that it does not necessarily take attending full-time a school exclusively for full-time pupils to make some massive headway in reading and writing. And equally that one might not make the massive headway in reading and writing at a school entirely for dyslexics that one might hope for from the level of fees!!

I still personally think 7 is early to decide a child is severely dyslexic (I don't know the age of the OP child but Moon Hall is clearly set up for this eventuality) unless one has some extremely clear reasons to decide that the child has by now been rigorously put through a really good synthetic phonics programme (and many state schools say they do this but they don't) including some well-trained one to one help (e.g. from a trained volunteer if the school TAs are not) on a daily basis and is still failing to take the initial steps in blending CVC words.

Their (Moon Hall) level 3, 4, 5 results in literacy are lower than I might have hoped, but of course one does not know how many years each year 6 child has been at the school, or how severe their difficulties are.

[amber3]

They didn't pursue statementing, it is too long winded and I've witnessed autistic children trying to get statemented and ending up in court, years later. Schools tend to put you in touch with the parents who are most happy with the school. It is good to hear other peoples opinions which don't come directly through the school. My DC were in the indie sector for a spell, and I found that there was a lot of soft soaping to try to keep everyone happy and smiling.
Why do you think no-one will know about Moon Hall, is it very tiny? I did look at the Crested site, but apart from linking to the schools website, there was just a list of abbreviations that, unless you are in the know, don't really mean much.

[amber3]

Sorry, I've just realised that we are on to page 2 already, I was replying to mystery at the bottom of page 1.
Wow, what I love about this forum is that people carry so much detailed information that you can probably only get having been through the system or had (or known) a child with dyslexia.

I'm afraid I agree with menagerie, it was blatantly obvious the DC had dyslexia by the age of 7, though the state school did everything to skirt round it, saying that there was not enough reading being done at home. State schools are strapped for cash and there is a resistance by the Local Authority to statement children as this also costs. I have every sympathy for children with dyslexia as it is so hard to keep up in class. I also totally agree that dyslexic children are bright. They invent ways to cope and skirt round things, some of which are ingenious.

I think the plan is to pay now at an indie with dyslexic specialism, in the hope that by the age of 11 or even 13, DC will be ready to rejoin the state sector.

[menagerie]

Hi mystery,

just wanted to clear up that I didn't think for a minute you suggested dyslexic children had low IQs. Sorry if my post gave that impression. In Amber's original post she mentioned the discrepancy in her family causing tension: most children are G&T, but her sister's are dyslexic. I meant to clarify that the dyslexic children could equally easily be G&T if that runs in the family, just it doesn't show yet, because of them struggling with literacy basics. I was replying to different posts but didn't make that clear!

[mystery]

Hi Amber, yes Moon Hall is small - see numbers mentioned in ISC report, and I'm just thinking that people on an 11+ website will have come across it.

Like you I would say that it sounds like a good plan to try something like an independent specialist school and then go back into state sector once the child has attained sufficient reading, writing, and other coping skills to gain something from lessons there.

If you look more carefully on the crested website you will see what the initials mean - there is a list of criteria relating to each initial, and you can see which category Moon Hall falls into and what this means in terms of the crested criteria.

All I am trying to say (and again badly) is that there is no clear statement on crested, Moon Hall website or ISC report as to exactly how Moon Hall works with dyslexic children to improve their reading and writing. There are many different programmes developed over the years some of which help, and some of which don't help, dyslexic children. There is also the approach of teaching so that the material is accessible to children who cannot read or write very much.

It sounds like your sister is hoping to get back into the state sector rather than move on to the associated senior school (I am sure that Moon Hall has some kind of associated senior school - so watch out!!) so she really needs to find out what their successes are in teaching reading and writing to "dyslexic" children.

And sorry, I still think that you and Menagerie are being pretty vague about what you mean by "dyslexia" and it being obvious by 7, and what can be done to radically improve a "dyslexic" child's reading and writing. Yes clearly a percentage of children find it much harder than others to learn to read and write well (particularly in English rather than phonetically simple languages), but a really good synthetic phonics programme rigorously applied can help a good proportion of these to start to read successfully. Yes, signs of dyslexia can be seen very early on in children, 2 even, but this is very poor science as many children have many of these features in their early life (reading words the wrong way round (e.g. was and saw), reversing letters, seeing b as d, n as u, mirror writing etc etc). The brain is still developing and many of these things will just go away of their own accord, taking longer in some children than others. The ability to see things lots of different ways round though can in some children be a source of great strength in other non- literary areas.

I see children at my daughter's school who got off to a slow start with learning to read for various different reasons, and who now at 7, 8, 9 are still lagging badly, and I itch to see if I can teach them to read!! I can see that their parents will be thinking they are so much worse than they are, but it is because they are not being taught to read in a way that would work for them. Although they do daily phonics they are kept in low groups where they never cover all the graphic representations of sounds in English so their chances of reading properly are being limited. (e.g. in English the ur sound can be written ir, ur, er and if they are kept in groups only learning single letter sounds they are not going to progress even once they have an initial grasp of blending) And the books that are being sent home are pointless in terms of learning to read - random books from old sight word based reading schemes e.g. Oxford Reading Tree, where the approach is not about learning how to work out what a word says from knowledge of sounds and how they are represented in English.

The statementing route has always been slow, but if it were to lead to the LEA part-paying the fees for somewhere like Moon Hall it would be worth persisting with. You describe the dyslexia as "severe" whatever that means, and that the child is effectively getting nothing from mainstream education, so there could be some merit in pursuing it.

I am just saying that with the money that will be spent on Moon Hall there are alternative routes that might lead to equivalent or greater success e.g. the specialist tutor route. Independent school terms are short. If a specialist tutor (who might well have identical qualifications to the Moon Hall teachers) were to work with the child all the year round there would be greater benefits. It really is important though to look carefully at how phonics is being taught to this child, both at the state school, at home, and at the independent school. Moon Hall outcomes may not be what your sister is hoping for ........ a thorough bit of research is going to be needed rather than relying on an opinion on here. Even if you get one, it might not be "right". Dyslexia is one of these vague terms, and a school may be brilliant at helping a child with one sort of literacy difficulty causing the dyslexia, but not another.

It's a bit like bunging together a group of children who are not good at painting pictures into one school and hoping that the school can sort them all out. The reasons why they are not good at painting pictures could be so diverse that although you think you have put together a homogeneous group of children who will learn better together as they have some similar characterstics, you could really accidentally have put together a group of children with even more diverse needs than in the average state school classroom. The advantage of course is that, hopefully, you have brought together a group of highly skilled and motivated teachers who know and recognise all the different causes of literacy difficulties and how best to remediate them. So best to have a talk with the school about the particular child in question, their identified causes of "dyslexia", and how the school works with this particular type of "dyslexia".

[mystery]

Oops I meant to say people on an 11+ website are unlikely to have come across Moon Hall school. Have you asked in the relevant area section (Surrey) ?

[TubbyCakes]

Amber,

As you specifically want to know about Moon Hall, I can only suggest putting a post on Mumsnet and see what you get back as this is a very specialist school. Not surprised by the negative response you received from another private school.

Missed this discussion over the last week but would comment as follows. As “purchaser” at a Crested school, the long and short of it is that it down to gut feel. Crested do produce a report on each of the schools it lists and any school should be happy to supply you with a copy of this report. It is also true that there are ISI reports as well. At the end of the day, any report is just a snap shot of a school on a given day, at a given time and will not necessarily tell you everything there is to know about a school in the context of a specific child's needs. Yes you can talk to other parents but their child’s needs are not necessarily the same as that of your niece/nephew and as another poster commented the school will put forward those that are “happy” with the school. You are therefore going to have to rely on what you feel as a visitor. No school is perfect but what you want is one that can give the child the support they need.

I would say that with a prep school, it is smaller and is likely to be more accomodating than a larger school that goes through to 18. Also because everyone transfers, it is really going to be big on giving the children the skills to move to a mainstream school. You may find it useful to ask where the children transfer to at 11 or 13, mainstream or other specialist schools. You could then call these senior schools and get a sense of how the children that transfer are "equipped" especially if they are not schools with specialist units.

Now there has been some views expressed about whether dyslexia can be diagnosed in younger children. All I would say is that WISC IV and WIAT which are widely used tools administered by Ed Psychologist as part of the diagnositic process, is internationally recognised by both the medical and educational professionals, adjusts for a child’s age and is a valid test from age 6. There is even a UK specific version of the tests. I have commissioned three reports over the years starting at age 6 and they have been accepted by all those professionals that have read it, hence the importance that it is done by a chartered Ed Psychologist.

In an ideal world an independent school should not be necessary, but let’s get real, things are not about to improve anytime soon in the state sector. So what is the difference having swap camps? At my DC current school, classes range from between 2 to 10 pupils. If there are 10 pupils, there are usually two teachers. Lessons are delivered multi-sensory for the different learning styles which each of us have. Additional support in form of occupational therapy and speech and language is also available if required. Each child has an IEP. I also know the educational background of each teacher. By contrast, former state school was class of 30, you just can’t compare. Children do sport each day, the school day is very long but so are the holidays and there is a major emphasis on English and Maths with approximately 9 or 10 lessons of each per week. Children do other subjects such as History, Geography, Science, French but no PSHE as they only “loosely” follow the National Curriculum.

I hope you find the information that you seek.