On 15th May 2012 the government's response and next steps document to the Support and Aspiration green paper was published.
You can read the Government's document here
The British Dyslexia Response is:
The British Dyslexia Association remains deeply concerned about the implications of these changes for dyslexic children. Statements will be scrapped from 2014 in favour of an education, health and care plan.
The BDA is aware that local authority educational psychology and dyslexia specialist advisory teacher teams have been drastically cut back in the past 18 months and the BDA is concerned about the loss of skilled professionals and the impact this will have on assessment and support services for dyslexic pupils.
The scrapping of the school action and school action plus special educational needs categories in schools is also of great concern as the vast majority of dyslexic pupils would fall into these categories. These categories will be replaced by a single new category of SEN, but it is also clear that there is a move towards having fewer pupils identified as having special educational needs. The reality is that the needs of dyslexic pupils will not disappear just because there is a wish to have fewer names on the schools SEN register.
The BDA does, however, broadly welcome the aspiration of reducing the adversarial nature of the current statementing process, including the provision of mediation for disputes and personal budgets to increase parental choice. Only the most severely dyslexic children who are underachieving by several years are currently considered eligible for statements. It will be crucial that the statuary rights of these children to their specified provision is protected in the change over from one system to another.
The British Dyslexia Association supports the use of classroom teaching that is dyslexia friendly. However, class teachers do not currently receive mandatory input on their teacher training courses about how to spot dyslexia, how to teach in a dyslexia friendly way or when to refer the child for further assessment and intervention. The BDA currently has an E-petition campaign to bring about a government debate to make dyslexia input mandatory in all initial teacher training http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20674. This is essential, together with on-going training for the existing school workforce.
The BDA also supports the use of specialist assessment and intervention work to meet the individual special educational needs of the individual child where appropriate. Far too many dyslexic children currently are either not identified at all in the school system, or where they are identified, the level of provision they receive is not sufficient to meet their needs. The British Dyslexia Association is concerned that there should be clear lines of accountability within the new system to ensure that the needs of dyslexic pupils are recognised and met.
The British Dyslexia Association will continue to represent the needs of dyslexic pupils to policy makers. The BDA will monitor the impact of the changes extremely closely through a number of means, including the BDA Helpline (which receives 20,000 calls a year), BDA affiliated local associations and BDA memers.