Bucks et al

Group Contact:
Maddy Cornish (Membership Secretary) mecornish@btinternet.com or Henri Court (Chairperson) Henricourt01@aol.com.

How do you provide support for members assessing for dyslexia when the nature of assessment (eg diagnostic for teaching purposes, to justify special exam arrangements, DSA for HE students) and the age groups assessed are so diverse? We decided to tackle this in two sessions, the first being an "Any Questions" format on using standardised tests for assessment purposes, held at Gt Missenden School on Monday November 30th 2009. Our expert panel (Jane Thom, Liz Griffin, Louise Green, Julia Roper and Kate Bird) kindly made copies of its testing materials available for inspection by attendees. Questions were submitted in advance and covered: appropriate tests to use and the thorny issues encountered when testing ESOL/EAL pupils/students; the earliest age for testing children and suitable test materials; tests which offer the best value for money; PhAB v CTOPP; GORT4, Hedderley; Alcock; Peabody/OWLS v BPVS for assessing receptive/expressive language. During the discussions, several useful points were made. In particular, that assessors should not change the manner in which the tests are administered, because this will invalidate the results. Specialist teachers were encouraged to use up-to-date testing material and to consult lists of approved tests available via the Patoss web site. The evening proved very interesting and highlighted the large number of tests used by the membership.

The second meeting has been re-scheduled due to the recent heavy snowfall. On Monday February 8th 2010 at Gt Missenden School (7.45 for 8pm), Jane Thom will deliver a talk entitled: "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to DSA assessment report writing". The government's SpLD Working Group 2005 DfES Guidelines for Assessment of SpLDS in Higher Education set out exacting standards for report writing. These guidelines are relevant and good practice for anyone who wishes to produce a professional looking dyslexia assessment report. The session will cover the reporting of test results in the correct style (including the demystification of standard deviations) and Jane will show how she presents a summary of results in a graphical form. This is extremely useful to explain the results to the student who is being assessed and for anyone who has to use the report to support the student in the future.

Future programme:

Spring Term - IT hands on sessions.

Summer Term - "Getting Practical with Maths" and the AGM and social meeting.

Charges vary according to membership status. Ordinary meetings are generally free for full National Patoss members.