Dyspraxia Awareness in Schools.

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hollypop18
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Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 10:00 pm

Dyspraxia Awareness in Schools.

Post by hollypop18 »

Hey everyone,

I have recently sent a letter to my local MP to raise my awareness about Dyspraxia Awareness in Schools. I dont know about you lot but I got really hard time at school because of my dyspraxia, so I thought it was about time I did something about it. I did get a response and it has been very positive. My MP wrote to the minister of state for schools asking how this issue could be taken forward. Hopefully I will get a response from that. I think it needs to be made more aware in adults as well, if any of you have any suggestions on how we can raise dypraxia awareness in adults then please let me know! Or you guys can do something about it... Im just fed up with kicking and screaming in trying to get help, or people not being aware, so I get bullied at work, and I got bullied at school because of something I was born with. I personally think its disgusting, we're smart people and we normally dont allow dyspraxia rule our lives, so why when we do ask for help or get bullied do we get knocked down? Or not listened to? As you can see this issue really annoys me and I plan on doing somehing about it. I suppose the first start is everyone writing to their local MP to see what they can do.

Thank you for reading!
Holly.
cpr02
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Posts: 56
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 10:46 pm

Re: Dyspraxia Awareness in Schools.

Post by cpr02 »

hi i know how you feel it can be frustrating cant it ! :D especially when you know your anything but stupid but it doesnt always come accross that way to others! #-o i think its great that your planning to do something about it though - please let me know how you get on ! :D :D

This is just my opinions but i hope they help i think that its easier to raise awareness at a school age than as adults as i think schools dont get enough education on things like disability, stigma, dyspraxia etc although this could have changed since i left school although most people would at least have heard of dyslexia not many have of dyspraxia - im not saying that having dyslexia is any less challenging than having dyspraxia just that there is more awareness there Anyway to raise awareness at a school level you could easily do a talk or disscussion group ideally with someone who has dyspraxia doing the talk you could make it interactive so its not just someone talking at them eg instead of just speaking at them about occupational therapy you could let them try some of the exercises etc you do there to improve balance co ordination and how it works

I think regardless of awareness or not you will always get people who are bullies and who like to make people feel small but raising awareness would be a start right ?! :D :D :D

as adults i think its more difficult to raise awareness as they are more set in there ways and i think adults can sometimes react badly to something that they cant understand / explain the only thing i can think of is education - explaining what dyspraxia is and what way you want to be supported and standing up for yourself if someone gets the wrong idea makes the situation worse you could use the talk idea like with children but it would depend whether people would want to attend or not ??! other than that im really not sure how you could raise awareness on a wider level apart from contacting MPS which you have already done \:D/ good luck and let me know if you think of anything else :P
Evasura
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Location: London

Re: Dyspraxia Awareness in Schools.

Post by Evasura »

I work in a school. We teachers do get training and information about dyspraxia, but it is not really clear and it is up to individual teachers how they apply the information and differenciation in their lessons. How bad it is the ifnromation that we get about dyspraxia that I got diagnosd by someone else, when I had read information about dyspraxia before. They tend just to focus on the difficulties with writing (basically scruffy writing), nothing else, like lack of spacial awareness, emotional problems, etc. It seems to be all focused into passing English.
I can find from our SENCO (Special Needs Coordinator) what the exact situation is in our school and if she would like to do something to raise awareness about dyspraxia (I'll see if there is a quesionnaire for staff about their knowledge of it). A dyspraxia day? Just my closest colleagues in my department and my SEN group of Y11 students know I am dyspraxic, but I'm happy to organise something. Any other teachers here? I'll see what I can do. Contact Duyspraxia Foundation to see if they can support a campaing for schools? (what do they really do? I'm still not clear about their role)
Eva in London
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