[MUSIC PLAYING] My name is Marcia. I'm dyslexic. And I would say that I'm a dyslexic champion and advocate. I'm a specialist in special educational needs. And I'm a parent of a child who's neurodiverse. My MA in special educational needs gives me a kind of depth of understanding of the theory, but you still need that lived experience. I'm an author of-- I'm going to just show you, Black, Brilliant, and Dyslexic. And my current role, I am working with diversity and ability, which is a social enterprise. And I am their partnership and further education lead. [MUSIC PLAYING] Dyslexia does have some processing challenges around reading and writing and spelling. It may be find that really challenging to write that sentence, or how to write that words and finding it really challenging having to do that over and over again until they got it, decoding how to put that sentence together and some of those words. That's maybe one of the struggles and sometimes that word blindness of not noticing the same words because they're not reading, they're just maybe reading by memory. So when you start to really unpick and ask them to read it, you're realising they haven't read it. They've read it by sight. And it is genetic. So my mum's dyslexic. I'm dyslexic. My daughter is dyslexic. I've got so many dyslexic members of my family. [MUSIC PLAYING] No because dyslexia is like a fingerprint, it's unique to that person. And there could be other factors that show up for why a person may have more struggles than others in terms of their dyslexia, especially because it depends on the support and who's identifying what dyslexia might look like. So some people miss it because that child could be very articulate. So they're missing the other struggles because they could be masking it. And they do their best, but inside, they're not feeling great. And when they come home, you're getting it. And don't want to go to school because they just feel that they have to show up and pretend almost. And they're not getting it. It's all going over their heads because it's just too fast. And so dyslexia will display itself in different ways. And there'll be other things that co-occur with that. I think dyslexia is a spectrum. So sometimes we need to go deeper and unpick some of the things that we're seeing children are not displaying. But in having general conversations with children when they just don't feel engaged in that classroom, it's not always that they're just disruptive, but they just might be finding it overwhelming. [MUSIC PLAYING] Having a diagnosis from possibly an educational psychologist or a dyslexia teacher, the two that I'm really firm on is a screening, which is an initial screening, just by doing a few tests. You've got ones that you can do online. You've got ones that you can do paper-based. And then you've got the actual educational psychologist, which comes in stages. It can come in two parts because of the hours that it takes to actually really see what's happening with your speed processing. [MUSIC PLAYING] I've lived with dyslexia all my life, from the primary school classroom, from the moment I didn't feel that I didn't belong. I always say that I love school, but school didn't love me. My teachers told me I was never going to achieve. Was it because of my race because I didn't get that equal playing field, and there was inequality there to get the access and the support? When I was diagnosed at 16, one of the things I thought, fantastic, I'm no longer feeling stupid. I always felt that I had a brain because dyslexia is not based on intelligence. But what I felt is that OK, so I'm Black, I'm a woman, and I'm dyslexic. That's a lot of intersections. And it's how they show up, how do they show up in the school. The curriculum doesn't show me that I belong. And then I'm not getting on with the way the work is. And then I'm not achieving like my peers. If you read my school reports, Marty is not engaged. But Marsha's well-behaved. She wants to try. She's trying. But you can see those wordings tells you something's not quite right. And I do feel that as a young Black girl growing up in Hackney, I was missed. [MUSIC PLAYING] I wrote the book, Black, Brilliant, and Dyslexic because I am one of those children who was really affected by it. And I want different. And that's why I want to talk about it. Even when I'm talking now, I feel quite emotional because I want to make the change. So there's no stigma to say that, yes, as a Black woman, I have dyslexia. It doesn't discriminate. And so the more we see that, the more we can have more awareness because we are living in a diverse, multicultural society. But yet it's really hard because you don't always have-- we're not always at the table. So I just feel it's fortunate we need more people who are dyslexic or neurodiverse in the spaces, being able to give advice and support and guidance. [MUSIC PLAYING] So I've worked across primary schools to higher education, and I'm going to keep it real. Institutional racism does exist. And it's heart wrenching because what I do know, our schools are not necessarily always designed to support us in the way we want them to support us. I've worked with a lot of young people. I've worked with a steering group. And one of the things they always say to me, Marcia, I didn't feel like I belonged. And it's really looking at how we can support our young people to feel they belong and have their voice heard. We need to put the diversity in neurodiversity. There's that element with race, where there's systemic barriers that are still there and why we have to change the culture and the things. We have to change that. Sometimes you see a behaviour, but that behaviour is a form of communication. Are we statistically looking at that child and thinking because they're a young Black boy, that behaviour is a particular thing. What is it? The statistics is there. So there is a high proportion of young Black boys in particular who have been excluded. And when you go down that pipeline of looking at what some of those things are, some of those things have been undiagnosed neurodiversity. But so then it comes into a class thing sometimes, so some people can afford to get the right support and access, so their child can excel and know and feel confident. And then other children don't get that support. So there's a disparity in terms of that equal equality and everybody having a fair chance and those life chances. And that's all entwined about access and getting the reasonable access to be able to achieve your potential. [MUSIC PLAYING] I've seen it time and time in my work as a case officer. We can get a young person being permanently excluded from school or excluded. And just sent to approve a pupil referral unit. And I've seen children from primary school in a PRU, and sometimes they get lost in the system, and they don't get back to mainstream. 50% of people in the prison system are dyslexic or neurodiverse, so we clearly know there's something happening from going into education and then coming straight into justice system to prison system. So there's clearly some kind of symbol. So if we didn't get that right support, that could be a way that dyslexia shows up. And it's not about the dyslexia, but it's about the frustration. And you'll keep giving me more work, more work. I don't understand it, but no one's seeing that. I don't understand it. Or if they've seen it, they're not giving me the support. If you go to private schools, or more specialised dyslexic schools, or schools where you can target and have that time because they've got a working curriculum that's more fluid. We don't all have those chances, so having a friendly dyslexia school or neurodiverse is a multi-sensory way of learning. We'll really give our children a better chance and that's what I think makes the difference. So if a child undiagnosed, then you may have a unhappy child, and you may have a child who goes to a PRU because they've displayed a behaviour that doesn't quite fit into our school rules. So that child goes off that way, and then you've got this child who gets the right support, the right wraparound, because they've got the right support from their parents. And that's another thing. And there was this whole thing that dyslexia is more white and privileged children. It's because some parents were more informed and was aware if so-and-so doesn't have is not quite getting it. There could be something else that's happening. And there you go, it's dyslexia. I always feel like it's a thin line. If I didn't get the right support or get diagnosed at 16, I don't know where I would be. And that last chance of me believing in myself or getting the right support would make a difference to where I would have gone, what my directions would have been, that statistic, or of what they assume a Hackney girl would have been like as a young Black girl. I don't know because I changed that narrative because I had the right support. Early intervention is really key. And it's like a fight even to get my daughter's diagnosis, it took me two years. But if you get the right support, you've got somebody who's sure about themselves in the sense of confident. Because one of the things I find with dyslexia is the self-esteem and the confidence and how you can develop imposter syndrome or sabotage because you feel that you're not good enough. And that does stem from school because that's a good piece of work. You've got a bad piece of work. Your handwriting is this, your hand-- can you imagine that going over and over again. You go to school. Why are we going to school? It's to be curious. It's to be nurtured. We have the right intervention and support, you're going to have a child that feels whole. They feel part of something. And actually, dyslexia is just part of who I am. And I'm not going to always get it right. Yeah, that's the dyslexia coming up there. I want that kind of child knowing themselves and knowing who they are, and that gives them the aspiration to see they've got potential to achieve and be something. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's about being patient and effectively listening. It is hard as a parent. I'm neurodiverse myself, so the way I might do things will be different from the way my child wants to do things and what feels comfortable for them. So like I might put assistive technology and use that. Now, I don't want to use that. So I'm having to always adapt. My daughter is able to mask. She's very fortunate. We're in a house where we have conversation in the sense of understanding your learning, what did you do today. And I'm always catching up with her reading. I'm really on it because I was always mindful that my child or any of my children could be dyslexic because I know it was genetic. So at first, it was a bit of like, oh, I don't want the same will happen for me. But once I got over that in my mind, I'm going to fight for my child no matter what it will be. Knock, knock, it's me again. Hi. And this is what my child's saying today. This is the difficulty they've got. And then next week, we're still having-- and I'll keep going back. I keep going back for more because that's the only way I know my voice will be heard, and my daughter will be seen and then be highlighted. That does help because it's about advocating. I want my child to be able to advocate for themselves. I want other parents to advocate for themselves and know the law, know send law, know the code of practise, know the Equality Act. [MUSIC PLAYING] So having a really supportive mentor and adult they can talk to is really vital, someone who really believes them and gets them and just listens, so the safe space, someone to speak to a counsellor as well. So having that kind of support within a school setting that you can go to somebody when you're having real tricky moments or things don't make sense would be good. Your SENCOs, your Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Coordinator will be in all schools. I would say, if you can, a dyslexic tutor or someone to go over work in a way that can make sense. So at school, you can get that support sometimes if you ask for it. I think parents need it as well to be able to support their child. So having people you can talk to and feel you can trust and share that my child is having difficulty. Where could I go for support and seeing if your network can help you? We have got services which are strategy duty with our counsels to help as well. And within the local authorities, you have got family forums that you can go to as well to get, seek support. That is a good point and start of signposting you. I'm with a local organisation in East London. I'm going to name them the Waltham Forest Dyslexia Association. They do screenings. They do tutoring. So my daughter's had tutoring from when she was diagnosed. In addition to school and what that gave her, that gave her tools to be able to build the confidence. Because one of the things is about confidence. Because if you're not feeling confident because you keep going to school, and you're not getting it, you need to build that confidence. And I feel the tutoring, having a dyslexia teacher really helped my child. So as a parent, talking from a parent's perspective, if you can have the right support to build your child's confidence, so repetition over learning and certain tools and strategies in terms of how to read words, I can see how it's helped my daughter to be the person she is. So she's not seeing dyslexia as a barrier. She knows she's got that, but she finds a mechanism. [MUSIC PLAYING] Don't give up on the children. Find their strengths and empower them to say in a different way. At the moment, Marci is not doing such. But say in a different way that gives you hope, gives you purpose. Because when I got to college, I excelled and achieved beyond my dreams and went to university, and that's what I wanted. And it happened because I put the work in, and I got the support. And so it makes me tearful because I know that still happens if the child doesn't get the right support, and they don't feel confident in themselves, and they feel like nobody believes in me, it can go take you into different directions. And that's why we understand now the pipeline of prison system. I think it's a shame because we're so set on about targets and standards to what you should be achieving. We're not looking at the entrepreneur way of thinking because 50% of people who are dyslexic are entrepreneurs. There's reasons for that because they don't feel they fit into the workplace. They don't feel they fit in. So you know what? I'll do it myself. I'll create my own kind of way. We don't have innovative kind of thinking in the schools. We don't have entrepreneurs. My son said, mum, school prepares you to be employee, but they're not preparing you to be a business owner. And a lot of young people feel that they're stuck because it's not hands-on. It's not creating you with skills or creating ways that you can work in a different way. We need to be more creative in the way we're getting young people to access things, and being innovators in our thinking, to support our young people, to be able to be themselves. [MUSIC PLAYING]