iamdyslexic - newsletter

Back to school

I am now back at school for my second year at Charterhouse. I have just started my GCSE courses as I am now in Year 10. I made all my subject choices last term. If you would like to know what I chose you could click here

Duke of Edinburgh Award

I started my Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award at the beginning of 2003. All I have left to do now is the expedition. This award is divided up into 4 parts:

Sport - For my 'sport' I have been learning climbing - we have a very good climbing room at school and I am enjoying this.
Skill - For my 'skill' I have been working in the Theatre and I have been working on the technical side. I don't think I could ever become an actor but I have enjoyed doing the lighting etc.
Service - For this I have been working at The Abbey School which is a Special School. At first I just worked in the holidays as we broke up ages before The Abbey. Now I have started going there every Thursday afternoon. It is good fun. Last week I actually had to help teach two of the students French. They needed some extra help - this seemed quite funny as I don't do French any more because of my dyslexia and here were other students with far greater difficulties than me having to do it - I hope I was a help! I also had to help with a very young group who were doing IT. I enjoyed this but it was quite challenging.
Expedition - I think I will do this sometime next term. Actually I have to do 2 as one is a practice.

I am looking forward to doing my Silver Award next.

Exam regulations

I have to get a new Educational Psychologist's report so that I can have special considerations for my GCSE examinations in 2005. My last report is only 2 years old but apparently I need a new one. I have been thinking about the things that make loads of difference to me and I really hope I will be allowed them in the exams. First of all I will need to use a computer for most of the exams. I don't imagine there will be a problem with this as I always use one and my work would be absolutely useless if I wasn't allowed one. Last term we had ordinary school exams and I was allowed to use a laptop which was OK but I found that were somethings were still really hard. I will list some of the problems below:

I found that the laptop keyboard that I had for the exams was quite difficult to use. I am hoping that in my GCSEs I will be allowed to use an ordinary Windows keyboard or at least one that I am used to. I touch type and so a strange keyboard is very difficult to use. People who look at the keys probably don't mind this as much as me. If I use a Windows keyboard I suppose that I would also need a larger desk to fit everything on.
Last term I was not allowed to use a spell check for my school exams but I am really hoping that I will be able to use one in my GCSEs. Over the years I have developed a way of working which is quite successful. I type my work quite quickly spelling the words as I do (ie not very well) and I also usually make a few typing mistakes. When I have finished my work I run the spell checker and make absolutely loads of corrections. This works quite well although I still miss a few spelling mistakes as I sometimes choose a wrong option from the spelling list. I believe that many adults also work like this even if they are not dyslexic and I just cannot bear having to hand in a piece of work that has not been spell checked. What is the point? I am sure the examiners would rather be able to read and understand my work. If they are worried that I would be able to gain some mystery advantage by using a spell checker then perhaps they should deduct any spelling marks before they begin marking as there is absolutely no way I could possibly ever gain any marks for good spelling. Why do examiners etc have an obsession with spelling when a spellcheck offers such an easy solution. As this is used in the workplace what exactly is their problem with it?
I always work using Microsoft Word as I like to format my work and I often put diagrams and tables in. Last term when I had to use 'wordpad' that was impossible. I could not format my work or alter the line spacing. I could not even see how much I had written as it does not show when you come to the end of a page. Again using 'Word' does not offer me any advantage that is not available to someone writing their script. They can see when they come to the end of a page and they can use arrows, bullet points etc.
I have always been given extra time in exams as I read very slowly and need to read everything at least twice if I am going to understand it. I also take ages reading my work through at the end. The latter point would actually become impossible if I am not allowed a spell checker as I just wouldn't be able to read it! I don't think the examiner would enjoy the script either! I do not imagine there will be a problem with extra time but I will have to wait and see.

If you click here you can see an extract of my last term's 'classical civilisation' exam which I had to do on wordpad without a spell check! I think this explains my point of view better than me just rambling on about it.

MY OLD NEWSLETTERS
I still have my last newsletters and they can be read by clicking here. Also if you remember I used to have a news page, well I have put these back on, so please click here to go to them.