If you look on the Department for Education (DfE) website for “dyscalculia,” what you get is this:
Group 1 – Car and Motorcycle:
Mild learning disability. Learning difficulty is not included.
Dyslexia, dyscalculia, and so on, are no bar to ordinary Group 1 licences being awarded after successful driving tests, and the DVLA need not be informed.
Group 2 – Bus and Lorry:
! – May be able to drive, but must notify the DVLA.
Licensing will be granted provided there are no other relevant problems. The DVLA may require an assessment of adequate functional ability at the wheel. It is expected that a full Group 1 licence would already be held following a DVSA driving test pass.
Group 2 – Severe Cases:
! – Must not drive and must notify the DVLA.
Licensing may be granted provided there are only minor degrees of learning disability and the condition is stable with no medical or psychiatric complications. It is expected that a full Group 1 licence would already be held.
In addition to this, there are reports of a few legal cases that involve neurodevelopmental disabilities including dyscalculia, mainly in the context of educational support or employment under the Equality Act.
But there is nothing about what dyscalculia actually is, how to get assessed for it, or how to access support. The old DfES website had much more.
I asked my MP, Tulip Siddiq (Labour, Hampstead and Kilburn), to submit a parliamentary question about government policy on dyscalculia, as there was nothing substantive on the DfE website.
After several weeks, Nadhim Zahawi MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, replied:
“Since the introduction of the SEND reforms in 2014, we have provided funding for a range of condition-specific organisations to develop resources and training to help teachers deliver high quality teaching across all types of SEND… hosted on the SEND Gateway, an online portal offering educational professionals free, easy access to high quality information, resources and training for meeting the needs of children.”
He included a helpful link to https://www.sendgateway.org.uk, which I wouldn’t have found otherwise as it doesn’t appear on the DfE site.
So what does this actually mean?
Zahawi’s letter suggests that dyscalculia support has been outsourced to NASEN – a national body for special needs training, especially for SENCOs (Special Educational Needs Coordinators). However, NASEN doesn’t seem to run the training themselves but links to providers like Pearson, GL Assessment, and Nisai. Some funding is also directed to the British Dyslexia Association (BDA).
What do these organisations offer?
NASEN:
The resources page offers nothing specific on dyscalculia. The SEND Gateway includes a £6 BDA webinar and a link to BDA training. One set of training materials was commissioned in response to a Government recommendation after the 2009 Lamb Inquiry. These include a single dyscalculia module (out of 16). The documentation is useful, but hard to find. One useful resource:
http://advanced-training.org.uk/resources/SpLD/Unit%20PDFs/16_dyscalculia.pdf
Still, this content is now over 10 years old. It’s worth noting that dyscalculia wasn’t even mentioned in the Lamb Inquiry report itself.
BDA (British Dyslexia Association):
The BDA has a dyscalculia committee chaired by Peter Jarrett. They’ve collated some useful information and offer links to training and qualifications in identifying and supporting dyscalculic learners.
It’s not clear whether the DfE has evaluated any of this content. Its own website only includes a few legal cases referencing dyscalculia.
Summary
I don’t know how much funding these organisations have received from the DfE, but it appears to be poor value for money. The situation is clearly unsatisfactory:
- For dyscalculic learners
- For the people trying to teach them
- And in terms of official recognition of the condition
Dyscalculia is more profound than dyslexia, according to the 2008 Government Office for Science report. Yet dyslexia receives far more attention and funding.
For more on the policy implications of dyscalculia, see Chapter 11 of my book:
“Dyscalculia: From Science to Education”
Link to the book