New Spotlight webinar on Wednesday 17 January at 6pm.
Join experts Julia Clouter and Myles Pilling to discover the right assistive technology to enhance neurodiverse learners’ outcomes.
The webinar will include practical tips and strategies and the live session will include an opportunity to ask questions.
If you can’t join live, recordings will be sent out.
Book here.
There’s lots to tell you this week, so I’ll do it in quick chunks:
Thank you for everything you do for this charity!
Andy
Theo Paphitis and the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity have this month, November 2023, launched the Theo Paphitis Dyslexia Bursary to provide funding for schools to offer free training to teachers and teaching assistants around the UK.
The response to the free training for primary and secondary state schools was incredible and all 50 spaces filled quickly.
Successful applicants are taking part in the charity’s 6-week online ‘Supporting Learners with Dyslexia’ course.
We are delighted that, thanks to Theo and his team, another 50 training spaces will be released in Spring 2024.
TV Dragon, retail entrepreneur and dyslexia champion, Theo Paphitis, commented: “Dyslexia has been a huge part of my life and shaped me into who I am, but school and coping with what I now understand to be undiagnosed dyslexia, was tough to deal with. To have had access to teachers and TAs who understood how to identify, and more importantly, how to help people like me deal positively with dyslexia would have been a game changer.
I hope that this Bursary will grow and grow and help many more with dyslexia in education, but also in the workplace going forward. That all the teacher spaces were snapped up within the hour shows the need for this bursary and support for those with dyslexia.”
The aim of the Theo Paphitis Dyslexia Bursary is to particularly support state schools where there are young people from low-income families, by giving them access to the expertise and guidance of Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity regarding the best ways to support young people with dyslexia.
Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity CEO, Andy Cook added: “Helen Arkell’s aim is to remove barriers to learning, employment and life for more and more people with dyslexia, regardless of ability to pay, and we are indebted to Theo Paphitis and Ryman for helping us to achieve this. The demand has been high for the online places with a waiting list already in place for the spring training spaces, showing the power of what we can do when we work together and offer the right support in the right places.”
Theo Paphitis and Andy Cook
We are coming to the time of year when we put our hands in our pockets to make life that little bit lovelier for the people we care about. And who can resist a bargain? If you are shopping for Black Friday, could you send a bit of love our way and sign up to the various schemes that mean we get donations while you shop – at no cost to yourself? These include:
Want to help us raise even more for FREE? Well, now you can just by shopping via Give as you Live Online!
When you shop at over 6,000 top stores including John Lewis & Partners, Expedia and Marks & Spencer via Give as you Live Online, they’ll turn a percentage of your spend into free funds for us!
Simply sign up, search for the retailer and start shopping. It’s that simple!
Get started today! Sign up via Give as you Live
Whenever you buy anything online – from your weekly shop to your annual holiday – you could be raising free donations for Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity with easyfundraising.
There are over 7,000 brands on board ready to make a donation – including eBay, Argos, John Lewis, ASOS, Booking.com and M&S – and it won’t cost you a penny extra to help us raise funds.
All you need to do is:
1. Go to https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/hadc/ and join for free.
2. Every time you shop online, go to easyfundraising first to find the site you want and start shopping.
3. After you’ve checked out, the brand will make a donation to Helen Arkell at no extra cost to you whatsoever!
There are no catches or hidden charges and we will be really grateful for your donations.
Support Helen Arkell every time you sell on eBay. Simply pick us as your charity and the donation percentage (10-100%). eBay waives the same percent in fees. When the item sells, the donation is automatically sent to Helen Arkell and you get a donation receipt.
When you pay through eBay Checkout for an item, you also have the option to add a small donation to Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity. You can ask PayPal Giving Fund to claim Gift Aid on your donation, boosting its value at no cost to you.
For more information about how it works, click here.
Thank you for your support and happy shopping!
We wanted to celebrate what makes people with dyslexia unique so we asked you to share your own unique dyslexia story.
Here are some of the amazing video responses:
If you missed out, you can still take part! Make a short video, lasting no longer than one minute and email your video to: events@helenarkell.org.uk
Thank you!
You can keep up-to-date with everything that is going on by signing up for our e-newsletter.
In the midst of the pandemic Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity joined forces with Real Training, the Dyslexia Guild, Patoss, Dyslexia Action and the British Dyslexia Association to help over 1,000 learners across the UK, who were in particular need of help and were falling behind. We called ourselves the Professional Tutoring Partnership for the purpose of this joint project.
During the project we collected ‘before and after’ data which has now been analysed and you can see it here: https://tutorpartnership.com/
Highlights are the fact that our specialist teachers succeeded in significantly enhancing the learners’ engagement with school, as well as improving their learning behaviours.
We are proud that Helen Arkell took part in this project at a time when the country was really struggling, and the effects upon disadvantaged children were particularly noticeable. We are also proud of how our respective organisations came together to work as one united team, at a time of crisis in the world at large.
Are you an adult with dyslexia? Perhaps you are a parent or caregiver to a person with dyslexia. Our friends at University of Reading are keen to hear from you on what direction you think dyslexia research should take. What should the priorities be?
Please take their 5-minute survey here.
Thank you!
We would love to see you at our annual Christmas Drinks evening. Come and enjoy drinks and nibbles with our friends and colleagues and have a look around the Centre.
This is our chance to catch up and to say a heartfelt thank you for the support you’ve given us over the last 12 months and, of course, to wish you well for the New Year.
Where: 24 West Street, Farnham GU9 7DR
When: Thursday, 30 November from 6 to 8 pm
Please let us know you are coming along by emailing events@helenarkell.org.uk
See you there!
When I look back over recent years at Helen Arkell, I can see lots of areas where we’ve made progress. We’re helping many more people with dyslexia than we used to. We’re reaching people from a much wider geographical area. We’re helping lots more people from lower-income backgrounds with bursary-funded support. We’re training more teachers in how to support children with dyslexia in the classroom, and workplaces in how to support their dyslexic employees.
But there’s still something that we continue to be pretty rubbish at. And this is a plea from me, to do something about it, between us as a team. Because if we make progress in this area, we will really make a step-change regarding the numbers of people with dyslexia we can help with every year that goes by, long into the future.
So, let’s talk about gifts in Wills.
Other charities attract many generous benefactors who leave gifts in their Wills to ensure charitable activity can continue long after they’re gone, leaving a lasting legacy. For many charities this enables them to double the number of people they can help. But for us, this remains an area of relative weakness.
Don’t get me wrong, we are starting to see growing numbers of the Helen Arkell community start to write the Charity into their Wills in some way, shape or form, large or small. (Only last month, another person informed me that they had done so, which is what prompted me to write this). While that is absolutely brilliant (and these people are heroes, who will ensure that future generations continue to be helped by this charity) I would dearly love to persuade each and every person in the Helen Arkell community to at least consider updating their Will, and to consider making a gift to this charity, however small.
It doesn’t matter whether you have personal experience of dyslexia or not, or if you’ve been a teacher and want to give back to the dyslexic community, or indeed if you just happen to know someone whose life has been touched by this charity – any contribution would make a huge difference.
I would be immensely grateful if you would read the attached, and take action if you feel moved to do so. I have already written the charity into my Will. Mrs F from Northumberland wrote the charity into her Will too, and we received a gift of £5,000 to help us fulfil our mission.
As you will see from the attached information, it’s not a question of choosing between family and charity – it’s just seeing if you could spare a little gift after you’ve made provision for your nearest and dearest.
And leaving gifts to charities in Wills can bring tax benefits too.
Thank you for listening, and thank you for anything you can do to help!
Andy
Andy Cook
Chief Executive
PS As someone who makes a pledge to Helen Arkell in your Will, you will be invited to our events, so you feel in touch with our innermost plans and activities. Please do let us know if you decide to act on the attached information, so we can be sure to include you. If you prefer to remain anonymous, that’s fine too.
New Spotlight webinar on Tuesday 28 November at 6pm.
Join us to find out from expert Natalie Diamond about Mindfulness, Cognitive Hypnotherapy and Neuro Linguistic Programming and to understand how they can help self-esteem and confidence, especially with dyslexia.
The webinar will include practical tips and techniques that can be used every day to build confidence and create a positive self-image.
If you can’t join live, recordings will be sent out.
Book here.
Registered charity in England and Wales (1064646). A company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales, company number 3432423.
