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this is too slow for learners who may have several hours of reading to do every day. The OrCam Read device works offline so it is also proving to be an excellent solution for exams as it meets the JCQ guidelines and reduces the need for human readers. Students understand and absorb more of the


content when they can see and hear text and can focus on the subject matter. Moon Hall gives them the skills and confidence so that it becomes second nature to use assistive technology instead of relying on adult intervention.


Putting steps in place Michelle talked to contacts at the BDA, software companies and on LinkedIn and then turned to adults with an interest in accessibility. 'Many of them had dyslexia and were suggesting all sorts of mainstream solutions that are used by adults at university and in industry. We invited the head of accessibility at Microsoft Arran Smith, who helped us take a long look at our assistive technology. He also ran staff training and drew on his experience of supporting other schools. Promethean, the whiteboard specialists, became involved with the school and, in conjunction with them, we advertised a post of Digital Champion Apprentice. Ben Driskell is nearer the students' age than most of our teachers and he is a bridge between the two groups.' Moon Hall had started on their journey but had


plans to put assistive technology at the heart of provision and realised that it needed to be one person's responsibility going forward. It was at this stage that they recruited David Curran. David's role is to make learners independent


and to prepare them for their life when they leave Moon Hall aged 16. 'There is still a stigma attached to dyslexia,' he said, 'but we want our learners to have the confidence to say, 'I have dyslexia and this is what I need to succeed. Sadly, when children arrive at this school, they are often bruised by their experience of education, so we do have to tread quite carefully’ expanded Michelle.


Integrating children into the school ‘Most children come from a mainstream classroom environment where they've had to keep up with the rest of the class, so they've never really established strong phonics skills or literacy skills. There’s also more pastoral support, and a heavy reliance on making sure they feel nurtured, safe and secure and then we gently introduce the technology,' said David. 'A lot of the children who arrive here might not have had access to software tools or even had it suggested that they might use computers to help with their work. The technology has to be treated like any academic subject here at the school. It has to be introduced at the right sort of speed and students need to be motivated to use it. We use lots of games and fun activities to reduce the fear and build up their confidence because if they're not confident they will reject the support that assistive technology can offer.' The maximum class size is 12 so when David


takes a class, especially in the lower part of the school, he can provide a differentiated lesson where those children who are more experienced


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or confident users get on with the task and do whatever it is that they need to do, which then frees up David and a teaching assistant to help individual pupils in quite an intense way. Introducing and implementing technology A former design and technology teacher, David


could see the impact dyslexia had on student performance. Many young people would use the same words all the time: 'Their vocabulary was limited by the words they could spell so we needed to build their vocabulary including specialist terms and find technology that would let them overcome difficulties and show the quality of their knowledge, analytical skills and creativity.' Years 5 and 6 have an hour a week on touch


typing and years 7 to 11 have an hour a week for assistive technology. At Moon Hall they use KAZ Type to teach touch typing, which also lets pupils and staff add their own words. While there are plenty of free touch typing games, David uses KAZ because there is a specialist dyslexia version of the software that teaches the basics of keyboarding in just 90 minutes and pupils can set up their own profile for colours, fonts and screen brightness. In their assistive technology lessons, they teach


pupils to use keyboard shortcuts, screen readers, voice recognition and how to use Microsoft’s Dictate and Immersive Reader functions. They also have class packs of ExamReader Pens that learners are encouraged to use in subjects which have a heavy literacy load such as English and history. Moon Hall has recently introduced OrCam


Read, a smart camera device that will read text from books, papers, posters or digital screens. Originally intended for people with sight loss and visual impairments, OrCam is proving to be a powerful way of letting students access any text. While there are other text readers most will only do a word, sentence or paragraph at a time and


Planning for life after school Once they have mastered some of the basics, students work on projects. The Year 11 group is busy applying for college places and apprenticeships. They are using the Jobs Explorer Database (JED) from Careersoft, which has a read aloud feature built in, and are producing CVs in Word using shortcuts and Dictate /Read Aloud functions. Some colleges and companies have online application forms which students are accessing via Microsoft Edge, which has built in Read Aloud and Immersive Reader. A visit to the SEN show in Islington in October


introduced them to Read&Write from Text Help, which has a toolbar with different functions that sits on top of all and any sites and apps and makes them more accessible, including coloured overlays and screen masking. Now David is using it to support, among other things, the teaching of Scratch programming online. 'Now our learners are setting their sights


higher,' said David. 'They know they have to move on post-16 but have not necessarily been aware of the pathways open to them post-18. We recently had visits from several further education colleges and Alps, a group of training providers that specialises in apprenticeships and work-based learning. The University of Surrey came in and worked for a morning with our year 11 students looking at interview and revision techniques in preparation for their college applications and exams. Future work with the University of Surrey includes a two day campus visit and graduation assembly for all year 9s. It's interesting to see the change. Many of the students struggled with school before coming here and would not have classed themselves as being academic, but now that we are focusing so much on assistive technology, they are beginning to see ways of overcoming barriers and thinking more about what they are good at and what they enjoy.'


uhttps://www.moonhallschoolreigate.co.uk


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