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Liverpool lands UK's first Dyslexia award
LIVERPOOL'S education service has become the first in the UK to achieve dyslexia friendly status. The service has been awarded the first ever British Dyslexia Association (BDA) Quality Mark for its commitment to developing excellent practice in schools to support hundreds of pupils with dyslexia. The education authority achieved the quality mark after meeting the standards required in a list of 30 criteria and having visits to 2 schools by the BDA.
Project Manager Collette O'Brien said:- "We are delighted to be the first education authority in the country to receive this award. It is a result of hard work by council officers, schools and the Liverpool Dyslexia Association and represents a significant step in our progress towards inclusive education."
Liverpool City Council's executive member for education, Councillor Paul Clein, said:-
"I'm thrilled to bits. This is a fantastic accolade and is yet another example of how Liverpool is leading the way in providing fully inclusive education. It shows how far we have come that we are the first education authority in the UK to receive this award and we are determined to build on this good work and continue to provide the best possible education for all pupils."
The quality mark will enable the education service to award Full Dyslexia Friendly School Status to schools meeting strict criteria. The Liverpool Dyslexia Friendly Scheme was launched in June 2002, with the education service offering training to all schools in the city. As a result, more than a hundred schools have received full training, funded by the authority, with 24 attaining Level 1 Dyslexia Friendly School Status.
Letters to the editor:-
"Hunt Crime Watch"
DEAR Southport Reporter,
"The Hunting Act is coming into force on February 18, and the League Against Cruel Sports and its supporters are delighted that finally the cruel sports of hunting with dogs and hare coursing will be banned. We welcome the fact that many hunts have declared they will convert to drag hunting (following a scent instead of chasing a fox), as we have urged them to do so for years. However, we are concerned at what will happen when the hounds have not been retrained to follow a new scent.
It is clear that our supporters and our wide network of monitors will still have much work to do. We are in talks with local police forces to inform them of a range of clear signs of illegal hunting, which they can look out for. For example if a hunt is supposed to be drag hunting and the hounds are running through crops, a railway line or any area where it is unlikely that an artificial scent would have been laid, then it is obvious that hounds are hunting a live quarry. Further information can be found on our website www.huntcrimewatch.com and we urge all those who care about animal welfare to call our hotline on 0845 330 8486 if they see any suspicious activities."
Yours Sincerely, Douglas Batchelor, Chief Executive, League Against Cruel Sports
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Merseyside teaches students to mix business with leisure
OVERSEAS students from Middlesex University will be visiting Merseyside next week to learn more about the City Region's business and cultural offerings. The 80 post-graduate students, accompanied by 5 lecturers, will be in Merseyside from 12 February to 19 February. The trip, which has been facilitated by The Mersey Partnership, is part of their MA Marketing Management course and the students originate from Africa, Far East, mainland Europe, south Asia as well as the UK.
During their time in Liverpool, the students will benefit from a full programme of lectures, talks from local business professionals and informative visits to large organisations across Merseyside and the North West. Evenings will consist of a full social programme, where the students will take in plenty of local culture and heritage. Highlights include joining the Chinese New Year celebrations and a medieval banquet at Leasowe Castle,
Wirral.
Martin King, Director of Tourism at The Mersey Partnership, said:-
"We look forward to welcoming the students to Liverpool and hope that they will benefit from learning more about our region and economy as part of their study programme here."
Sukhbinder Barn, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Middlesex University Business School, said:-
"We are looking forward to returning to Liverpool this month. The trips we have held to date have given students a positive impression of Liverpool and Merseyside and have already generated return trips by some of the students. In the long term, we hope that the students will take the things they have learnt back to their own industries, whether they work in the UK or in countries around the world."
Middlesex University has confirmed that two more trips will take place in October 2005 and February 2006. It is hoped that the visits will continue twice yearly until at least 2008.
Letters To
Editor:-
"SCIENTISTS LAST WEEK"
DEAR Editor,
"Scientists at last week's climate change conference have issued a succession of warnings about the dire consequences of climate change for mankind and wildlife.
Plants, mammals and birds are heading for extinction; rising seas are eroding coasts and swallowing up coastal homes; coral reefs are losing their capacity to soak up carbon dioxide - the gas most responsible for climate change - while storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves are all set to increase in number. And all this, we have been told, could happen far more quickly than we originally thought. We are calling it 'global warming', but more accurately, we are cooking our planet.
There are more than four million references to global warming on the internet search engine Google but 'global overheating' merits just 123 mentions, 'global scorching', 175; 'global frying', 68; and even 'global heating' only 6,000! Yet none of these phrases is adequate for the devastation we are facing.
Cooking our planet will disrupt and devastate all life and giving this process the cosy name global warming only makes it easier for all of us, especially politicians, to ignore the consequences."
Yours faithfully, Dr Mark Avery, Director of Conservation, RSPB
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