Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what lessons her Department has learned from international best practice on implementing early dyslexia screening.

The department is committed to improving support for all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including those with dyslexia and other neurodiverse conditions. As part of this, the department is considering evidence on international best practice in its policymaking on special educational needs (SEN).

The department is providing £1 billion more for high needs budgets in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding to £11.9 billion. This funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with complex SEND.

Early identification of need and support is critical to improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND, including those with dyslexia. There are already a number of measures to help teachers do this, including the phonics screening check and statutory assessments at the end of key stage 2.

Schools should apply a ‘graduated approach’ to identify a child’s needs, plan appropriate support, implement that support, and review it regularly to ensure it continues to meet their identified needs. Through this, schools should develop personalised approaches to supporting the unique needs of individual pupils. Schools should involve pupils and their parents in this process, taking their views into consideration.

The core content framework and early career framework, for trainee and early career teachers (ECTs) respectively, covers the first three years or more at the start of a teacher’s career. They set out the core body of knowledge skills and behaviours that define great teaching, and from September 2025 will be superseded by the combined Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF), which sets out a minimum entitlement to training and must be used by providers of initial teacher training and those delivering training to ECTs to create their curricula. The ITTECF contains significantly more content related to adaptive teaching and supporting pupils with SEND.

Measures have also been introduced to support the effective teaching of reading, including for those at risk of falling behind. This includes the English Hubs programme, the publication of the reading framework and an updated list of high quality systematic synthetic phonics programmes for schools.

The English Hubs programme is dedicated to improving the teaching of reading, with a focus on supporting children making the slowest progress in reading. As part of the continuous professional development provided by the English Hubs, the Reading Ambition for All programme has been launched to improve outcomes for children who need additional support with reading, including those with SEND.