Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve teacher training on dyslexia in mainstream settings in (a) Beckenham and Penge and (b) across the country.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.

The Core Content Framework and Early Career Framework, for trainee and Early Career Teachers (ECTs) respectively, cover 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set out the core body of knowledge skills and behaviours that define great teaching, and from September 2025 will be superseded by the combined Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF), which sets out a minimum entitlement to training and must be used by providers of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.

We recognise that the early identification of need and support is critical to improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND, including those with dyslexia, and measures have been introduced to support the effective teaching of reading. 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.

To improve early identification, we have commissioned evidence reviews from University College London which will highlight what the best available evidence suggests are the most effective strategies to identify and support children and young people with different types of needs in mainstream schools.

Additionally, the ‘What Works in SEND’ research programme will research tools that schools can use to identify the needs of neurodivergent children. The research is expected to be completed by March 2026.