Originally from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, Elizabeth moved to Shropshire when she was aged 5 with her retired RAF serving parents who’d decided to set up their own photography business in Telford.
Elizabeth’s business, ‘The Dyslexic Dyslexia Consultant’ (The DCC) came into being after years of searching for information and help with her son’s educational needs. A single mum, she took it upon herself to attend a dyslexia awareness course in the late 1990’s. After completing the course and understanding exactly each element of the complex condition Elizabeth finally knew that not only her son was dyslexic, but she was too.
“All through my schooling I just thought I wasn’t that ‘bright’, and even then, I knew I wanted to become a teacher. When I finally found out that I was dyslexic it was such a relief for me”.
After the course, Elizabeth was asked to join the Telford Dyslexia Academy.
Elizabeth then undertook a Post Compulsory Certificate of Education (PCCE) awarded from Wolverhampton University and gained a OCR SpLD Certificate for Teachers of Learners with Specific Learning Difficulties.
Now, Elizabeth is Academy Manager and Vice Chair of the Telford Dyslexia Academy, where every Saturday students are given 1:1 teaching which offers huge educational support to each attendee.
Spreading the word about dyslexia is something Elizabeth is hugely passionate about. So much so that in 2008, after attending The Education Show at the NEC in Birmingham and hearing the news that each school, or cluster of small schools, would have only one specialist SpLD (Specific Learning Difficulties) teacher, Elizabeth put her frustration at this response to use rather than complaining. The day after the NEC show, faced with an education system that had failed dyslexics for too long, Elizabeth and her mum Sue (also a dyslexic) decided to put on a Dyslexia Information Day (DiD).
The ethos behind the DiD was to get all the services, organisations and companies that the family had come across during the last decade of involvement in the education system under one roof so that dyslexics could access them quickly and not have to go through the difficulties that Elizabeth had to endure whilst trying to source information and help for her dyslexic son.
The first Dyslexia Information Day was in 2008, and there have been a further 6 since then.
Elizabeth said “our first DiD was huge success; we had over 130 people attending and we gained a lot of very positive feedback for the event”.
“10% of the population is dyslexic” Elizabeth continued “with a further 4% of that number being severely dyslexic. In short it means that there are a lot of people struggling within the education system who are not being taught the ‘right’ way to learn. They will have difficulties in the areas of short term memory, phonological awareness and automaticity. These are known as the core deficits of dyslexia”
As an ongoing project the aims of the DiD remain the same, to provide a free event for people who are interested in Dyslexia and to enable them to find out more. The future plan for DID is also to make it a charitable status.
Another facet of The DDC is to go into educational establishments and workplaces to offer support and training to staff, as well as carrying out dyslexic screening. “This work I find extremely enjoyable”, said Elizabeth. “Being able to make more people aware by imparting the knowledge that I’ve learnt and researched, as well as making a difference to those with specific learning differences is such a huge buzz. When I hear of success stories, when things have clicked into place is when I truly know that I have made a small difference to somebody’s life”.
Elizabeth has delivered courses to the Defence College of Aeronautical Engineering based at RAF Cosford as well educational and commercial establishments in Worcestershire and Shropshire.
With tremendous support from her family and friends, as well as the business community, Elizabeth is looking forward to a very bright future.
“The DiD events will continue, we even have one being run along a similar line in Cambridge next March, after the organiser came to DiD 6 to exhibit. It is just so positive to be able to continually spread the word, offer support and educate those who are stumbling along trying to source information like I was so many years ago”.
Elizabeth is also looking forward to offering dyslexia training to more business and educational establishments throughout the region “but, we are also looking forward to cracking open that bottle of champagne in January, and celebrating what has been an amazing first 5 years”, said Elizabeth.
The DCC, Elizabeth Wilkinson, can be contacted by mobile phone on: 07807 625429 by email:elizabeth@theddc.org.uk and her website is at: www.theddc.org.uk