A father has pulled his daughter out of a Perth school as he believes she was put “through hell” in lessons.
Craig Burnett has slammed special education support provision in Perth and Kinross, saying he was forced to withdraw nine-year-old Katie due to the lack of help for her dyslexia.
He claims teachers at Craigie Primary had told him and his wife Tanya that the P5 pupil was only slightly behind her peers but when he demanded proof it revealed that she was in fact trailing them by years.
Katie has since written a heart-rending letter to local MP Pete Wishart begging for help to allow her to return to her lessons.
Her father is currently teaching her at home while waiting for a meeting with education officials.
The 38-year-old businessman said: “Learning support in Perthshire is pretty poor, unfortunately. You’d think that in this day and age, in 2015, schools would be up to scratch with dyslexia but the support’s not there.
“It’s left to the teachers to volunteer for seminars for dyslexia it’s not mandatory for them to go on these training courses.
“Why is it that we are struggling so much for teachers to understand that the way they are teaching children with dyslexia is not working?
“Someone who has never come across dyslexia before has a general knowledge that dyslexics get their bs and ds the wrong way, or their g and their y, but it’s way more than that.”
He went on: “I asked for the evidence of what level she was at and it came back from her class teacher that she was borderline P1, going on to P2. What came out was that the homework Katie was bringing home, or work that she had done in class, had been written out by the teacher and Katie was copying that, and we were getting that copy home.
“We were trying to work out how she was managing to write this because when she was at home nothing she was writing made sense.
“It’s almost like they don’t want to single Katie out from the rest of the class, but they need to she needs extra help.
“We don’t want to keep Katie out of school we want her to get an education, every child deserves that so the sooner we can get her back into school, but with the correct support that she deserves, then brilliant. Our concern is that we put her back and she goes back to where she was.”
A council spokeswoman said she could not discuss individual pupils but added: “In general we seek to identify at the earliest opportunity, any additional support needs that children and young people may have and to ensure that the most appropriate support and resources are in place.
“If any parents have any concerns about how their child’s school supports them we would encourage them to speak to the head teacher in the first instance, who will be happy to meet with them and discuss matters in more detail.”
As education is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, Mr Wishart passed on Katie’s letter to Roseanna Cunningham MSP, who said she has contacted the council’s head of education and NHS Tayside on behalf of the Burnetts.
“Clearly, the current state of affairs is unsatisfactory and I will continue to do what I can to try and resolve the situation and get Katie back into school,” she added.