The centre lost funding from the States in 2023 and has had to survive on donations for the past two years.
Teresa O’Hara, the Day Centre manager, pictured, wrote to parents this week with the news which she said she ‘deeply regretted’.
‘Two years ago, Education decided that each school would provide dyslexia teaching by their staff. Therefore, they would no longer need our service,’ she said.
‘We have continued to raise funds to provide tuition and the running costs of the centre, but we have found over the years that raising money is getting harder and everything is getting more expensive.’
She added that she was proud of all the pupils who had come to them for help and thanked the ‘exceptional’ teachers at the centre.
‘Over the years we have taught and assessed thousands of children and adults,’ she said.
‘We have felt privileged to have met amazing pupils, and to hear what they are achieving and what the future holds for them.’
The centre opened in September 1986 in the now-demolished pavilion at the King George V Playing Field.
It started with a single educational psychologist and a teacher, who were funded to qualify as dyslexia teachers, when dyslexia was not even officially recognised in Guernsey as a learning disability.
Mrs O’Hara and her husband Mike went on to pay for a pilot scheme in a primary school.
Until 2023 Education, Sport & Culture provided about £250,000 annually to fund the centre, based at the former St Andrew’s School, and the centre itself raised additional funds of between £50,000 and £60,000.
At the time, ESC president Andrea Dudley-Owen said there were now language and literacy teachers, with dyslexia teacher qualifications, in schools, and the committee needed to ensure that States money benefited the maximum number of young people. The committee said that bringing dyslexia support ‘in-house’ and would ensure literacy difficulties were picked up early and would allow ‘targeted interventions’ which would enable children to keep up with their peers.
Deputy Heidi Soulsby, a long-time supporter of the work of the centre, paid tribute to the contribution it had made to Guernsey for almost 40 years.
‘I would personally like to thank Mike and Teresa O’Hara and all the staff for all they have done,’ she said.
‘It is a real shame as they have provided a wonderful service. We wait and see the extent of help for dyslexia now it has been taken in-house.’
Education’s approach to dyslexia
Children who are identified by their school as needing support are provided with bespoke intervention that is based on detailed assessments and observation of the child. All children with dyslexic tendencies are covered by this.
Schools have an additional learning needs coordinator and a language and literacy specialist intervention teacher who is specially trained to identify, assess and support and a range of literacy needs. Ten local teachers hold a level five qualification in teaching dyslexic learners.
Criteria for specialist intervention is for a child to be working 18 months or more behind their age.
At secondary school level, special exam arrangements are sometimes required for dyslexic learners.
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