Literacy Aotearoa Gisborne gains Dyslexia-Friendly Quality Mark

Our Ikaroa-Rāwhiti | Gisborne Cluster has been awarded the Dyslexia-Friendly Quality Mark (DFQM) in recognition of its commitment to being dyslexia-friendly.
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The Dyslexia-Friendly Quality Mark (DFQM) is a collaboration between Ako Aotearoa and the Tertiary Education Commission designed to encourage more inclusive environments for learners, trainees or clients with dyslexia - a learning disorder which affects about ten percent of the population.

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The DFQM lets neurodiverse learners know that an organisation is a safe place for them, where their needs are understood and supported. It recognises organisations that take a strategic approach to creating an inclusive environment for learners, trainees, or clients with dyslexia. Currently only 10 organisations have been awarded the DFQM.

To achieve the DFQM, organisations need to meet standards that measure their practice in four key areas:

• leadership and management
• the quality of teaching and learning
• the teaching and learning environment provided for learners
• the quality of the organisation's relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

Our team in Gisborne needed to show that they recognise and support dyslexic learners and have an awareness of what is useful support for people with dyslexia.
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Literacy Aotearoa has always recognised that individual learners bring individual learning characteristics and we always want to support our learners to build their personal strengths. We have a mission to increase the critical literacy of adults in Aotearoa - increasing our understanding of learners through our awareness of dyslexia increases our ability to do this.

This is our first site to be awarded the DFQM and we are proud to be working to make our organisation as friendly and supportive of neurodiverse learners as we can be.

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More about dyslexia and the DFQM accreditation process

Listen to Ako's Annette van Lamoen discuss the DFQM on RNZ National (17 September, 2021).

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