Dyslexia: a personal reflection

I wrote a post yesterday about GCSE results in respect of what we carry and what we can let go.

It made me reflect back on my own experiences at that age and how difficult GCSE’s were, not to mention results day.

I remember going to the school with my Mum to collect the results and I was nervous, I had always struggled at school, but recall this constant exhaustion from trying really hard. By 4pm all I was capable of doing was watching TV – my brain was over stimulated and I needed time to just process the day.

Unfortunately, I barely scraped through my GCSE’s and I remember feeling stupid. My friends had all done well and were celebrating and I was wondering what sort of future I could now possibly have because GCSE’s are depicted as the be all and end all at that age.

There was this sort of despair. On my own, in my thoughts I never felt stupid. Not with my peers and my family. Yet these results were dire.

It can be a very isolating feeling – everyone around you is looking forward to next steps and will be going to dinner with family and friends to celebrate success. But what do you do when you have nothing to celebrate?

The loneliness of that is haunting and I empathise with the 16-year-old version of me.

The coming days were challenging, you feel a need to fix everything in that moment and a need to have all of the answers straight away.

My parents were clearly disappointed, my siblings had done much better than me and I think there was an element of surprise. Facing their disappointment along with your own confusion is probably one of the earliest memories I have of my own resilience.

There was a lack of support from the school – but there are options available to you.

I went on to re-sit some GCSE’s, went to college and then on to university.

It was only at the age of 41 that I was diagnosed with Dyslexia. It was the Director of the company that I was working for at the time that highlighted that my report writing was terrible. So I went on and did an online test which confirmed my fears. 

I pursued proper testing after that and only at the official diagnosis stage was I able to receive any help with my Dyslexia.

I managed to struggle through the entire education system without anyone realising that I was Dyslexic. But now everything made sense.

At school I was told that I was stupid and lazy.

I couldn’t grasp things at the speed of my peers, so I used to make jokes and fool around. This is a common coping mechanism for people with Dyslexia, to mask the areas in which they are struggling. Unfortunately, this gets you labelled as the ‘class clown’ or as being distracting to other pupils. 

Rather than getting support, you are often removed from the classroom for being disruptive – further impacting your learning.

Now, I run my own training and coaching business and have negotiated my way through by seeing my Dyslexic strengths. I have big picture thinking and an understanding of my strengths and weaknesses. I know that I need to record information as my memory doesn’t work like other people’s. I know that I process things slowly and that I need to talk things through to be able to work through them. I know I can’t read a map to save my life – but thankfully someone invented Satnav!

If you take anything from this, remember that people do not want to fail. None of us, no matter our culture, background or learning abilities. We all want to succeed.

There is a reason why children behave the way they do and in mass-group learning masking the areas in which you lack are common coping mechanisms for many.

Just because you didn’t score well in an exam does not mean you don’t have the knowledge. The testing system is just not geared up for neurodiversity.

A low score in exam conditions is not a reflection of your intelligence – it simply identifies that the testing system in place doesn’t meet your needs.

There is strong evidence to suggest that if the education system was more neurodiverse, more children would succeed. 

When people fail, especially under these circumstances, the impact on their confidence and self-esteem can be life changing. The system sadly needs an overhaul now we have better understanding of individual learning capabilities and processes. 

The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) shared these statistics:

For 2024/25, (the latest available data)

• Only around 40% of pupils with a specific learning difficulty achieved a grade 4 or above in both GCSE English and maths.

• This compares with 72.3% of pupils with no identified special educational need.

• So there is an attainment gap of roughly 33 percentage points.

• At the stronger benchmark of grade 5 or above in English and maths, only around 20% of pupils with dyslexia/SpLD achieved this, compared with around 50% of pupils without identified SEN.

In July 2026 they confirmed:

Only 2 in 10 pupils with dyslexia achieved grade 5 or above in GCSE English and maths.

Around 6 in 10 pupils with dyslexia or another specific learning difficulty do not achieve a standard pass (grade 4 or above) in both GCSE English and maths.

GCSEs place substantial demands on reading speed, written expression, spelling, processing information and working under time pressure. The BDA argues that these demands can create barriers for dyslexic learners even where they have strong knowledge and understanding.

The BDA describes dyslexia as a combination of abilities as well as difficulties. A dyslexic child might be articulate, imaginative, knowledgeable, creative, artistic or sporty, while experiencing significant difficulties with reading, writing, processing or organisation.

If you think you or your child might be Dyslexic, here are 5 things to look out for:

1.    Reading is noticeably slow or laboured

2.    Spelling is unusually inconsistent

3.    What they/you write doesn’t reflect what you say

4.    You/They struggle with processing, memory or instructions

5.    You/ They are exhausted by things that seem to come easily to others.

If these sound familiar, you can seek more guidance from the British Dyslexic Association website. 

The BDA says that a school does not need a formal diagnosis to put SEN support in place, and support shouldn't be delayed while waiting for assessment.