http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11287193

A few thoughts on this:

1 - Some parents want their child to have “special needs” even if the child is not actually in any need. Parents will see not being in the top group as cause for concern - is the child dyslexic, discalculate, etc.?

2 - Statemented children attract extra funding. I can’t help thinking that this statement has come on the eve of cuts for politically motivated reasons.

3 - Did you know that a school full to capacity HAS (as in legally obliged) to take on any statemented child regardless of whether there is physical space to put said child? Remember that such a child may also bring along an adult helper, so space for two people may need to be found.

A “statemented” child basically has been assessed and deemed to have special educational needs - that could be anything from dyslexia through to severe physical and/or mental handicaps. It may be that the school taking this child (see point 3 above) may not have the staff, resources or training in place to deal with the needs adequately. It is possible that cuts to the education budgets may see schools being less well equipped in the future to adapt and deal with any intake with special needs.

I suspect that the parents of kids who are statemented know that their child will get extra funding and even a place in certain schools because that is a way past the lottery that is applying for certain schools. More of a please take out child and look there is extra funding that comes with them. It will only really apply to a few, but I wonder if there is a discrepancy between working class special needs and middle class special needs rates.

I have a feeling that this is what happens too.

Based on what I have seen, the opposite is true.

Schools/teachers often completely ignore the possibility of dyslexia and just label a child as lazy, troublesome and disruptive.

Yes, the child is troublesome and disruptive after being completely baffled by the teacher's instructions.

Dyslexic kids need to be given instructions in a simplified manner - you tell them to read chapter 3 from their book, write a page about what you read then draw a picture, but that happens is the first instruction is washed over by the others and the kid has no idea what to do.

So you break it down:
Go and read chapter 3, then come back to me.

Then you issue the next task.
Write a page about what you read, and come back to me

And finally.
ok, now draw a picture about something in the story.

I've seen the difference in these approaches - it is stark.

Is it more likely that schools and teachers are waking up to the signs that some kids need more targetted help, resulting in what Ofsted sees as an influx?

That sounds rather more like ADHD than dyslexia, to me. I suspect one of the problems is kids get misdiagnosed all the time - dyslexia can lead to a child being disruptive due to frustration for example.

It could also be down to better medical diagnosis. There is a downside for schools in that they could be sued if the kids fail to achieve normal results. As you say better teaching can overcome the problems. So failure to teach appropriately might be disadvantaging the child. Kids who are bored also get disruptive because they are bright and everything might beneath them intellectually.

It is symptomatic of ADHD too, but dyslexia in kids of primary school age does lead to frustration for the same reasons - inability to process complex instructions.