Vasily, 12 – Coping with dyslexia and deserving a second chance

Vasily’s mother decided to send her dyslexic son to study in Britain as Russian schools do not adequately support children with learning difficulties.

To help Vasily with his dyslexia, his British boarding school arranged for extra lessons with specialist learning support and allowed Vasily to have extra time during exams. Vasily was getting on well but still found it hard to adapt to a new school in a new country. At the beginning of his second year, he got involved in a conflict and was expelled for fighting.

Vasily’s mother asked us to help find him another school. We spent time getting to know Vasily and gathered positive information about him to make his candidacy appeal to other schools.

His former teachers told us that aside from the isolated incident, Vasily was a young man to be proud of. In his first year at school he had learned English and other foreign languages, had been cast in the lead role of the school play and was picked for the school rugby team.

In light of his success, we managed to find four well respected schools that were willing to give Vasily a second chance (Loretto School, Gordonstoun, Rossall School and St. Bede’s). Vasily passed the 3-month trial period at his chosen school and with the ongoing support and advice of our education specialists, Vasily continues to study successfully in his British school.