Quote:
Originally Posted by Nasher
The son of a very good family friend is perusing a career on the water, and ideally wants to end up crewing on superyachts.
He's doing a few courses, blagging experience, and has recently passed his PB2.
It's his 21st shortly and we'd really like to buy him a VHF Course, which sounds really easy, but he struggles with exams due to his Dyslexia.
He's a bright lad, very practical, and with the usual help afforded to Dyslexics has done very well at school etc.
It's been a very long time since I did my VHF course, but from what I remember he could find it very difficult in a classroom with a load of people to keep up, and would probably need a lot of help reading and understanding an online course.
Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of a training centre ideally local to the Solent that offers a course with Dyslexia in mind?
I've contacted a couple of centres by email a few weeks ago, but none have been polite enough to bother replying.
So I thought I'd ask on here before I start calling them during the week.
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The classroom course itself is mainly visual and practical - depending on the instructor he will likely need to read (with help if needed) some cards/prompts giving practice situations for making radio/DSC calls. He will need to be able to write (or talk through) a Mayday message, which he could practice in advance with help at home.
The end "exam" is in two sections - 1.) a practical part to demonstrate correct usage of the radio in various situations and 2.) a short written test, half of which is tick box multiple choice, the other half short written answers. The longest thing he would have to write in the exam is a Mayday message.
I've run loads of courses as a volunteer with the Sea Cadets (including often for 10-12 year olds before the minimum 16 age limit for the exam came in) and just adjust the course as needed. I've never had any young person struggle to keep up with the course itself (although have had a few much older people struggle for various reasons), but on a number of occasions as an examiner I've had to sit with individual people to talk through the questions or help write things down on their behalf, which is perfectly acceptable.
If he's done some prep work at home (which is a pre-requirement for all 1 day courses and each centre will/should send out their list of pre-course home work that you can help with), from what you describe I think any reasonable centre should be able to accommodate him successfully.
I'm sure centres will respond, many will have been closed for the last few weeks over Christmas/New Year as clearly not many people want boating courses at the moment!
I will ping you a PM with some school suggestions that might be worth trying if you haven't already.
