Office Opening Times
Monday - Friday 9.00am - 5.00pm Wednesday 10:30am - 5.00pm Saturday/Sunday Closed
How to get support:
If you are an enrolled student and have a mental health issue, medical condition, disability or dyslexia, we are the first point of contact to provide advice and information to you.
You don’t need to be registered disabled to use the services of Disability and Dyslexia Support (DDS).
The definition of disability that we work with covers all of the following;
Support for disabled students/applicants
If you are a disabled student, with long-term mental health issue, medical condition, disability, or a specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia, we recommend that you contact DDS to discuss any support needs before you accept your offer.
You may be eligible for financial support towards the cost of extra help or equipment you need on your course from the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA). If you are not eligible for the DSA, or have complex support needs likely to exceed the DSA allowance, the university may fund some of your costs, based on your needs but there is a limit to the amount of funding the university will provide. Guidance on the indicative limits can be found by contacting us at disability@lsbu.ac.uk.
The university will do all it can to meet your needs. However, if you do not contact Disability & Dyslexia Support to discuss your support needs in advance of joining your course, we may not be able to meet all of your needs, and / or there may be some delay to putting your support in place.
Before you accept your offer it is important that you read all the information given at this link:
www.lsbu.ac.uk/joiningUs.shtml
Registering with Disability & Dyslexia Support:
In order to receive support as a student at LSBU you must register with DDS, so please contact us for an appointment. Appointments are available at the Southwark and Essex campuses. Appointments for both sites can be made in person in our Southwark office on the 4th Floor Bridge of the Perry Library, or by calling 020 7815 6405 (we are sorry we cannot make appointments via email at the moment).
We will book you in to see a Disability Officer to discuss your support needs. Please bring medical evidence or your Educational Psychologist’s Report (Dyslexia Assessment report) to the appointment as we will not be able to put your support arrangements in place without this (a few exceptions apply).
IMPORTANT DEADLINES: Exam Support Deadlines for students with a mental health issue, medical condition, disability or dyslexia
In accordance with the University's Academic Regulations for Taught Programmes, you must have attended an appointment with Disability & Dyslexia Support to discuss alternative assessment arrangements for formal examinations by the end of week 10 of the current semester.
The deadline date for new or updated exam support arrangements for the second semester of the 2011/2012 academic year is Friday 27 April 2012. (updated 20 December 2011)
If you already have support in place your exams are organised by your faculty, please contact them regarding rooms, dates and times etc. as we’re afraid we do not have this information in the Disability & Dyslexia Support Office. In each faculty there are “co-ordinators” responsible for implementing the support arrangements agreed with DDS. Their contact details can be found on our Faculty Contact page.
Evidence:
If you have a specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia or dyspraxia, please give us evidence in the form of a diagnostic assessment from an Educational Psychologist or suitably qualified specialist teacher. If you had an assessment in the past, it may need to be updated, especially if you were under 16 at the time.
Your dyslexia report must be signed and preferably on headed paper. Please do not give us your only copy!!
If you have a mental health issue, physical or sensory impairment or medical condition please get a letter from your Doctor, consultant or other medical professonal stating the following:
The above are suggestions are not exhaustive and are only examples of the kind of information we and any DSA funding bodies may require.
If you do not already have a formal diagnosis of dyslexia this will delay your support considerably. You may therefore think it best to be assessed externally before you come to LSBU. If not we can offer assessments in house, following our normal screening and assessment process. Please note that assessments are limited and are offered on a first come, first served basis.
If you would like to be assessed externally we have researched some sources for you, please read our External Assessments document carefully.
We realise that students from overseas may find it difficult to provide medical or other evidence in English. However in order for us to put support in place at LSBU all evidence must be translated into English by a qualified transcription service and formally authenticated as such. The original translation must be submitted. A photocopy is not acceptable, and all documentation must be signed. We may refuse to consider evidence that does not meet the above requirements.
Note: the university will not pay your Doctor or Medical Specialist for any letters of evidence.
Dyslexia Screening and Assessment
We may be able to assess you as long as you are enrolled on a course here, but please be prepared to wait some time for an assessment appointment (during peak times the wait may be anything up to two months). Please click here for the process.
Confidentiality:
Your meeting with the Disability Officer and all documentation are treated confidentially and any information will only be shared with others (such as your teaching staff) with your written permission.
We keep records for students who have been registered with us and had support arrangements put in place, for up to five years after graduation. Once this period of time has passed we will shred all paper records, including medical or other evidence.
If you apply to LSBU but do not come here to study, we will keep your information securely for one year in case you decide to come the following year. If you don't your information will be disposed of as above.
For these reasons it is important that you keep any documentation that relates to your disability, mental health issue, medical condition or dyslexia.
For more information see LSBU's web pages on Data Protection.
In order to maintain confidentiality the Disability & Dyslexia Support office operates a "knock and wait" policy. We ask personal callers to our office to please respect that you may have to wait to come in if there is already a student at our reception.
Students over 18 years old/speaking with a nominated person:
If you are over 18, and think you might want us to be able to to discuss your support with your parent, carer or guardian, you will need to give us express written permission for confidentiality reasons.
You can print, complete and return a form (here) or send us an email from your LSBU email account to disability@lsbu.ac.uk stating who we can contact (their name), their relationship to you and their contact details (phone numbers, email address etc.)
We will only contact this named person if we need to, we will always contact you as the student first.
International Students:
All students that are registered with DDS will have access to specialist equipment and software available on campus.
If you are an international student you will also be given baseline provision of support, however you are not entitled to Disabled Students' Allowances (DSA) funding.
Students who do not receive the DSA cannot expect funding at the same level as that of the DSA and you should consider this when applying to study at London South Bank University.
Emails:
If you are already registered with us please remember to check your LSBU email account regularly as we often send important information via this method. If you are unsure about setting up or accessing your LSBU email account please click here or contact the IT helpdesk in the Learning Resources Centre (LRC).
Your LSBU email address will be used by the University for all email correspondence with you. It is your responsibility to check your email frequently to keep up-to-date with University-related communications. Section 9.36 of the University’s Academic Regulations for Taught Programmes states: “It is a student’s responsibility to check his/her LSBU email account regularly for new messages; a lack of awareness of any information as a result of failure to do so cannot be used as grounds for extenuating circumstances.”
These pages are a list of the questions we are asked the most. (Updated Regularly)
