Jamie Oliver’s new documentary on dyslexia should be a wake-up call for every politician in Britain—especially those in charge of education. I watched The Dyslexia Revolution (Channel 4) with a mixture of deep recognition and mounting frustration. Recognition, because I know all too well what it means to be a child written off by the system.
Frustration, because for years those of us with lived experience have been warning that the current model of education is broken—and still, the system resists change. I am a novelist. I’ve sold more than three million books. I’ve won the Costa and the Carnegie Medal. And I am dyslexic.
I didn’t read properly until I was 14. I left school at 17 with one O-level and a sense that I was unteachable. I was called lazy, stupid, difficult. I wasn’t. I simply didn’t learn the way the system expected me to.
That system is still in place. It still punishes children who don’t conform to narrow, rigid ways of thinking. It still sidelines the visual learner, the storyteller, the hands-on problem-solver. And as Jamie Oliver showed in his documentary, it is still failing children in ways that are devastating and entirely avoidable.
He asked Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson direct, important questions: Will there be radical reform of teacher training? Will we prioritise creative learning? Will the government invest in real change? Her responses were polite, but empty. There was no clear commitment, no recognition of urgency.
We need more than warm words. We need a revolution.
The statistics are stark: dyslexic children are more likely to be excluded, more likely to leave school with low self-esteem—and, as Oliver pointed out, far more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. That isn’t because they lack intelligence. It’s because we designed a system that cannot see their potential.
This doesn’t have to be the way. With the right tools, we could build an education system that embraces difference rather than suppressing it. AI could personalise learning, enabling dyslexic children to read through visuals, express themselves with speech-to-text tools, and flourish in creative, gamified environments. But only if we use it wisely—and with vision.
And we must bring the arts back into the heart of education. Not as an afterthought, but as a vital space where neurodivergent children can thrive.
Jamie Oliver has once again lit the fuse. Now it’s time for our leaders to act—not to smooth things over, but to rethink education from the ground up.
Sally Gardner is an award-winning novelist and dyslexia advocate. She has sold more than 3 million books worldwide.