Frankie Bridge has opened up in deeply emotional fashion about the painful decision she may have to make for her son Carter, revealing she is torn over whether to send him to a specialist school that could better support his severe dyslexia — even though it is far from home and comes with a huge financial burden.
The former Saturdays star, 37, shared the upsetting update in her latest YouTube vlog as she spoke candidly about Carter’s ongoing struggles at school. Frankie revealed that her 10-year-old son’s dyslexia has become significantly worse since he was diagnosed last year, leaving her feeling overwhelmed and unsure what the right next step is.
Explaining the latest assessment, Frankie said: “I, today, went to see a specialist dyslexic school for Carter. His recent assessment is that he is severely dyslexic, and he’s worse than his last assessment.”
She said experts had warned that the repeated disruption of moving schools had taken a serious toll on Carter’s confidence. Frankie explained: “[The assessor] said that, because of the effect of him moving school so many times, and having to readjust to new environments, new teachers, new friends, or whatever, obviously that’s affected his confidence and to move him now probably wouldn’t be the best thing for him.”
Frankie, who shares Carter and older son Parker, 12, with husband Wayne Bridge, said Carter’s current school in Surrey has offered support, but a specialist setting may be the best option when he moves up to secondary school in September next year.
Still, the reality of making that change has left her torn. “There is one not far — I mean, it is quite far from us for a drop-off and a pickup point of view,” she admitted. “I’m not really sure how we’d make it work.”
Frankie confessed she had gone into the school visit hoping not to like it, because the idea of taking her son down a different path felt frightening. “If I’m honest with you, I kind of wanted to hate it,” she said. “I guess it’s the fear of putting a kid in something different.”
But after seeing the school for herself, she was left moved by what it could offer Carter. Frankie explained that the environment felt similar to his current school, except every child there is dyslexic and teaching is designed entirely around those needs. “It’s very similar to the school he’s in now, it’s just every class, everyone at the school is dyslexic and every class is catered to be able to teach children with dyslexia,” she said. “They don’t need one on one, because the whole class is doing the same thing, because everyone’s dyslexic.”
She also admitted she had worried whether a specialist school might make Carter too dependent on a different way of learning, but came to see the bigger picture. “The whole point of the [specialist] school is to get them to a level where they’re confident enough within themselves and they know enough to be able to go back into the mainstream school,” she said.
Even so, Frankie made clear the move would come at a huge cost — emotionally, logistically and financially. “It’s not an ideal scenario for us because it’s far away and it’s really f***ing expensive,” she said. “But it was lovely. And I think his confidence has been so battered that I’m like, how lovely to put him in an environment where he doesn’t feel different, and that he’s actually being set up for success rather than failure.”
The emotional strain became too much as Frankie described dropping Carter at school while he was crying over maths, which she called “his hardest subject by a mile.” Fighting back tears, she said: “I find it mentally just so hard that I just never know what to do, what’s best for him.”
She went on: “There’ll be so many parents out there, I know, that have to drop their kids off, crying at school every day. I just feel a bit worn down by it now. I just feel a bit trapped because, obviously, they have to go to school.”
Frankie then delivered the line that captured just how exhausted and heartbroken she has become by the struggle. “He’s been to so many different schools that I just can’t move him again,” she said. “And I just don’t know what the right thing is for him anymore.”
The TV star said it is especially painful knowing how hard Carter has fought, while she and Wayne have done everything they can to find support for him. “We try so much, and we’ve been lucky to be able to give him different opportunities with different people,” she said. “And I know he has more opportunity than some, but it’s just breaking my heart having to keep pushing him. He’s just got so long left at school.”
Frankie also reflected on how different school life has been for Parker, whose early extra help allowed him to settle more comfortably into education. Comparing the two boys’ experiences, she admitted that seeing one child cope while the other continues to struggle makes the situation even harder to process.
Frankie first revealed Carter’s dyslexia diagnosis last year, sharing that it had already been a long and painful battle to get him the support he needed. She said at the time that he had cried over going to school and even begged to be homeschooled, leaving her feeling helpless.
Looking back, Frankie had hoped an official diagnosis would finally unlock the right support and answers. Instead, she realised it was only the start of a much longer fight. She has previously shared that Carter was eight when he was formally diagnosed, after concerns first emerged when he was told he would have to repeat his reception year.
She later wrote that everyone’s biggest concern had been Carter’s confidence, because he knew other children could do things that felt impossible for him. Even after the diagnosis, Frankie admitted she had wrongly believed it would be the “missing piece” that would help teachers know exactly how to support him.
Instead, the family have continued searching for the right environment — and now Frankie is facing one of the toughest decisions yet, caught between what may be best for Carter academically and what is realistic for the family as a whole.
