Coalition government proposals for a new 'pupil premium' for disadvantaged children could boost demand for training in areas of disability such as deafness. The National Deaf Children's Society welcomes investment in giving staff specialist skills.
Training provider Signs4Life is delivering an increasingly popular six-week course in British Sign Language which gives practitioners the ability to communicate more effectively with children and parents who may be deaf or hard of hearing. BSL is used by more than 95,000 deaf adults and children in the UK, and the training has been designed to give participants a solid skills base.
'There is a lot to keep up with, but the training is fun and interactive,' says Signs4Life director Fozia Parveen. 'Participants learn the basics quickly but memorably.'
At the end of the course participants will be able to:
- Identify the barriers that deaf and hard of hearing people face
- List the ways deaf and hard of hearing people communicate
- Understand and demonstrate how to implement positive methods of communication, and offer an equal service
- Recognise basic everyday signs
- Apply the finger-spelling alphabet and numbers
- Explore deaf community and culture
- Know signs specific to teaching and mentoring
Claire Stone, school secretary/administrator at Giles Brook Primary School in Milton Keynes, has undertaken the course with 11 of her school colleagues. She says, 'I asked to go on the course because it is something that I have always been interested in learning, and we have one family of children where both parents are deaf.
'We've all learnt far more on the course than we expected to and it has been quite demanding.
'If I see our deaf parents I can now communicate with them through sign language which is really nice, particularly as the children join in. We are all wondering how we can keep it up when the course ends, but we've been given lots of resources and hand-outs, and will be practising with each other.
'Ideally it is a skill we would like to pass on to many of the children at school and we might create an after-school club for them to learn it.'
