Tips and information for Teachers of the Deaf · 2018-02-16 · value of all professionals working...

MAGAZINE • January 2013 • ISSN 1336-07999 • www.batod.org.uk

British Association of Teachers of the Deaf

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Tips and information forTeachers of the Deaf

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From your editor This edition of the Magazine isdifferent from most. We usuallyhave a specific subject on whichwe commission a range ofarticles – and sometimes we also receive unsolicitedcontributions on the same

theme. On this occasion the subject matter isbroader and much more diverse – a sort ofmiscellany. We have called it ‘Tips and informationfor Teachers of the Deaf’. This has allowed us toput together a very varied range of contributions,including articles on dealing with difficultconversations with parents, questions asked of technicians when they visit schools, usefulwebsites, teaching science, deaf children new tothe UK, collaborative working practices betweeneducation and social services and an update on current proposed changes to the SEN anddisability system in England. We hope you enjoythe range. As ever, please do not hesitate to let usknow if you have any ideas for themes or indeedindividual articles for future Magazines. They arealways welcome.

It is clear that many Teachers of the Deafcolleagues and heads of schools and serviceswould welcome the idea of a supply list of ToDs.We are looking into how best to develop this butwould like to gauge the number of possible ToDswho might wish to be on that list. Please let meknow at [email protected] if you would beinterested – whether for full-time work or singledays.

Forthcoming topics:March Extra-curricular activitiesMay Conference 2013 – Achieving

Potential with TechnologySeptember AcousticsNovember How do Teachers of the Deaf

make a difference?

Magazine Editor

Tips and information Difficult conversations 4SEND – where are we now? 7New to the UK 8Question time 10Eliminating discrimination 12Thinking science 14Success in Suffolk 16Take a look at Sounding Board 18Early exposure to BSL 19Exploring outcomes 20The MOSAIC report 22Student life 23ICT news 24Deafness and EAL 26Understanding deaf equipment 33

General features Improving listening conditions 35Armed with information 36Reel education 37In conversation with Ellen 38Sierra Leone – the teaching challenge 40Audiology updates 43

RegularsThis and that 51Reviews 53Abbreviations and acronyms 58Calendar – meetings and training 60

Association businessAchieving potential 3Change of address notification form 9BATOD was there representing you… 39FEAPDA news 44Can you contribute? 45Representing you – The Communication Trust 46Representing you – DfE 47Representing you – Consortium for Research into Deaf Education 48 Representing you – Federation of Leaders in Special Education 50Subscription rates 2012/13 59Officers of Nations and Regions inside back cover

Need to contact BATODabout other matters?Talk to Executive Officer Paul Simpson

email: [email protected] answerphone/fax

0845 6435181

Contents

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Cover The BATOD Conference 2012. Picture taken byArnold Underwood.

For information on advertising rates see www.batod.org.uk

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A s s o c i a t i o n b u s i n e s s

November proved to be a busy month for me asPresident of BATOD – starting with a presentationat the Signature Conference at Canary Wharf in

London. We were asked to focus on getting the rightsupport so that deaf children and young people canachieve their full potential. It was a really interesting andvaried conference, with SEN Minister Edward TimpsonMP as the keynote speaker. You can access all theinformation through the Signature website. I then hadthe pleasure of attending BATOD Scotland’s annualconference in Glasgow. This focused on changes to thecurriculum and examinations in Scotland and providedvery practical workshops on areas such as lip-reading.My thanks to Carol Thomson and the team, who lookedafter me so well. It is important that BATOD canrepresent the nations and regions equally well. We aregood at responding to consultations that affect Englandand need to ensure that we also respond as well tothose from the other nations. This was discussedfurther at the November Steering Group.

The following week I was invited to BATOD North’sregional conference in Huddersfield, ‘Focusing on theWhole Deaf Child’, which was well attended and againhad a range of practical workshops with Danny Lanefrom Music and the Deaf giving the keynote speech.Once more, my thanks to the team who looked after meso well. Visiting the regions and seeing the high qualityprofessional development and commitment of ourTeachers of the Deaf is one of the real privileges ofbeing President.

Visiting the regions has also given me an insight intothe many changes to service provision that are evolving.Please do contact BATOD if local developments arehaving an impact on the profession and the provisionoffered to deaf children and young people in your areaso that we can offer support wherever possible.

In October 2012 the Ofsted report Communication isthe key was published. The full document is available at www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/120169/ This is a smallsurvey drawing on evidence from good practice casestudies and from the views of children and youngpeople, their parents and professionals in three localauthorities. It highlights the key factors that underpineffective joint working across agencies, for example:• Teachers of the Deaf who have high levels of

expertise, playing a pivotal role in providing and co-ordinating support.

• Specialist staff with the right skills, experience and

knowledge and a good understanding of the needs of the individual children they work with.

• Children placed in the centre of the process – wheremulti-agency assessments consider all the child’sneeds.

• Children’s views being sought and respected.

These are just a few of the many excellent examples of good practice in deaf education. The report alsoidentified a number of areas that authorities need todevelop further:• Well co-ordinated involvement of social care staff in

supporting deaf children and young people. • Strategic planning and quality assurance. • Evaluation of the quality of services and the impact on

improving the lives of deaf children and young people.

The latter is an increasingly important part of our work.As funding changes and local authorities reduce thecore services they provide we need to ensure that thevalue of all professionals working with deaf children andyoung people is recognised and celebrated. The areasof development identified may take many of us out ofour comfort zone, but to ignore them may well be to thedetriment of the deaf children and young people wesupport. We need to:• evidence the impact professionals make• publicise the good work we do • keep the profession high profile • be alert and respond quickly to proposed changes • keep the education of deaf children and young people

high on the local and national agenda.

Communication is the key highlights the good practicewe can all be proud of. The cases studied in the reportshow that when diagnosed early, placed in the rightschool, with parent or carer involvement and with the right support, deaf children and young people can match their hearing peers in their educationalachievement, demonstrating that deafness in itselfshould not be a barrier to achieving their full potential.

Don’t forget the BATOD Conference and AGM on 9 March, which will be held at Austin Court inBirmingham. The theme is ‘Achieving Potential withTechnology’. It will be awesome.

Achieving potentialKKaarreenn TTaayylloorr reports on a busy spell of visits to the different BATODregions and nations and picks out some key points for improving the livesof deaf children and young people

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T i p s a n d i n f o r m a t i o n

Mr and Mrs Wilson, parents of a daughter agedthree years three months, were mystified byher communication test results. Their baby’s

deafness had been identified at birth, and she hadbeen fitted with hearing aids and begun family-centred therapy shortly thereafter. At the age of 12 months, she received bilateral cochlear implants.The family’s desired outcome was listening andspoken language and her therapy had been focusedin this direction. This child had had the advantagesof early identification and technology being fitted, yet her parents were stunned and angry to hear the results of a recent speech/language evaluation.Testing showed that their daughter had not achievedthe auditory milestones typical of early implantedchildren and was almost two years delayed in allareas of language. Although her parents understoodmost of her communication attempts, they agreedwith the examiner’s findings that her spontaneousoutput consisted largely of jargon plus single wordsand ‘giant words’ such as ‘alldone’ or ‘loveyou’rather than true word combinations, indicating that her expressive language level was below that of an 18-month-old child’s.

This bright, spirited child had no other disabilitiesand lived with loving and committed parents. Whataccounted for her slow progress? In exploring thedetails of this actual case study, I want to focus onthe three factors that played a role in this child’sunderachievement and, I suspect, in that of otherdeaf children who would seem to have everyadvantage in this age of universal newborn hearing screening and superb technology: • The mismatch between ToD preparation and

current job expectations.• A disconnect between parents’ desired outcomes

for their child and the practices necessary toachieve those outcomes.

• The ability of ToDs and other hearing healthproviders to have difficult conversations withfamilies.

Fortunately, there is a growing number of resourcesfor improving each of these areas and reason foroptimism by our profession.

The mismatch between ToD preparation andcurrent job expectationsToDs have increasing demands placed on them,

often without accompanying supports or ongoingmentoring. Advances in technology, earlyidentification via newborn hearing screening and theprovision of family-centred early intervention havereshaped the services that ToDs are expected toprovide. But changes in identifying babies early andfitting them with hearing technologies have not beenmatched by an equally rapid expansion of in-servicecourses or mentoring opportunities for ToDs, nor inthe number of teachers available to serve thesebabies. Many ToDs were not trained to work withinfants or toddlers and may have been prepared towork in a classroom setting, rather than a homeenvironment where parents are partners in teaching.

Ever-improving hearing technologies createuncharted territory, requiring professionals to learnon the job how to manage hearing aids and cochlearimplants on infants and toddlers and, equallychallenging, how to keep the technologies workingand used on a full-time basis. Sobering datasuggests that many families overestimate the actualamount of time babies wear their hearing aids orcochlear implants, and that families and ToDs maynot recognise the urgency to find a solution thatleads to rapid full-time device use by the baby.

The disconnect between parents’ desiredoutcomes and the practices necessary to achieve those outcomesAn important historical shift in the 1990s was themove in infant education from professional-centredto family-centred practice, a trend that has redefinedearly identification in constructive ways. An abidingprinciple of family-centred practice is that families beempowered to choose the outcomes they value fortheir child’s communication, and that professionalssupport parent choice. As with any shift, however,some common sense may have been discarded,with ‘family-centred practice’ sometimesmisinterpreted to mean that parents should beprotected from bad news and should not beengaged in frank conversations that might beuncomfortable or emotional. I believe such amisinterpretation underestimates the stamina andresilience that parents have and unintentionallyinsults a parent’s ability to handle tough decisions.How do we respond when families have the desirefor certain outcomes but do not put into practicewhat is needed to achieve those outcomes?

Difficult conversationsAccording to Amy McConkey Robbins, if Teachers of the Deaf are to provide a full and

efficient service for deaf children they need to be equipped with the necessary

training and resources and be prepared to have honest conversations with families

that will lead to constructive solutions

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The National Early Childhood Technical AssistanceCenter (NECTAC) is a resource agency of the USGovernment that conducts training for teachers of babies with disabilities and their parents and distributes documents such as the LooksLike/Doesn’t Look Like paper. This paper delineatesexamples of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ family-centredpractices, and includes Principle 2: ‘Don’t view families as apathetic because they missappointments or don’t carry through on prescribedinterventions; rather, re-focus interventions on familypriorities.’ My concern with this statement is that thepriorities of the family, their desired outcomes for the child and their follow through to achieve thoseoutcomes may not be in alignment.

This was the case with the Wilson family describedat the beginning of this article. Though their chosenoutcome for their daughter was listening and spokenlanguage, they had never achieved her full-time useof either hearing aids or cochlear implants and shecontinued at the age of three to pull her technologyoff as an attention-seeking, defiant behaviour. Shewas in control of her technology, not her parents.(She was also non-compliant in daily routines suchas mealtimes and going to bed, both of which shouldhave sounded alarms for the ToD.)

Consistent and early use of hearing technology has been shown to stimulate the development ofauditory cortical pathways, whereas inconsistent ordelayed auditory input results in slower developmentof auditory neural connections. This is a physiologicalfact, not a philosophical opinion. Thus, babies whouse their hearing devices consistently and from avery young age demonstrate maturity of corticalresponses that begins to resemble that of childrenborn with normal hearing.

When families such as the Wilsons struggle to keeptechnology on a baby, it is certainly appropriate forthe ToD to provide a wide range of support andhelpful hints, encouraging families to speak withother parents about how they dealt with this issue, to attend a course such as those offered at The Ear Foundation in Nottingham or to consult a family-based website such as Listen Up (www.listen-up.org). It is equally important for theToD to explain that a child’s use of technology is nota domain separate from spoken communication, butthe foundation of auditory skills and oral language.In short, your baby’s brain needs full-time hearingdevice use if his/her brain’s auditory centres are todevelop fully.

If families have never been told, gently but bluntly,that listening and spoken language depend on theirbaby having consistent auditory input all day long,how are they supposed to find this out? When

a family has identified spoken language as theoutcome goal but does not follow through to achieve full-time hearing device use and missesappointments, we are doing the family a disservicenot to explain in our counselling the irreversibleconsequences of auditory deprivation, as revealed inbrain research studies. I see such counselling as anethical responsibility of the ToD. If the parents saythey cannot or choose not to meet those conditionsor that their priorities have changed, the ToD shouldsupportively review other communication optionswith them, discussing successful outcomes usingcommunication methodologies that are not linked tofull-time use of amplification or spoken languagethrough listening.

Difficult conversations and the therapeuticallianceBeing honest with families about such issues as full-time technology use falls under the category ofdifficult conversations. Books have been written onthis subject but one writer has described a difficultconversation as ‘anything you find hard to talkabout’. Difficult conversations deal with sensitivetopics, can evoke emotional reactions and typicallyaddress issues that may be temporarily painful. Butthat does not mean we can avoid them; it is part ofthe maturity of the professional to have the courageand honesty to initiate these conversations and,conversely, to be responsive when families initiatethem. A difficult conversation is constructive whenteachers have established with parents a foundationof mutual trust, authentic communication andrespect in what is termed the ‘therapeutic alliance’.

Establishing such an alliance with families over timeis the platform that makes difficult conversations civiland productive. A therapeutic alliance is based oncollaborative problem solving, accountability andalignment of purpose. In other words, the parent andToD know that they are both fully committed to doingeverything they can to help the child fulfil his or herpotential.

In the Wilsons’ case, their child had never worn herhearing aids or cochlear implants during all wakinghours and the family hadn’t known how to meet thisgoal. It would have been a conversation starter forthe ToD to offer the statistic that two hours per weekin therapy make up only 2% of a baby’s wakinghours, whereas everyday activities such as nappychanging and feeding occur at least 2,000 timesbefore the first birthday. This statistic speaks to the power of families to influence, positively ornegatively, their child’s communication aftertechnology has been fitted. Parents who takeadvantage of just ten interactions each waking hourwill have provided more than 36,000 teachablemoments between the ages of one and two years.

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The Wilsons might have been asked how they felt about the lost opportunities if their child werenot wearing her cochlear implants during thesethousands of teachable moments. The ToD couldhave offered support: ‘How can we work together to improve your daughter’s full-time use of hercochlear implants? What could I do that would be helpful to you? Are there issues you’d like todiscuss with me that I’m not aware of?’

Working smarterToDs give countless hours of committed, lovingattention to babies and families. Though the rapidchanges in the field may indicate an onslaught of additional work, I believe the solution lies in‘working smarter, not harder’.

ToDs deserve funding to attend conferences,engage in training and establish mentoringrelationships with other educators. They need to begiven an arsenal of user-friendly assessment toolsthat will track progress and support early suspicionsif a child is not achieving skills at an acceptablerate. If this ToD had had access, for example, toMcConkey Robbins’s Red Flags procedure, shewould have identified within months of initial

stimulation several areas in which the child was notdemonstrating skills mastered by early-implantedchildren. The ToD might have had an honestdiscussion with the family, showing them the redflags chart and reviewing factors that contribute toslow auditory progress with cochlear implants. Adifficult conversation with the parents at that veryyoung age about the importance of technology usemight have changed the course of the child’sacceptance of cochlear implants.

Thankfully, this family is headed in the rightdirection now, where their desired outcomes alignwith the behaviours necessary to achieve them,although the child is faced with closing the gap that formed in those first years. Having gained skillsand confidence and been given evidence-basedmonitoring tools, the ToD continues to play a pivotalrole in supporting this child and her family within thecontext of a strong therapeutic alliance.

Amy McConkey Robbins is a speech-languagepathologist in Indianapolis, USA. Parts of this articlewere presented at the meeting, ‘Deaf Education –Moving On? The Impact of Cochlear Implantation’ inNottingham, June 2012.


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The Coalition Government made it clear from the beginning of its term of office that ministerswanted to see significant changes to the special

educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system.After a consultation, which started in March 2011,the Government took over a year to formulate itsresponse. A Next Steps document was producedlaying out key proposals, which led in due course to some draft provisions for SEND reform within theframework of a new Children and Families Bill.

The whole SEND sector had been gearing itself upover the year to respond to the draft provisions in the hope of changing and adapting them where theywere felt to fall short and welcoming them where theyseemed positive and helpful to the sector. BATODplayed its part responding to concerns expressed bymembers.

Part of the pre-legislative scrutiny required us torespond to specific questions from the SelectCommittee on Education. We submitted a reply asBATOD that had been formulated through a workinggroup at a National Executive Council meeting but wealso contributed to or supported submissions from theSpecial Educational Consortium, Every Disabled ChildMatters, the National Sensory Impairment Partnershipand The Communication Trust. I was a member of theSpecial Educational Consortium parliamentary groupand this involved lobbying politicians during theparliamentary process. It is very important for BATODto combine with other organisations in pursuing similaraims and this was a clear opportunity for thatcollaborative working.

Across the sector there were very positive responsesto a number of the key draft provisions. Theseincluded the proposed introduction of the education,health and care plan bringing together those three keyagencies. Also the fact that the plan will cover theages of 0–25 was hugely significant and greatly to be welcomed, especially as it will make statutory thesupport of those children under two, of which there aremany following the successful institution of newbornscreening. It will also improve the often poor practiceat the point of transition at 16 or 18 when whole newreassessments can be needed and young people findthemselves in many cases receiving far less supportthan had seemed essential only the previous year. Ifthe expectations are realised, this should be less likelyto happen, although there are significant worries aboutwhere the financial support for these changes willcome from.

Other positive provisions include the local offer inwhich local authorities have to lay out clearly what isoffered to children and young people with SEN anddisability in their area. Some Teachers of the Deafwere concerned that for some deaf children, especiallythose with complex needs, the local authority can’t in fact offer the appropriate support and it has to besought in neighbouring authorities or further afield inspecial schools, for example, where many BATODmembers work. This point has been made by manyand is likely to be further considered during thepassage of the Bill in 2013.

Other aspects of the provisions have given rise tosome concerns and these are broadly shared acrossthe sector and will be the subject of submissions andlobbying during the passage of the Bill. Paramountamong them is, contrary to what many had expectedand despite a strong emphasis on joint commissioningand multi-agency working, that there will be no legalobligations on health and social care to provide thatwhich is laid out in the new plan, whereas in the caseof educational provision there will be. Indeed, this hasled some commentators to declare that the plans areno more than glorified statements.

The current SEN Code of Practice receivedparliamentary scrutiny when it was drawn up, whereasthe proposed new one will be subject only to the wishesof the Secretary of State and this is another cause ofconcern. Personal budgets are also a cause of concernas there is a worry that if the funding is given to parentsit could affect the efficiency of the service, especially if parents are allowed to choose which ToD they wish to work with their child. A further concern is that aheadteacher would have managerial responsibility overpersonnel whom she or he had not chosen.

By the time this article is published we will know more.However, during the hearings in front of the SelectCommittee serious concerns were raised that thechanges were proceeding too quickly. The Governmenthas at the time of writing recognised that the work ofthe pathfinders – set up in several local authorities toexamine in detail aspects of the proposals includingthe local offer, the new plan and personalised budgets– needs to be extended by 18 months. This has beenwelcomed but there seems, at least for now, nointention of slowing down the overall progress of theprocess.

Paul Simpson is the National Executive Officer ofBATOD.

SEND – where are we now?Paul Simpson provides an overview of recent proposed reforms in the special

educational needs and disabilities sector

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In Leicester City approximately 66% of children onthe caseload for the Hearing Impairment Team arefrom homes where English is not the first language.

Within these homes there may be an English-speakingparent or sibling so some English might be spoken athome but it is certainly not the predominant or onlylanguage. In recent years there has been a rise inseverely or profoundly deaf children and teenagersarriving in the UK from abroad having never been aidedor having been aided inappropriately. In some casesthe families arrive knowing they have a deaf child; inother instances the families arrive without a diagnosis,or perhaps they have had a diagnosis but have beentold that their children will grow out of it! Recently wehave had an influx of younger children arriving fromEastern Europe who have already been fitted withcochlear implants.

Here are some examples of the children who havearrived in the service in recent years:• A profoundly deaf boy, arriving in the UK at ten years

old, having had one inadequate analogue hearing aidsince he was six. He arrived knowing a few nouns inhis home language and two English nouns, despitehaving attended an English-speaking school inKenya. He also had an established home signsystem, although his parents refused offers of signsupport on more than one occasion as they wantedhim to talk. Dad spoke English but at this point, fouryears ago, his siblings (who are also deaf) did not.His mum still does not. He has since been given onecochlear implant.

• A severely deaf boy, arriving in the UK aged 13. Hewas only identified to us when he was seen pulling anold bodyworn hearing aid out of his bag at school.Parents reported, through a Hindi interpreter, that hehad good home language but we were unable toassess this as there was no Nepalese interpreteravailable. His parents spoke Nepalese and Hindi, buthe only spoke Nepalese and a bit of English, as hehad attended an English-speaking school. Dad spokea minimal amount of English and mum spoke none.

• A profoundly deaf boy, arriving in the UK at four yearsold, having never worn hearing aids due to the familybeing told, in Afghanistan, that he would regain hishearing by the age of five. He had no language butbabbled with intent, using a range of sounds. Dadspoke good English but mum spoke none and his fivesiblings were learning English having been in thecountry two years. He now has bilateral cochlearimplants.

For each of these children we had to decide what wasthe best course of action. Obviously, the first thing thatwe do is to make contact with the families as soon aswe are aware of the children. We then rapidly get themto come into our audiology clinic where they are fittedwith hearing aids that match their needs. This may takemore than one appointment, particularly for childrenwho have no experience of listening as they are oftenunable to complete a hearing test. After consultationwith parents and if it is appropriate, a referral is madefor assessment for cochlear implantation – it is unlikelythat this will be done at the first hearing test as familiesalready have so much to take on board, but may beexplored through home visiting or follow-up audiologyappointments.

Once hearing aids have been fitted, lots of activities arecarried out to establish good listening. The children arealso assessed to enable us to decide how best to helpthem. This baseline assessment can also be used to assess progress at a later date. Early on we aim to video the child communicating in his or her ownlanguage, then with the help of an interpreter transcribeexactly what is being said so that we have an idea ofhow developed the home language is and the types of words that the child is using. We also do a range of formal assessments, choosing a selection from the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS), Test of Reception and Grammar (TROG), Assessment ofComprehension and Expression (ACE), South TynesideAssessment of Syntactic Structure (STASS), Pre-schoolLanguage Scales, Renfrew Action Picture Test, wordfinding and narrative, depending on the child’s age andability to establish language levels, both in English andthe home language. It is important to note that doing aBPVS, for example, in another language does not giveyou valid and reliable results, but acts only as a guide tothe child’s language level. This is particularly important ifyou are using a family member to help with the testing,as you cannot be sure of what they are saying. It isimportant to be aware that in some languages moreclues are given than in others, for example in Romanianthe word for cobweb is ‘paienjenis’ but the word forspider is ‘paienjen’, so obviously being able to identifythe word cobweb in Romanian would not require thesame level of vocabulary as it does in English.

As well as the formal tests discussed above we do arange of informal assessments, such as the MonitoringProtocol for Deaf Babies and Children, although this isdifficult to use with older children. Vocabulary may be



New to the UK Jennifer Pick and Bharti Solanki focus on how their service deals

with the arrival of deaf children in the UK and they explore the

changing trends in these new arrivals

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monitored using the Oxford CommunicativeDevelopment Inventory, which can then be used as anongoing record of vocabulary development. We willoften carry out a non-verbal assessment too, to helpestablish if a child may have additional needs. This isusually the Raven’s Progressive Matrices. Dependingon the finding as well as observations of the child, we may then make a referral to an educationalpsychologist or a specialist teacher in learning orautism. This is also the point at which we would beginto apply for a statement if their language or cognitiveneeds suggest it is necessary.

We would hope that by this point the child is in school,but that is not always the case. If the child is in schoolwe work with the school to make the child’s first fewdays and weeks as smooth as possible. As well asvisiting the child several times a week, we establishsystems in the school with the teacher to ensure thatthe child can get by. These include setting up a buddysystem, making sure that the child knows where thetoilets are and has a way of asking if he or she can go

to the toilet! A visual timetable is usually set up so thatthe child knows what to expect of the day; if childrenare older they are given a visual timetable to keep withthem so that they know what lessons are coming up.

We continue to visit the children and their families on a regular basis, working on developing their spokenEnglish, but encouraging families to speak in theirhome language as well as English (if they can) withtheir child as it is widely accepted that if children do not speak the home language their self-esteem andrelationship with their family suffer. It also gives them a base on which to pin English.

As stated earlier, there is a changing trend in the newarrivals into Leicester City.

Jennifer Pick is a ToD in Leicester City, having recentlytrained at the University of Manchester. Bharti Solankiis the Team Leader for Hearing Impairment in LeicesterCity, where the majority of children on the caseloadhave English as an Additional Language.



Using an interpreter Working with families through an interpreter raises anumber of issues to bear in mind. • It can make building a relationship difficult, as you

never have a direct conversation.• You cannot be sure that a direct translation is

being given.• There is a lot of technical and specific vocabulary

that may not be translatable.• If using the same interpreter, be wary of over-

familiarity with the family, reluctance to discussdifficult issues or feeling they can add opinion onbehalf of the family.

• The interpreter is unlikely to have an understandingof the issues being discussed, which can make itdifficult.

• You may not have continuity of interpreter, makingforging relations even more difficult.

• Take into account the family’s opinion of theinterpreter, if possible to ascertain, and try to usethe one they prefer.

• Using family members is not encouraged but thefamily may prefer this rather than discussingprivate matters with a stranger.

• The meaning may ‘get lost in translation’ and youwill have no way of knowing.

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Over the years I have worked in a variety ofsettings with deaf children and adults and oneof the most interesting aspects that has been

common to them all is the constant stream ofquestions that arises. A couple of examples thatspring to mind are the mother who was having aproblem keeping her child’s hearing aids on and who asked me if it was okay to wrap insulation tape around his head, or the gentleman who wantedsomething to amplify the indicator relay in his car sohe could hear it.

I recently joined the Ewing Foundation as one of thespecialist audiology technicians and I’m happy to saythe queries keep coming. Many of the questions weare asked unsurprisingly relate to FM systems,hearing aids and test box use. We often face thesame questions day in and day out but each one isequally important and we endeavour to answer themall thoroughly.

Questions range from ‘How do I connect the FM to aSoundfield system?’ to ‘How often should I check thehearing aids?’ Often the question asked is about theequipment when really it should be more about thechild. For example, ‘What is the best FM system?’should really be, ‘What are the best FM options forthis child?’ It is vitally important to look at the wholechild and there are many different aspects you needto look at to help you make a decision. These willinclude the child’s age, ability to manage his or herhearing aids and FM system, user acceptance, theclassroom environment, how the system is to beused, which staff will be wearing the transmitter, theteaching style, and so on. What may be appropriatefor one child may not be suitable for another.

Similarly, with checking equipment, how often this isdone must be directed by the child’s needs. We’ve allbeen to schools where the pupil and staff have saideverything has been working fine only to find that the hearing aid batteries are flat (or missing) or theteacher is happily wearing the transmitter but thechild has no FM receivers!

Although we know younger children will need theirequipment checking more frequently, it can’t be takenfor granted that older students will need theirschecking less frequently. Key workers must be madeaware of individual students’ issues and how to

address them sensitively and appropriately for theirage and ability. For example, you may see a childwho uses ear-level FM receivers but each time youvisit the hearing aid batteries are flat. A routine couldbe put in place to support and encourage the child to take responsibility for looking after his or her ownhearing aid/FM system. The key worker could liaisewith the family to find out which day the batteries are changed at home and could ensure that sparebatteries are also kept in school. Perhaps if thebatteries are changed at home on a Monday the keyworker could encourage the child to change them atschool on a Thursday to ensure that the hearing aidsand FM system will be working throughout the week.

It is sometimes necessary to think ‘outside the box’for solutions to problems we may initially believe arecaused by faulty equipment. Recently I was visiting aschool to check a Year 5 child’s equipment. He was avery able and articulate child and immediately told ushe was fed up because he was constantly getting abuzzing noise when using his FM system. This hadbeen reported before to others but each time it waschecked no problem could be found. We checked theFM system thoroughly but could find nothing wrong. I asked if I could see the classroom and it was thenthat the problem was discovered. The noise from thefan of the projector for the interactive whiteboard wasconsiderable and this was directly above where theteacher stood. Whenever the teacher stood below theprojector the microphone picked up the noise of thefan. When someone says they are getting a buzzingnoise we usually assume that there is interference ora problem with the equipment but it isn’t always thecase, as this example shows. Fortunately this schoolwas in the process of changing the projectors, so theproblem was rectified.

It’s also important to bear in mind that had this childnot been reliable at reporting problems he may wellhave still been experiencing this problem. Thishighlights the need not only to carry out regularsubjective and objective testing of equipment but alsoto ensure that the equipment is performing as it shouldwhere the child is using it. When a child does indicatea problem and it’s not easily identified all avenuesmust be explored using a logical process of elimination.

Jeremy Hine is a specialist audiology technician withthe Ewing Foundation.



Question timeWhile we may laugh (or cry) at some of the questions we get asked, there is usually

a genuine issue or frustration that has generated them, says Jeremy Hine

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The purpose of the National Sensory ImpairmentPartnership (NatSIP) is to improve the outcomes forchildren and young people with sensory impairment,

and our work to support this is through specificworkstreams. We hope that these are all useful toTeachers of the Deaf and BATOD members and herewe give you an overview from the work of the groupwhich has been looking at the impact of the Equality Actin sensory impairment settings.

In March 2012, the workstream published NatSIPguidance about the Equality Act 2010 for those workingwith sensory impaired learners and this is available todownload from the NatSIP website www.natsip.org.uk/The contributors to the guidance were led by DavidCouch (a ToD), Judy Sanderson (a QTVI) and SteveRose (from Sense) to ensure that all aspects of theneeds of learners with hearing impairment, visualimpairment and multi-sensory impairment were covered.

As with any web-based document, we are able to reviewand update the guidance and we (Judy Sanderson and Lindsey Rousseau) continue to work on updatingthe content as case law emerges. The latest revisionincludes reference to the implications of the reasonableadjustments duty relating to auxiliary aids and servicesin school settings, which came into force in Septemberlast year.

In 2010 the Equality Act replaced the DisabilityDiscrimination Act (DDA) 1995 and 2005. This meansthat the Code of Practice for the DDA, which manyschools have been using, is no longer up to date in law.

The definition of who counts as disabled under theEquality Act has been simplified, but is largely thesame as it was under the DDA. A person has adisability if they have ‘a physical or mental impairmentwhich has a long-term and substantial adverse effecton their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’.In the definition it is important to realise that this is a low threshold as it is about protection fromdiscrimination, and ‘substantial’ is more than minor ortrivial. ‘Normal day-to-day activities’ include all thethings we normally expect pupils to do in school.

Discrimination is defined in the Equality Act as a person being treated less favourably because theyhave a ‘protected characteristic’. These ‘protectedcharacteristics’ listed in the Act include many of the

broad categories that are often used to describe people,such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender anddisability.

Public sector duties within the Equality Act give allpublic bodies, including schools, legal responsibilities to demonstrate that they are taking steps not just toeliminate discrimination but actively to promote equality.Schools are allowed to treat disabled learners morefavourably than non-disabled learners and in somecases are required to do so, by making reasonableadjustments to put them on an equal footing withlearners without disabilities. This applies to all schools,including academies, free schools and non-maintainedand independent schools. It will therefore be veryrelevant to BATOD members wherever they work andespecially when they consider their deaf pupils.

DiscriminationIt is unlawful for any school to discriminate against,harass or victimise a learner or potential learner inrelation to:• admissions• exclusions• educational provision regarding curriculum and

environmental access• educational provision regarding extra-curricular

activities• educational provision regarding access to any

benefit, facility or service.

Schools are advised to review regularly all their policiesto ensure that they are not inadvertently discriminating.Policies will need to reflect the Equality Act and beupdated from the previous DDA. A website which mayhelp with this is that of the Equality and Human RightsCommission (EHRC). Its examples and guidance, whilewider than those of schools and colleges, are veryuseful: www.equalityhumanrights.com/

Reasonable adjustmentsSchools and education authorities have had a duty toprovide reasonable adjustments for disabled pupilssince 2002. From 1 September 2012 the reasonableadjustments duty for schools and education authoritieshas included a duty to provide auxiliary aids andservices for disabled pupils. The duty to provideauxiliary aids is not a new one and already applied in further and higher education. It is, however, new to schools and has been causing some anxieties.



Lindsey Rousseau and Judy Sanderson present NatSIP’s view of the

Equality Act 2010 and its implications for Teachers of the Deaf

Eliminatingdiscrimination

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The duty is ‘to take such steps as it is reasonable tohave to take to avoid the substantial disadvantage’ to a disabled person caused by a provision, criterion orpractice applied by or on behalf of a school, or by theabsence of an auxiliary aid or service. The duty tomake reasonable adjustments requires a school to takepositive steps to ensure that disabled pupils can fullyparticipate in the education provided by the school, andthat they can enjoy the other benefits, facilities andservices which the school provides for pupils. MostToDs would say that they make these adjustments fortheir learners as a matter of good practice.

There are three elements to the reasonableadjustments duty that relate to: • provisions criteria or practices • auxiliary aids and services • physical features.

The element that is new is the provision of auxiliaryaids and services for disabled pupils. The settings youwork in may already be using many of these for deafpupils and they might include computer software, radioaids and Soundfield systems, audio-visual fire alarms,interpreters or communication support workers. TheEHRC guidance suggests that many reasonableadjustments are inexpensive and will often involve a change in practice rather than the provision ofexpensive pieces of equipment or additional staff.Schools are naturally concerned about the fundingimplications, especially as the duty is an anticipatoryone and therefore they need to think in advance about what disabled pupils might require and whatadjustments might need to be made for them. It isreassuring to schools and local authorities that costand resources are factors that are taken into account in determining what is ’reasonable’ – for informationvisit www.equalityhumanrights.com/legal-and-policy/equality-act/equality-act-codes-of-practice (scroll down to the section entitled Auxiliary Aids TechnicalGuidance).

Some of your deaf pupils will be receiving support via school-based special educational needs (SEN)provision or have a statement of SEN. Just because a disabled pupil has SEN or has a statement does not take away a school’s duty to make reasonableadjustments for him or her. In practice, of course,many deaf pupils who also have a statement of SENwill receive all the support they need through the SENframework and there will be nothing additional that theschool has to do. However, as we know, many deafpupils will not have a statement and will still needreasonable adjustments to be made for them inaddition to any support they receive through the SEN framework.

Schools are required to take what are referred to in theAct as ‘reasonable steps’ to make adjustments. The Actdoes not say what is ‘reasonable’. The advantage of

this is that it allows flexibility for different sets ofcircumstances so that, for example, what is reasonablein one set of circumstances may not be reasonable in another. What schools do need to do is to thinkcarefully through the implications in advance and anydecisions taken need to be carefully documented sothat they can be justified to parents.

Sometimes all the preparations and adjustments that you and the school make are not consideredreasonable by parents of deaf learners, and parentshave the right to appeal against disability discriminationof their child to the Special Educational Needs andDisability Tribunal – www.justice.gov.uk/tribunals/send/

Schools and Teachers of the Deaf have to ensure that deaf pupils are not placed at a substantialdisadvantage compared with hearing pupils. The dutyto make reasonable adjustments actually meansensuring that positive steps are taken to provide the best possible education for disabled pupils; inaddition, the newly enhanced and unified duty meansthat all those working with or in any school have aresponsibility to work towards the elimination ofdiscrimination, to challenge prejudice and promoteunderstanding. This is certainly something that allthose working with deaf learners aspire to.

Lindsey Rousseau and Judy Sanderson are writing onbehalf of the NatSIP Equality Act workstream.



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Although there is limited research on deafchildren’s attainment in science, research inmainstream education identifies that children

have difficulty in this subject, particularly in the areasof reasoning and argumentation.

When formulating arguments in science students arerequired to draw on their knowledge of a range ofconcepts, ask questions and consider alternativeviewpoints before putting forward their ownpredictions and hypotheses. For deaf children whomay have difficulty accessing the technologicallanguage used in science, this is a particularlychallenging aspect of the curriculum. In science,abstract concepts are often taught using a textbook-based approach, which presents a challenge for thosewith literacy difficulties. Deaf learners need to havethe opportunity to manipulate concepts and relatethese to real-life experiences. By taking a morecreative approach to the teaching of science, theseissues can be addressed. Practical activities can beused in the classroom so that the complex languageused in science is explored and ‘acted out’ to engagechildren with a concept and enable them to forge linksbetween the visual and the written scientific vocabulary.

Research suggests that too many students currentlybelieve science to be irrelevant to them and theirworld. The overarching aim of the science curriculumshould be to engage learners and ensure that theyleave school not only scientifically literate but with anappreciation that science can underpin their thinkingin all areas of learning.

Much of the literature on the effective teaching ofscience highlights the importance of studentsreflecting on and discussing scientific concepts.However, if debate and discussion aid learning inscience then it is the role of the ToD to ensure thatdeaf learners can fully participate in this discussion by equipping them with the conceptual understandingand the skills required to formulate arguments.

Good deaf education starts with what the studentknows, and scaffolds that learning, linking concepts.In order for deaf students to understand abstractscientific concepts they must first have a soundunderstanding of the concrete aspects.

A multiple methods approach to teaching science– creating a creative classroomIn order to encourage discussion and questioning inthe classroom the teacher first needs to create anenvironment where discussion is valued. Beforechildren can be taught to become creative thinkers

the teacher must model the creative thinking process.Asking questions which require students to reflect ontheir knowledge such as ‘What might happen if we dothis…?’ ‘What do you think has just happened to giveus this…?’ encourages students to understand thatreflecting on knowledge and raising questions are as valuable as knowing the ‘right’ answer. Askingquestions that require the correct answer focuseslearning on the memorising of scientific facts, which,although useful for short-term understanding, doesnot lead to true, long-term conceptual understandingor aid the development of critical thinking skills.

The difficulty deaf children and young people face inpragmatic areas of language is becoming an increasingarea of focus for research. Pragmatic skills are vital forsocial interaction which, in turn, is necessary for thedevelopment of a positive deaf identity and sense of worth. The ability to ask questions and reflect onresponses forms the basis of effective communication.These skills cannot be taught in isolation but if they are interwoven into the curriculum they are easilytransferred to real-life scenarios. The science curriculumis the ideal setting for the development of these skills.

Practical experimentsPractical experiments are a valuable learning tool in science education but many teachers are nowreluctant to use them in the classroom due to healthand safety fears or simply due to a lack of confidencein letting the students ‘explore’. The Nuffield Practicalseries (www.nuffieldfoundation.org/teachers)encourages a more inquiry-based approach to sciencelearning with its website that suggests practicalexperiments for biology, chemistry and physics. Theexperiments have step-by-step instructions, are easy to set up and come with teachers’ notes, outlining theconcept behind the experiment.

The Association for Science Education hosts awebsite that has background knowledge and ideas for teaching science from Key Stage 1 to 4 –www.ase.org.uk/resources/scitutors/subject-knowledge/ The Department for Education TeachingAgency also provides courses and training for teacherslooking to extend their subject knowledge in maths,physics and chemistry – www.education.gov.uk/get-into-teaching/subjects-age-groups/age-groups/teaching-secondary/boost-subject-knowledge.aspx/

Some aspects of science cannot be taught usingpractical experiments and it is these abstract conceptsthat pose the most difficulty for the deaf learner. Often in lessons these concepts are delivered usingtextbooks and video simulations which, although



Lindsey Jones calls for a more creative teaching approach if we are to engage deaf students in science

Thinking science

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Changing states: solid to liquidPractical experiment: Melting chocolate (alwayspopular).

Visual representation: Diagrams showing molecularstructure of a solid then a liquid.

Role play: Explain that the children are going to bemolecules in a chocolate bar. Give each child achocolate button to hold in their hand throughout the role play. Arrange the children into rows, tightlypacked together. Explain that in a solid this is howthe molecules are arranged. Have the children linkarms to show strong molecular bonds.

Explain that the temperature is beginning slowly torise. The molecules (pupils) should start to vibratemore energetically and begin to move away fromeach other but they are still joined by their bonds.Explain that they are now in a liquid state.

Have a look at the actual melted chocolate in thechildren’s hands – what does it look/feel like? Howwould the structure look if an ice cube had beenmelted?

Throughout the role play the students’ attentionshould be drawn to the key vocabulary, the actualmelting process and the visual representation(diagrams).

Assessment opportunity: Can the studentsdemonstrate the change of state from a liquid to agas? Or a gas to a liquid?

Sound: exploring soundPractical experiment: Exploring a range of sounds(instruments) with varying pitch and amplification.How sound waves change in height and widthdepending on the amplification and pitch should bediscussed with the students prior to the role play.

Visual representation: Images of sound wavesvarying in amplitude and pitch.

Role play: This is best done in a large space, theschool hall or yard. Explain that the students aregoing to act as sound waves travelling from a sourceto the ear where the sound is heard. Strike aninstrument with a low/high pitch and act out thesound wave travelling though the air to the ear.Initially the students could take a chosen chalked out path that shows a high or low frequency sound.They would then be required to explain their chosenpath relating it to the sound heard. Which wave didthey choose? Why did they choose that one? Thiscould then be extended to them demonstrating howthe sound waves change as they move away fromthe source towards the ear. How does the wavechange? What impact does that have on the sound?

NB: Although some frequencies may be difficult forchildren with hearing loss to access it is important thatthey are able to explore, engage and understandsound. Focusing purely on ‘listening’ may make thedeaf learner nervous and closed to the subject but, if done visually and kinaesthetically, it allows forengagement and understanding, both of which arevitally important if they are to grasp the concept.

useful teaching methods, do not always promoteengagement and discussion, particularly for the deaflearner.

If used with the deaf learner in mind, ICT can open up a world of opportunities that would otherwise neverbe experienced. However, without explanation anddiscussion the abstract concepts delivered will notbecome ‘mapped’ to concrete experience. In order to achieve higher level understanding deaf learnersneed more than visual representations, they need to be provided with the opportunity to interact andmanipulate a concept before they are able to discussand reflect on their findings. Role play is one way tomeet these needs.

Role playIncorporating role play into science teaching improvespupils’ understanding and enjoyment of science by encouraging them to be actively involved withscientific concepts in a manner which is not solely

dependent on their literacy skills. It provides a forumfor discussion and debate and unlocks the technicalvocabulary necessary for scientific understanding.

Prior to participating in role-play activities, keyvocabulary must be outlined to the students. (TheScottish Sensory Centre has developed a BSLscience glossary, which outlines signs for biology,chemistry and physics. The glossary can be found at www.ssc.education.ed.ac.uk/bsl/list.html/)

Science and creativity are not separate entities. Inorder to produce a new generation of deaf scientificthinkers, a more creative approach to scienceteaching must be embraced.

Lindsey Jones works as a peripatetic Teacher of theDeaf at South Tyneside Hearing-Impaired Service. Ifyou would like more information on this topic or wouldlike to be involved in future research please [email protected].



Incorporating role play into the science curriculum

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Mention ‘Suffolk’ to the general population in theUK and with quizzical looks the responses areusually around the current poorly performing

football team or the famous murders of a few years ago– neither of which should, but do, overshadow the drivethat Suffolk folk have to be forerunners in developingexcellent services for children and young people. I liketo think we have made our own little contribution.

After many years of working within generic teams thecreation of a ‘County Manager’ for children and youngpeople with sensory impairment eventually came to fruition in 2007, following an external review ofeducation provision within Suffolk. It was only a yearlater that there was a strategic decision to split socialcare provision, separating adult and children’s services.Services for sensory impaired children had, until thatpoint, been hosted within the county Sensory Team.

It was established practice for the ToDs within ourservices to work closely with our social work colleaguesand it was an apt opportunity to suggest that thechildren and young people’s element of the SensoryTeam should be hosted within our Sensory andCommunication Team rather than the specialist socialworkers being moved into the Disabled Children’sTeam where there was a risk of the staff being deskilledas they became involved in more generic work.

A business case was presented to senior managersand directors, linking up the work being done aroundthe Newborn Hearing Screening Programme andstating that combining education and social care teamswould help to ‘prevent’ issues developing within familiesas we would work alongside each other from the pointof diagnosis. This approach was welcomed by thestrategic teams but we had to ensure that thereremained ‘professional links’ between the social careworkers in our service and within the DisabledChildren’s Team.

Co-ordinating and managing the range of professionalexpertise within the service was not without its initialchallenges but it was essential that both educationstaff and those within social care were able to sittogether and share issues on a daily basis. As Suffolkis such a large rural area we co-located staff togetherin the three main offices – Ipswich, Bury St Edmundsand Lowestoft – but we ensure that the whole servicemeets at least half-termly.

Our service now provides teachers, social workers,sensory support practitioners, technicians, speech

and language training and a rehabilitation officer as acore provision. Regular joint training is offered for otherprofessionals and we work closely with our healthpartners in audiology and community health services.All families are made aware of the service structurefrom the beginning, so the mention of a social workerbecomes less threatening when issues arise and weseek to support the families with the wider team.

Clearly it’s important to underline the benefits ofamalgamating two elements of children’s servicesunder one manager and over the last few years wehave worked to ensure that ‘referrals’ to our SocialCare Team from our own education staff follow thesame pathways/practice as other services within theauthority. These referrals are then logged onto acentral database before being returned to our team for action by one of our social workers. Though thispractice may seem pointless when one is actuallysitting next to the person you are referring to it doesmean we conform to the practice that exists tosafeguard all children in Suffolk.

Working together on a daily basis allows for aprofessional understanding and respect of eachother’s specialism – it also leads to interestingdebates around various modes of communication and



Success in SuffolkAlison Berry sheds some light on the decision to combine education and social care teams in Suffolk

– a mix that seems to work well

Ofsted commentsDuring the inspection the following comments weremade:• ‘You have very clear collaborative working which

is well established and you all have a clear andeffective commitment to a high level of service.’

• ‘Good outcomes are ensured by the excellentmulti-agency working.’

• ‘Safeguarding issues are not lost within the closeworking with the family.’

• ‘Best interest of the children drives the service,with good links to transition and adult services.’

• ‘The service is highly responsive to families’needs and very focused on direct work withchildren.’

Feedback from parents:• ‘We are lucky to be in Suffolk!’• ‘They all listen and take my views into account.’• ‘I have had several social workers but good

continuity – they are just brilliant!’• ‘The Teacher of the Deaf, social worker and

support worker are a wonderful team of people –they’re a godsend.’

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behaviour management! Perhaps one of the mostpositive aspects of working together as we do is for the ToD to ‘share’ some of the responsibilities aroundthe management of deaf children in the home. TheDisability Living Allowance form, the welfare benefitsthat families have access to and the management of afamily struggling with communication issues can all beshared or even passed on to the Social Care Teamknowing that the necessary work to be done withfamilies is being kept within the confines of our service.

As an integrated service we actively work inpartnership with the National Deaf Children’s Societyand the National Society for the Prevention of Crueltyto Children over child protection/safeguarding issues.We work with our neighbouring authorities through theHeads of Sensory Services Eastern Region and ourSocial Care Lead is keen to ensure that the SocialCare Team becomes an integral member of theNational Sensory Impairment Partnership. Together we embrace the growing issues around cochlearimplantation and a child’s identity and the increasingknowledge of less well-known hearing issues such asauditory neuropathy.

As with all other authorities we accommodate thenumerous changes in policy and practice – and thosedo affect the focus of our daily work. For a while wewere all mindful of the changes in social care practicefollowing the Baby P and Victoria Climbié cases andmore recently the funding changes within education,complete with u-turns, and the new Ofsted guidelines.To be able to share these changes and challenges at aprofessional level helps us to ensure that we provide aseamless service to our deaf children and families.

Our Ofsted ‘inspection’ of good practice in April 2012enabled us to demonstrate the benefits of our workingmodel. The inspectors’ feedback was extremelypositive and ‘rubber-stamped’ the practice we have put in place. However, we are not complacent and areaware that there will always be new challenges toface. It works because we are able to face theseissues together and plan interventions that have a positive impact on the lives of our deaf children.

Alison Berry is the County Manager for the Sensoryand Communication Service with Suffolk CountyCouncil.



Suffolk Sensory and Communication Service Development Team (Leads)

Hearing-impaired Lead

Lead Advisory Teachers/Social Workers Sensory Support PractitionersSpecialist Teachers Intervenors Social Workers

Teacher of the Deaf

Teacher of the Deaf

Teacher of the Deaf

Teacher of the Deaf

SSP

SSP

Technician

Hearing-impaired

Units x 4

Speech and

Language Units x 3

SSP

SSP

Intervenor

Intervenor

SSP

Technician

Teacher of VI

Teacher of VI

Teacher of VI

Teacher of VI

SSP

Speech andLanguage Teacher

(0.8)

Social Worker

Social Worker

Social Worker (0.8)

Social Worker (0.6)

(Rehabilitation

Officer)

MSI Lead VisuallyImpaired Lead

Transition/Liaison Lead

Speech andLanguage Lead

Social CareServices Lead

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Sounding Board was launched in 2008 to provideeasy-to-access, quick-to-use, short-on-jargoninformation about cochlear implants, their

accompanying technology like FM systems, andeducation issues all in one place. Five years on andthe website is still going strong, with nearly 3,000users and more being added each week. It can beaccessed through The Ear Foundation website(www.earfoundation.org.uk) by following the link toSounding Board.

Cochlear implant resourcesThe site is kept up to date with information about allthe cochlear implant systems, their latest accessoriesand how to manage them and troubleshoot anydifficulties. With the click of a button you can access‘differentiated’ user guides on all the different cochlearimplant systems and a growing number of FMsystems. There are direct links to manufacturers’websites if you want the ‘extension’ guide, all ready to download. There are also several short video clipsshowing how to take apart and, more importantly, putback together specific devices or how to connect themto the different FM systems. You can feel confidentthat the information you need for troubleshooting andmanagement of the devices is close at hand.

Also look out for our sections on assessments,cochlear implant simulations and a growing archive of resources in other languages around listening,communication and cochlear implants.

An interactive forumA huge part of the site’s popularity is the interactive

forum, which over four years hasaccrued a huge range of variedqueries from parents, teachersand professionals involved indeaf education. The range ofquestions and comments gives aflavour of the current issues andconcerns being dealt with by

cochlear implant users and their families, around boththe technology and education.

Why not send us a question? The enquiry will beposted on the site anonymously so you really can askany question, no matter how trivial it may seem! Allqueries are followed up by members of the educationand audiological team at The Ear Foundation and weendeavour to make replies as comprehensive aspossible. Comments from other members of the forumoffer great advice and perspectives on some trickyquestions, as well as resources they have found

helpful. We would encourage you to have a look asyou may have knowledge or experience from whichwe could all benefit.

There is now an extensive archive of forum questionsand answers, providing information and expertise on awide range of subjects. Topics include:• How to connect the latest cochlear implant device to

an iPad.• Understanding the latest processing strategy

ClearVoice.• How to start a support group for deaf teenagers.• Encouraging music appreciation: resources in

German.• Using an FM with bilateral cochlear implants.

The new search bar makes finding information,whether on the forum or under resources, very quickand easy.

A monthly newsletterEach month Sounding Board publishes a newsletterwith the range of useful websites, resources, iPadapps and events available for professionals andfamilies who live and work with deaf children. Thenewsletter goes out to almost 1,800 people. Why notregister with us on the Sounding Board website? Ittakes two minutes and you will receive our newsletter!The websites and apps will be featured under theresource section of the website. There is also anarchive of resources and recommended websites fromprevious newsletters for you to access on SoundingBoard itself.

So, why join?It’s really difficult being a teacher, trying to keep upwith the latest technologies while still managing abusy classroom or caseload, and when suddenlysomething goes wrong, everyone turns to you for thesolution! Well, why not turn to Sounding Board, wherethe information is at your fingertips and the chancesare that someone’s been there before, found thesolution and posted it on the forum?

As well as filling in the gaps and giving everyone aneasy way to become familiar and keep up to date with cochlear implant systems, Sounding Board is anopportunity to share knowledge, understanding andresources. Visit www.earfoundation.org.uk and followthe link to Sounding Board.

Diana Harbor qualified as a speech and languagetherapist and audiologist and is now part of theEducation Team at The Ear Foundation.



Take a look at Sounding BoardFor instant information about cochlear implants Sounding Board could be just what you need, says

Diana Harbor

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Several studies with deaf adults have shown thatacquiring sign language from an early age hassignificant benefits, including proficient sign

language production, comprehension and processingskills. In a study recently published in the journalCognition, we examined the effects of age of signlanguage acquisition in grammatical judgement in deaf adults who use British Sign Language (BSL).

The task involved showing grammatical (acceptable)and ungrammatical (unacceptable) sentences in BSLto deaf adult signers who had used BSL as theirpreferred language for at least ten years and hadacquired the language at various ages. We filmed a set of 120 sentences – 60 signed in BSL and 60 signed again but with the order of the signssystematically changed (for example, FIFTY YEARAGO MOST MAN SMOKE vs FIFTY SMOKE YEARAGO MOST MAN.) Thus, half of the sentences weregrammatical/acceptable sentences of BSL and halfwere ungrammatical/unacceptable. We then showedall of these sentences in random order to deaf adultsigners of BSL and asked them to identify whichseemed ‘right’ and which seemed ‘wrong’.

Our results showed that adults who developed signlanguage skills from birth had better and fastergrammatical judgement skills in BSL. Adults whoreported learning BSL from the ages of two to eightyears did not do so well on the task, suggesting that itwas difficult to acquire the same language skills. Manyof these individuals appear to have acquired BSL as a delayed first language. For those who learned BSLafter the age of eight, a different pattern was apparent.These signers were accurate in their judgements buttook a long time to make their responses. Many ofthese individuals appear to have acquired BSL as asecond language after English. Overall, these findingssuggest that the earlier sign language acquisitionbegins, the better.

Other research has shown that bilingualism has a rangeof benefits for adults, so exposure to spoken languageand also a natural sign language like BSL, both as earlyas possible, would be most advantageous for deafchildren. A bilingual approach with children canmaximise linguistic and cognitive skills to overcome any delays or difficulties due to deafness.

This research reveals that to give deaf children thebest chance of successful language acquisition, it isimportant that they are exposed to a sign languagefrom a very young age. Evidence has shown that it isrisky to wait until a child has succeeded or failed at

acquiring spoken language before introducing a signlanguage because by that time it may be too late forany successful language acquisition. Although thelevel of this risk both historically and more recently is hotly debated, the fact remains that if earlyspoken/written language acquisition is not successful(and we know from many decades of research thatthis has been the case for many, many deaf children),then exposure to a sign language in middle childhoodwill be too late. These deaf children risk not being fully competent in any language – spoken, written or signed. To mitigate this risk, an early bilingualapproach is recommended to ensure that the child hasthe best chance for successful acquisition of a spokenand/or signed language.

The study – ‘First language acquisition differs fromsecond language acquisition in prelingually deafsigners: Evidence from sensitivity to grammaticalityjudgement in British Sign Language’ – was publishedin the journal Cognition and is available from DCAL onrequest.

Kearsy Cormier is a senior researcher and DavidVinson is an experimental psycholinguist at theDeafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre,University College London. Adam Schembri is Directorof the National Institute of Deaf Studies and SignLanguage at La Trobe University, Melbourne,Australia, and Eleni Orfanidou is a lecturer in theDepartment of Psychology at the University of Crete,Rethymno, Greece.

Early exposure to BSLKearsy Cormier, David Vinson, Adam Schembri and Eleni Orfanidou present their findings from research

into how early sign language exposure can benefit deaf children

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The main purpose of the National SensoryImpairment Partnership (NatSIP) outcomesbenchmarking workstream is to establish reliable

national benchmarking data on pupil outcomes that canbe used by local authority sensory support services toevidence their impact and inform development needs. It forms one of the strands of NatSIP’s work which is currently being supported by the Department forEducation (DfE) through its voluntary and communitysector grant funding and it ties in with the recognisedneed for more reliable data about outcomes for pupilswith sensory impairment.

The workstream is led by me, Nicky Ereaut(Oxfordshire) and Anne Morrell (Durham).

NatSIP’s outcomes benchmarking surveyNatSIP’s annual outcomes benchmarking surveysbegan in 2011. The second exercise was completed atthe end of August 2012 and the third exercise is nowunder way, with services having until the end of March2013 to submit their raw data. Each survey focuses ondata from the previous academic year.

The exercise currently involves gathering data forchildren and young people with hearing, vision andmulti-sensory impairments pertaining to 14 performanceindicators (see the table opposite), which span the KeyStages; 11 of the indicators relate to educationalachievements and progress.

For deaf children, the data is categorised by degree ofhearing loss (ie mild, moderate, severe and profound)and at the Early Years Foundation Stage it is furtherdifferentiated in terms of children with and withoutcochlear implants. (NB Pupils with a mild hearing losswere not included in the 2012 survey.)

Following submission to NatSIP, the raw data iscollated, analysed and a report prepared whichpresents: • a detailed breakdown of the benchmarking results for

each of the sensory impairments• a comparison between the results for hearing, vision

and multi-sensory impairments• a comparison between year-on-year results• a comparison between NatSIP and DfE data for all

children and young people.

The report is then circulated to each of the participatingsensory support services along with a confidential copy of their individual local authority outcomesbenchmarking results for comparison with the ‘national’results in the full report.

2012 survey findings for children and young peopleA total of 57 local authorities participated in the 2012exercise, an increase of 16 over the initial 2011exercise, with data being submitted by 51 hearingimpairment services. The numbers within the moderate,severe and profound cohorts of deaf pupils ranged from128–194 in the case of the moderate cohorts, 30–48 forthe severe cohorts and 34–51 for the profound cohorts.The main findings in relation to the deaf cohorts arepresented below. Although it was not possible to testresults for statistical significance, the sizes of thecohorts would appear reasonable from a reliabilitystandpoint.• Considering the three performance indicators at the

Foundation Stage, there was evidence to support thebeneficial influence of cochlear implants for pupils withprofound hearing loss, ie the cohorts with implantsconsistently outscored on average those without.Furthermore, the cohort of pupils with profoundhearing loss consistently outscored on average that of pupils with severe hearing loss.

• The cohorts of pupils with moderate hearing loss wereoutscored on average by the cohorts of pupils witheither profound or severe deafness on eight of the 11 educational achievement/progress-relatedperformance indicators.

• The cohorts of pupils with profound hearing lossoutscored on average those with severe hearing losson eight of the 11 educational achievement/progress-related performance indicators.

• The combined moderate, severe and profoundcohorts for pupils with vision impairment outscored onaverage the similarly combined deaf cohorts on eightof the 11 educational achievement/progress-relatedperformance indicators.

• While the combined moderate, severe and profoundcohorts for pupils with vision impairment scored higherin the 2012 survey than in the 2011 survey on sevenof the nine educational achievement/progress-relatedperformance indicators on which there was data for the two years, no such overall (apparent)improvement was in evidence for deaf pupils.

• In comparison with 2011, the 2012 survey showed areduction in the percentage of pupils with moderateand severe (but not profound) hearing losses havingplanned education or employment paths in place bythe end of Key Stage 4.

Closing the gap between outcomes for children andyoung people with sensory impairment and outcomesfor all children and young people constitutes a centralaim for NatSIP. A comparison of the NatSIP data fordeaf pupils (moderate, severe and profound cohortscombined) and DfE data for all children on several of



Exploring outcomesBob Denman discusses the conclusions drawn from the 2012 NatSIP outcomes benchmarking survey

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the outcome measures for both 2009/10 and 2010/11was therefore undertaken in the search for evidencerelating to this aim. It was found that the gap betweenoutcomes decreased for each of three end-of-Key-Stage-2 performance indicators. However, the gapbetween outcomes increased for each of four end-of-Key-Stage-4 performance indicators for which the datasets were available (these included two measures ofGCSE performance). While in every case the nationalDfE data improved, the NatSIP data in three of the fourindicators showed a decline.

While caution is certainly needed in the interpretation ofthe data, a number of the findings do prompt a range ofquestions to be raised, for example:• Why should pupils with moderate hearing loss be

outscored on average by pupils with either profoundor severe hearing losses on the majority of theeducational achievement/progress-relatedperformance indicators? Does this reflect a need forfurther support for pupils with moderate hearing loss?

• Why should pupils with profound hearing lossoutscore on average those with severe hearing losson the majority of the educational achievement orprogress-related performance indicators? Does thiscall for further consideration of support allocation fromhearing impairment services?

• Is the reduction in the percentage of pupils withmoderate and severe hearing losses having plannededucation or employment paths in place by the end ofKey Stage 4 indicative of resourcing pressures withinservices in providing the planning support for deaf

pupils, particularly when they are not protected by astatement of SEN?

Future outcomes benchmarkingNatSIP will continue to build on the promising start ithas made in outcomes benchmarking and encouragefurther involvement from more sensory support servicesin its aim to provide reliable data for services toevidence their impact and inform development needs.With the completion of the third survey at the end ofMarch 2013 it will be possible to start analysing year-on-year trend data. This will introduce an additionaldimension to the reporting.

The findings already reported signal the importance oflooking more closely at service input and output versuspupil outcome data. This is something that is alreadybeing actively pursued through a joint NatSIP/CRIDEfeasibility study in which the possibility of gathering acombination of pupil-level provision and outcomes datafor analysis is being explored.

NB: The generic term ‘(sensory) impairment’ has beenused for brevity throughout the table. For deaf childrenand young people, data is collected separately for thosewith mild, moderate, severe and profound hearinglosses.

Bob Denman is a NatSIP consultant. Full details of theNatSIP outcomes benchmarking survey can be found in the Guidance document on the NatSIP website atwww.natsip.org.uk/



Early YearsFoundation Stage(EYFS)

KS2

KS2–4

KS4

All KSexclusions

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Average subtotal score achieved by children with (sensory) impairment for communication,language and literacy at the end of the EYFS.Average total score for all 13 EYFS Profile scales achieved by children with (sensory)impairment at the end of the EYFS.% of children with (sensory) impairment achieving a score of 78 points or more across all 13EYFS Profile scales.% of children with (sensory) impairment progressing by two or more levels in English at KS2.% of children with (sensory) impairment progressing by two or more levels in mathematics at KS2.% of children with (sensory) impairment achieving level 4 or above in both English andmathematics at the end of KS2.% of young people with (sensory) impairment progressing by three or more levels (ie makingexpected progress) in English from the end of KS2 to the end of KS4.% of young people with (sensory) impairment progressing by three or more levels (ie makingexpected progress) in mathematics from the end of KS2 to the end of KS4.% of young people with (sensory) impairment achieving five or more A*–G GCSEs (orequivalent), including English and mathematics, by the end of KS4.% of young people with (sensory) impairment achieving five or more A* –C GCSEs (orequivalent), including English and mathematics, by the end of KS4.% of young people with (sensory) impairment achieving five or more A*–C GCSEs (orequivalent), in any subjects, by the end of KS4.% of young people with (sensory) impairment with planned education or employment paths inplace by the end of KS4.% of children and young people with (sensory) impairment who had at least one fixed-termexclusion from school during the last academic year.% of children and young people with (sensory) impairment who were permanently excludedfrom school during the last academic year.

Key Stage PI Performance indicator (PI)

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New research commissioned by the national charitythe Meningitis Trust has highlighted the long-term,often hidden, after-effects of meningitis in children.

The Meningococcal Outcomes Study in Adolescentsand in Children (MOSAIC) shows that one in threechildren who have experienced meningococcal group Bdisease (MenB), the most common type of bacterialmeningitis in the UK, will be left with after-effects.

It is estimated that bacterial meningitis and septicaemiaaffect around 3,400 people in the UK each year, andapproximately half of these are children. The newresearch, led by Professor Russell Viner at theUniversity College London Institute of Child Health,looked at the cognitive and psychological burden ofMenB, as well as the major physical and neurologicaldisabilities in children as young as three years old.

Victims were found to be significantly more likely toexperience mental health problems, with one in fivesuffering anxiety or behavioural disorders. In addition,meningitis was found to impact on an individual’smemory – both long and short term – and leavesurvivors significantly more likely to experience epilepsy.

The study also identified other problems that couldsignificantly affect a child’s education. Child victims canbe left with a borderline IQ, leaving them behind in theclassroom and potentially limiting their educationalattainment. They are five times more likely to havespeech and communication problems, and in laterschool life display poor executive function, affecting theirability to plan and organise, especially as they movefrom primary to secondary school.

Alongside these ‘hidden’ after-effects, the devastatingphysical impact of meningitis was also reported, withsufferers being five times more likely to have significantdeafness, and 2.4% of survivors having bilateraldeafness requiring a cochlear implant.

Deafness is the most common after-effect of meningitis– the inflammation of the membranes that surround andprotect the brain and spinal cord. Difficulties can rangefrom mild hearing loss through to profound deafness inone or both ears. Damage to the inner ear can alsoresult in balance problems and tinnitus. Deafness maynot be immediately obvious and it is important to have a hearing test soon after the disease. All deafness isdifferent, and hearing tests may need to be repeated.Deafness following meningitis can cause major changesin lifestyle for the individual, their family and school. The

Meningitis Trust can offer support and information tohelp with any transition. Another way the organisationcan help people is through its financial grants, which arenot means tested. These have previously been used tofund sign language classes, auditory verbal therapy andmore, to help with hearing loss following meningitis.

The MOSAIC research is the first comprehensive studyof the outcomes of serogroup B meningococcal diseasepublished anywhere in the world. It is also the largeststudy of the outcomes of meningococcal disease everpublished. Over a three-year period, 573 children and their families from across England took part. The sample included 245 children who had sufferedmeningococcal group B disease three years previously,when they were between the age of one month and 13



The MOSAIC reportSue Davie reports on a comprehensive study of the outcomes of meningitis, which

highlights the true impact of this disease

Your voice is like music!Eight-year-old Troy,who became deafafter contractingmeningitis fivetimes, has now beenable to hear againthanks to his newcochlear implant.Troy’s mum, Nicola,says, ‘It was one of

the best moments of our lives. When they switched iton it took a while for Troy’s nerves to adjust but youcould tell the moment he could hear. His face lit up.It was a picture. It was like a miracle had takenplace. He said my voice sounded like music – likethe beating of a drum. He kept laughing and saying“Talk to me mummy – I can hear you!” Since theswitch-on of his implant he has spent lots of time inthe garden, stopping to listen to every new sound,from the dog barking to his brother laughing.’

Troy lost his hearing aged two, following his firstbattle with meningitis. He fell from a bunk-bed ladderand fractured his skull, and doctors said there wasnothing they could do to fix it. As a result, Troy lost the hearing in his left ear and doctors warnedthat there might be a risk of him getting bacterialmeningitis due to his brain fluid becoming infectedfrom the fracture. Within a month Nicola had to rushhim to hospital where it was confirmed he hadcontracted meningitis. Troy then went on to havemeningitis a further four times, which resulted in himlosing his hearing in his right ear.

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years. All children were assessed in the same way sothat an accurate comparison could be made betweenthe two groups. Although each person’s experience ofthe disease will be slightly different, the results show theaverage effects of MenB.

This unique piece of research has highlighted the trueimpact of the disease and provided the evidence forwhat the Trust has been hearing about from parents foryears. With the results now in the public domain theTrust hopes that parents will feel empowered to ask for help for their child, and education and healthprofessionals will be better informed about the long-term effects of the disease, and together these peoplewill push for children to receive the support they needand deserve.

For those who have experienced meningitis theresearch findings may also provide comfort, helping to identify after-effects that may not be immediatelyobvious and can often be dismissed or misunderstood. The findings also support the Trust’s ongoing MeningitisChanges Futures campaign to increase understandingof the disease and its after-effects. The campaign wasset up to highlight the true and often hidden impact ofmeningitis, focusing on tackling educational difficulties.Initially the Trust called for the automatic right for any

child who has had meningitis to have timely andappropriate assessments throughout his or hereducational life, picking up on any issues early on. A petition requesting this was delivered to DowningStreet in July last year.

Now the Trust has widened its campaign to become the voice of meningitis sufferers and create positivechange to ensure that the disease and its burden arerecognised and understood. The Trust is looking forpeople to join its fight back against meningitis bybecoming Meningitis Champions. Those choosing to get involved can give as little, or as much, time as theycan, and there are many ways in which people canhelp. Find out more at www.meningitis-trust.org/about-us/campaigns/meningitis-champions/

The Meningococcal Outcomes Study in Adolescentsand in Children, supported by the Garfield WestonFoundation and The Big Lottery, led by ProfessorRussell Viner, UCL Institute of Child Health, London,was first published in The Lancet Neurology.

For more facts and figures visit the Meningitis ResearchFoundation website at www.meningitis.org/facts/

Sue Davie is the Chief Executive of the Meningitis Trust.



Student lifeKirsty Crombie-Smith stresses the need for adequate funding to support deaf

pupils through further education

T‘oastie maker, kettle, two plates, set of pans and a large supermarket shopping trip – does thatremind you of anything? To me it means getting

ready to go off to university or college. It seems awhile since I was at university but as soon as I start tothink about it the memories come flooding back. Thatfirst week of nervously meeting people, finding yourfeet and getting to grips with the work – suddenlybeing responsible for your own time and learning; noone to chase you, you are on your own and have tofind your own support networks.

I was unable to find statistics on the number of deafstudents in higher education, but I did find a YouTubefilm from March 2012 by a deaf student namedThomas. He states that, although receiving support,along with other deaf students, he still finds that it falls short compared to that received by hearingcounterparts. He wants to start a Deaf Students Unionso that they can campaign for change. You can checkout his video by going on to YouTube and searchingfor UKDSU.

His campaign got me thinking about what support thereis out there. So I started looking in the usual place –online. I quickly found three organisations that supportdeaf students in further education. The Consortium ofHigher Education Support Services with Deaf Studentsaims to generate good practice in supporting deafstudents; Furthering Access to College Education fordeaf students, based in Scotland, has a website withgood links to accessbility support and information; andthe National Association for Tertiary Education for Deafpeople, which works to smooth the transition for deafstudents into further education and provides trainingand good practice guidance for professionals working in this area. All three organisations have great aimsand I hope that Thomas finds the support he needs,especially bearing in mind the cost of further educationnow. If we are asking students to pay £9,000 a yearthen we need to ensure that they can get as much outof it as possible and we must provide them with thesupport and accessibility services they need.

Kirsty Crombie-Smith is Operations Manager of Deafax.

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Since September 2012, Ofsted has beeninspecting e-safety provision as part of schools’safeguarding arrangements. The Ofsted

guidance says, ‘In the context of an inspection, e-safety may be described as the school’s ability toprotect and educate pupils and staff in their use oftechnology and to have the appropriate mechanismsto intervene and support any incident whereappropriate.

‘The breadth of issues classified within e-safety isconsiderable, but can be categorised into three areasof risk:• content: being exposed to illegal, inappropriate or

harmful material• contact: being subjected to harmful online

interaction with other users• conduct: personal online behaviour that increases

the likelihood of, or causes, harm.’

Schools will need to prove that they are providingannual e-safety training for all school staff and that they have a whole organisational approach to e-safety, with shared responsibility. Schools areexpected to be moving to managed systems wherechildren are taught to identify and manage e-safetyrisks and there is a clear e-safety strategy, withregularly reviewed policies. Schools are alsoexpected to provide guidance and communicationwith families to continue the e-safety message athome.

The briefing paper for inspectors contains detailsabout e-safety risks and some interesting statistics.For example, 91% of children aged 5–15 live in a household with internet access via a computer.Smartphone ownership in 2010 comprised 3% ofchildren aged 5–7, 13% of children aged 8–11 andaround 35% of children aged 12–15. 34% of childrenaged 8–12 have a profile on sites that require usersto register as being 13 or over. Increasingly, internetuse is ‘privatised and mobile’ and many pupils arenow able to go online on their mobile phones. It willnot matter how careful the school is about pupilsusing the school computers and network if they areusing their personal mobile phones at breaks andlunchtimes.

The inspection guidance includes sample questionsfor the leadership team, staff and pupils. To downloadthe guidance about e-safety inspection, type ‘briefings’into the search box on the Ofsted website, then followthe link to the ‘Briefings and information for use

during inspections of maintained schools andacademies from September 2012’. This will allow youto download a zip file of all the Section 5 briefingsand information – www.ofsted.gov.uk/

One of the questions that will be asked is whether theschool is involved in theSafer Internet Day (SID).This event, which started in2004, is held annually inFebruary and is celebratedin more than 90 countries

worldwide. The day aims to promote safer and moreresponsible use of online technology and mobilephones, especially among children and young people.Safer Internet Day 2013 will take place on Tuesday 5 February and the theme will be online rights andresponsibilities. The SID website contains resourcessuch as posters, lesson plans and competitions. Youcan view videos and resources from previous SaferInternet Days and find details of events. Schools canregister to receive the SID kit, which will includesuggested activities and resources. The UK SaferInternet Centre also has a range of primary andsecondary resources for the day that can bedownloaded at no cost. These include lesson plans, activities, assemblies and guidance notes – www.saferinternetday.org andwww.saferinternet.org.uk/

Annual training for staff on e-safety can take the formof in-service training or online training. One companythat specialises in providing safeguarding services forindividuals and organisations is the Child ProtectionCompany. It provides face-to-face and online trainingcourses for anyone who works directly and indirectlywith children and young people. Its online e-safetycourse fulfils the Ofsted requirements and coversdifferent types of technology, risks to children andstaff, dealing with incidents, as well as the importanceof educating and empowering children. There is anassessment at the end of the course, which takesaround an hour to complete and a score of 70% isrequired to gain the training course certificate. Anindividual can purchase the course for just under £30,but the more courses that are purchased the cheapereach one becomes. For example, if you purchase ten courses, you will pay less than £20 for each one.There is a management system that will maintain acentral record of the training and reminders will besent out when training needs to be refreshed. All staffand governors at my school, Knightsfield, have

ICT newsSharon Pointeer underlines the importance of e-safety for all pupils and takes a look at some

websites offering top tips and teaching resources

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completed the online e-safety course and found itinformative and thought provoking. The company alsooffers online child protection training for staff and thedesignated senior person. Support packages areavailable that ensure a school is complying withsafeguarding and e-safety requirements –www.childprotectioncompany.com/

Press releasesPersonalising Education – this website, launched inOctober 2012, aims to personalise education throughthe use of one-page profiles and other person-centredpractices. One-page profiles have been described as‘a child’s agenda, described to the world’ and ‘an idealway of underpinning a new approach to inclusion’.They are the foundation of personalisation ineducation. A one-page profile is simply a one-pagedescription of a child – what people appreciate andvalue about them, what is important to them and how to support them. It brings together, in one place,the child’s view, the teacher’s perspective and acontribution from parents. The profile is built on and

updated throughout the year and throughout thechild’s school life. As the child matures, moreemphasis is placed on personal goals, self-motivationand, eventually, career aspirations.

The head of this collaborative project and the creatorof the one-page profile concept is former governmentadviser Helen Sanderson, the UK’s leading expert inperson-centred thinking. The website offers teachersadvice, ideas and free resources to support theimplementation of one-page profiles and otherperson-centred practices in their schools. There isalso the opportunity to learn from the experience ofother schools through blogs and social media. Thewebsite includes examples of one-page profiles,which seem to be an ideal way of presentinginformation to mainstream teachers about deaf pupilsin their class – www.personalisingeducation.org/

If you would like to contribute anything to thesepages, please contact Sharon Pointeer [email protected].

Websites worth a visit – top tipsEdComs – Alex Ross wrote ten top tips for newlyqualified teachers on the EdComs Teachers website,but having read it I think that most of the tips areapplicable to any teacher! Here are my favourites – go to the August section of the blog to read the others:• Planning your lessons shouldn’t take longer than the

lesson!• Be consistent with everything, whether that is praise,

rewards, sanctions, punishments or homework.Follow through on everything.

• Make sure you have a work/life balance. It is veryeasy to let teaching take over your life. Make sureyou still exercise, eat healthily, get enough sleep and have a chance to socialise with friends –www.edcomsteachers.com/blog/

The University of Hawaii in Honolulu – this wouldnot necessarily be the first place you would think oflooking for advice; however, the faculty developmentwebsite has won awards for innovative achievementand effectiveness. Its index of teaching tips has linksto useful articles about teaching sourced from all overthe internet. While the materials are aimed atAmerican university staff, many of them are applicableto those of us working in schools. There are someinteresting articles referenced in the communicationsection such as ‘Top 10 Nonverbal CommunicationTips’. Other sections include critical thinking, teachingtechniques, plagiarism, questioning techniques,motivation and organisation. I liked the ‘101 ways tocope with stress’ and intend to do number 9 andnumber 25 more often! To find out what these are clickon the ‘Teaching Tips Index’ on the website –www2.honolulu.hawaii.edu/facdev/

Deafworks – thisconsultancycompany has been supportingdeaf people andprofessionals forover 23 years. Its directors haveexperience in thecommercial andeducation fields, and the website has a top tipssection that has some interesting resources. One that particularly caught my eye was for deafawareness trainers. Many of us are called up to give deaf awareness training to other teachers and professionals who come into contact with ourpupils. This article, originally from a Council for theAdvancement of Communication with Deaf Peoplemagazine, contains a good deal of common senseadvice. The advice for school leavers and studentsstarting university is also worth a read –www.deafworks.co.uk/resources/top-tips/

The Tutor Pages Ltd – this independenteducational services company provides usefulinformation and advice on all aspects of the UKprivate tuition industry. It lists hundreds of articles onall subjects relating to tutoring. I happened acrossan article on this site about teaching the violin todeaf pupils by Jemima Clarke, a full-time violinistand violin teacher in London, which gives tips formusic teachers working with deaf learners that areapplicable to a range of instruments. Enter ‘JemimaClarke’ in the search box to find the article –www.thetutorpages.com/

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Working with several hearing-impaired pupilswho have English as an additional language(EAL), I became interested in the speech,

language and communication development of thisparticular group of pupils on our caseloads. Althoughthere is a considerable amount of research on thissubject, there is a lack of practical guidance forTeachers of the Deaf working with these pupils.

I have sought here to offer some guidance by drawingfrom related published research and informationreferenced in established working documents, forexample Distinguishing the difference: SEN or EAL?(Birmingham Advisory & Support Service, BirminghamCity Council) and Deafness in a multilingual society: Areview of research for practice by Tony Cline and DrMerle Mahon.

Typically developing children who have EAL acquirespoken English in the same stages as monolingualEnglish speakers. Therefore, if pupils with a hearingimpairment are appropriately aided and appropriatelysupported for the hearing loss both at home and at school, there is evidence that they will follow the same stages of language development asmonolingual hearing children, but at a slower rate.Lots of deaf children with EAL also become bimodalbilinguals in spoken language and sign languageand/or in two home languages.

Research shows that in the early years, teachersadapt their strategies to facilitate spoken English in asimilar way for EAL children and deaf EAL children.

I have divided my guidelines into eight sections:• Statistics• Development of language 2 with pupils with EAL• Cultural variations• Factors that may affect language acquisition• Which language should be used?• Assessing language• Guidelines for specialist teacher advisers (STAs)• Guidelines for special educational needs co-

ordinators (SENCOs), teachers and support staff.

Statistics • 14% of deaf children in education in the UK have

EAL and use another spoken language at home,either on its own or in combination with English.These are mainly from inner cities such as London,Birmingham and the north east of England.

• Most of these 14% come from hearing families andvery few use British Sign Language (BSL). Only 8%of children use sign language in some form, eitheron its own or alongside spoken English.

• 23% of pupils with EAL in primary schools inEngland have a hearing impairment.

• 28% of deaf children given a cochlear implant atGreat Ormond Street Hospital over a five-yearperiod came from families who spoke a languageother than English at home.

Development of language 2 (L2) with hearingpupils with EAL• Bilingual children acquire English in the same stages

as monolingual English speakers. • In the early stages of learning L2, there may be a

period of silence. In this period, the children will beinternalising the language and adjusting to their newenvironment. The length of this period can be up tosix months or even longer if the family have comefrom war-torn countries or are refugees.

• Pupils with EAL will acquire basic interpersonalcommunicative skills in English within two years oftheir exposure to English. They may start to speakfluently after about a year but it will take longer forthem to be able to understand the more complexlanguage that they require to access the curriculum.

• When these children begin to speak, they will makegrammatical errors because they are transferring the linguistic rules from their home language intoEnglish. This is a normal stage of development.

• As children become more competent in usingEnglish, it is very common for them to switch fromone language to the other. This should not beconsidered as a language difficulty.

• It will take between five and seven years for childrento acquire the full range of literacy skills that willenable them to access the school curriculum. This isknown as cognitive/academic language proficiency.

• Once they start to use spoken language children willoften display a higher use of fillers and empty wordsto give themselves time to process the language.

Pupils learning EAL tend to narrow the gap with theirpeers over time in school, but this pattern may be lessstrong in a population of deaf students.

Cultural variationsIt is important to respect the differing requirements of parents, recognising the need for flexibility in thetiming and structure of meetings. These are in line



Nicky Povey runs through some guidelines produced for those working with deaf

pupils who have English as an additional language

Deafness and EAL

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with the key principles for communicating and workingin partnership with parents, as identified in the SENCode of Practice (2001).

When working with these families, arranging meetingsand home visits, it is essential to have a goodknowledge of the community and an understanding of the religion and culture.• If the family is Muslim, avoid arranging meetings and

visits on Fridays.• It may be necessary to arrange an interpreter for

meetings. Do not use siblings as interpreters.• You may be expected to take your shoes off as you

enter the house.• Some family members may feel uncomfortable

about meeting members of the opposite sex.• In some cultures it is not customary for males to

shake hands with females. A simple introduction willbe sufficient.

• In some cultures it is a sign that you have beenaccepted if you are offered refreshments. If youneed to decline, do this in the most sensitive way in order to avoid offence being taken.

• In Asian communities, the family is unlikely to sitwith you while you take refreshments, and will standwatching you. This may feel very awkward to beginwith.

• Be aware that trousers or long skirts will be moreculturally acceptable at meetings and home visits.

Cultural factors that may affect languageacquisition• Pronouns (for example, he/she) do not exist in

some languages, such as Polish and Turkish.• Eye contact may be a sign of disrespect in some

cultures.• In many cultures, such as Nepali, it is seen as

disrespectful for the child to initiate conversation orto question an adult.

• There are some cultures where the adults do not‘play’ with their children and there may be anoticeable lack of toys in the house.

Which language should be used?Previous advice to families erred on the side of caution,suggesting they speak only one language to their deafchild with EAL, but now the advice to families is similarto that given to parents of all hearing children – there isno ‘right or wrong’ way. The most important thing is totalk to the child in whichever language he or she is most comfortable speaking in. If the child understands aconcept in one language, it does not matter which one.The two languages are interdependent. The followingfactors are more important:• Children learn language through interaction with

parents and close friends. It does not matter whichlanguage is spoken, it is the quality and quantity ofthe language that is used.

• The family should communicate in whicheverlanguage they are most comfortable with. Expansion

and extensions should be encouraged.• Research suggests that the first language and

second language are interdependent. If childrenunderstand a concept in their first language, thenthe task is one of acquiring a new label in theirsecond language.

• If children have a language disorder in their firstlanguage they will most likely have a languagedisorder in their second language.

Assessing the language of hearing-impaired EALpupilsThe progress of hearing-impaired EAL pupils shouldbe closely monitored and recorded. There are usefulcharts for plotting progress, such as ‘The Procedure’in Distinguishing the difference: SEN or EAL? Thesepoints should be taken into consideration:• Hearing-impaired EAL children who have normally

developing language will develop their language inthe same stages as hearing monolingual children,but at a slower rate. We would expect there to belanguage delay.

• It is essential that the language is recognised as it islikely to be delayed and not disordered.

• Developing a full picture of the children’s languageenvironment at home and at school will help verymuch when addressing their language andcommunication development.

• It is essential to have the following informationbefore assessing a pupil with EAL.

– How long has the child been in Britain?– How long did he or she spend in full-timeeducation in the ‘home’ country?– How long has he or she had access to Englishas an additional language?– Does he or she have any older siblings atschool in the UK (he or she may hear Englishfrom these siblings)?– What are the child’s language levels in thechild’s home language?– What information is there about the hearingloss?– What was the age at diagnosis?– How long has the child been appropriatelyamplified?

Assessments such as the British Picture VocabularyScale (BPVS), Test of Reception of Grammar (TROG)and Assessment of Comprehension and Expression(ACE) are standardised for hearing children who haveEnglish as their first language and may also includewords and concepts that are not within the deafchild’s experiences. They are therefore unlikely to be a true indication of the deaf EAL child’s speech,language and communication levels. Theseassessments must be used with extreme caution.

The guidelines – advice for STAs (hearing-impaired)• Collect all relevant information about the child.



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• If appropriate, request that school makes a referral to the Ethnic Minority and Traveller AchievementService (EMTAS) for an assessment of the speechand language in the home language.

• Build a good knowledge of the community and anunderstanding of the religion and culture of thefamily, particularly if there are home visits.

• Build up an accurate picture of the pupil’s languagein the home language by observation, discussionwith parents and support from EMTAS.

• Ensure that the child attends nursery or formaleducation as soon as possible.

• Use formal assessments such as BPVS and TROGwith great caution.

• Be aware that it can take up to two years toestablish social fluency in English and between fiveand seven years to acquire the complex languagethat enables access to a full and wide curriculum.

Advice to SENCOs, class teachers and supportstaff• Remember that pupils who are exposed to a spoken

language at home which is different from the mainlanguage spoken for teaching and learning in schoolare entitled to and require relevant adaptations.

• For pupils who arrive in England with little or noexperience of schooling in English or without literacyin another language, ensure that they have a

programme of work tailored to achieve effectiveparticipation in the mainstream curriculum.

• Build up an accurate picture of the progress andattainment of the EAL learners in speaking,listening, writing and reading. Effective recordkeeping is essential.

• Ensure that regular and frequent one-to-onesessions are held.

• Use explicit pointing, ie number lines, pictures,words.

• Keep background noise to a minimum.• Allow pupils in the school with the same heritage

language to work together as response partners.• Use gesture and visual aids to develop language,

especially when introducing new concepts.• Rephrase rather than repeat if the pupil does not

understand.• Remember that pre-tutoring is essential.• Re-cast – if pupil makes an error in English, give

them back the correct model.• Consider employing a member of staff of the same

culture as the EAL pupil.

Nicky Povey has been a specialist teacher adviserfor the hearing-impaired in Hampshire for ten yearsand prior to that worked in Northumberland, Surrey,North Tyneside and at Mary Hare as a Teacher ofthe Deaf.


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The latest publication from Connevans – DeafEquipment explained – is a free interactive guideto the world of assistive equipment. It can be

found online at www.connevans.info/guide/ Writtenespecially for people who may not know anythingabout deafness or assistive equipment, it aims toguide parents through the types of products that areavailable and how to choose between them.

Intended as a resource for Teachers of the Deaf toshare, the guide offers a gentle introduction and isideal for any family with no previous experience ofdeafness. It would also be great for ‘transition days’as it gives an overview of the types of equipmentmost commonly used around the house to help buildup a deaf child’s independence.

Deaf Equipment explained is bright and colourful,written in a clear and easy-to-read way, with notechnical jargon. It includes top tips from experiencedmembers of Connevans’ staff and reviews fromcustomers. It gives an introduction to topics such as different levels of hearing loss, types of hearingaid and the loop programme.

Grouped into useful sections such as ‘Alerting Devices’and ‘Telecommunications’, the guide outlines the best ways of listening to music and TV, explains theadvantages of a vibrating alarm clock and suggests sixthings to think about when choosing a telephone. Italso introduces the latest technology, such as wirelesshearing aid accessories like the Oticon Streamer, and outlines ways of listening to a mobile phone viaBluetooth. There is a section on hearing aid care,which is particularly useful to parents and provides agreat introduction for young people who are beginningto look after their aids themselves.

The guide doesn’t include any specific product detailsor prices but if you’re interested in a product, eachpage has interactive links to appropriate categorieson the www.DeafEquipment.co.uk website so thecurrent range is only a click away. The aim is toempower parents and students by giving them theinformation to make their own informed choices aboutwhich product is best for them.

The latest assistive technology is smart, easy to useand inexpensive. It will help children to get the bestfrom their hearing aids and participate fully in socialactivities. The aim of our Deaf Equipment explainedguide is to explain how this technology works andperhaps introduce families to some products theydon’t even know exist!

Deaf Equipment explained is designed to be viewed online. Parents can be referred to theinteractive online version using this link:www.connevans.info/guide/

We also have printed booklets available in packs of100 for distribution by ToDs to parents and families.Please email [email protected] to request a pack.

Understanding deafequipment Laura Evans introduces a new guide from Connevans designed to provide Teachers

of the Deaf and parents with up-to-date information on assistive technology

Laura Evans is a Directorof Connevans Limited in Merstham, Surrey.Connevans has beenmanufacturing radio aidsand Soundfield systemsfor many years and isproud to have recentlycelebrated its 50thanniversary.

Ideal for showing parents whattechnology can do for theirchild, the interactive guide alsohas links to further informationand appropriate products

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F e a t u r e

Following the success of the study day last Novemberthe BATOD Foundation planned a similar event forthe North in Manchester. The Ewing Foundation

was celebrating its 60th birthday and as the study dayencapsulated many of the principles of its work, theevent was sponsored by the Ewing Foundation.

This study day offered an introduction to what childrenare hearing in classrooms and how teachers can collectvaluable evidence to argue for Soundfield systems andimproved acoustics in classrooms. Anne Roberts sharedthe latest research evaluating FM and Soundfieldsystems, which was part of the Oticon Foundation projectOptimising Hearing in Every Situation, and Bob Moonfrom Ecophon shared the progress made at SweynePark School with good acoustic management.

Dr Wendy McCracken set the scene asking delegates,‘What are children hearing?’ and considering theneurological basis for listening; how to develop listeningskills; signal to noise and reverberation; perceptualeffects of hearing loss and ways in which children can be provided with access to good quality sound.

Children do not bring a mature neurological system tothe listening situation. They do not have the languageskills or life experience of adults to allow them to fill in thegaps or infer meaning. Consequently, all children requirea quieter room and a louder signal than adults.

BATOD Foundation Trustee Roger Turner placed theinformation ‘out of the (deaf) box’, explaining howimportant good acoustics are across the whole schoolpopulation and curriculum. He considered the subjectfrom the local authority viewpoint. Helping to get themessage across, Tim Wilding (Manchester University),explained how evidence can be gathered in support of improving the acoustic conditions of classrooms.Although not presenting on the day, during question time,David Canning explained to delegates how an app ontheir smartphone can provide ready evidence with soundlevel meters and the possibility of showing a signal-to-noise ratio graph. David and Stuart Whyte will bepresenting a workshop at the BATOD Conference on 9 March in Birmingham when ToDs can handle thissoftware and develop their own confidence. Bob Moonfrom Ecophon looked at acoustic standards in schoolsusing the Sweyne Park School Study (described by DavidCanning in the BATOD Magazine, March 2010, page 20).

Allowing delegates to get hands on with the variousSoundfield systems available, Connevans, Lightspeed,PC Werth and Phonak each presented a workshop

about their products, and delegates visited each in turn. It was a valuable opportunity to compare and contrastthese products in close proximity. Discussions andquestions helped delegates clarify points.

Imran Mulla recently completed his PhD at ManchesterUniversity and is overseeing research at The EarFoundation. He has been working with LanguageENvironment Analysis (LENA) and showed the closelinks between being able to hear clearly and languagedevelopment, expanding on the Hart and Risley study of 42 families over two-and-a-half years (‘AmericanParenting of Language-Learning Children: PersistingDifferences in Family-Child Interactions Observed in Natural Home Environments’, DevelopmentalPsychology, volume 28, 6). They found a relationshipbetween the amount of communication and language, IQ and future success at school and work, concludingthat ‘the most important aspect to evaluate in childcaresettings for very young children is the amount of talkactually going on, moment by moment, between childrenand their caregivers’.

The LENA software analyses the recordings madethrough an iterative modelling process which segmentsthe data, recognising male adult, female adult, key child,other child, overlapping speech, noise, electronic noiseand silence. The data supported several researchprojects showing that younger children with normalhearing require significantly higher signal-to-noise values(>+15dB) and reduced reverberation times for speechrecognition compared with older children.

Imran’s presentation is available on the BATODFoundation website www.batodfoundation.org.uk ‘18October 2012 Study Day’ tab. All the presentations wererecorded by Chris Cartwright and made available viaPhonak iLearn by clicking the presentation title on theprogramme.

Ann Underwood is a BATOD Foundation Trustee.

Improving listening conditionsAnn Underwood outlines a study day in Manchester that both celebrated the EwingFoundation’s 60th birthday and informed a range of professionals about improvinglistening in the classroom

Chris Cartwright (Phonak) prepares to record the presentationsfor transfer to Phonak iLearn

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The National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) hasused animation for the first time to inform deafteenagers about the support that should be

available to them at exam time to help raise theiraspirations and to try and bridge the attainment gapbetween deaf and hearing young people.

The charity worked with its award-winning YoungPeople’s Advisory Board (YAB) to find out about theissues deaf young people worry about at exam time,such as missing the start of an exam or being unable to follow an interpreter or take notes. The YAB helped to develop the animations – giving advice on colours,language and music that should be used so that theNDCS could create a resource that appeals to deafyoung people.

The three new animations give deaf teenagersinformation about the support available when takingexams and at crucial crossroads in their lives, such as deciding whether to go to college or take anapprenticeship. The project was launched in responseto discussions with the YAB and other deaf youngpeople, who said that one of their biggest concerns waseducation, as well as deaf awareness among childrenand adults. The animations aim to boost the aspirationsof deaf young people by empowering them withinformation to make independent decisions about their futures, and they follow research by the NationalFoundation for Educational Research which revealed astark contrast between parents’ aspirations for their deafchildren and what they felt was achievable. Around 66%of parents said they hoped that their child would go touniversity but only 22% thought this would actuallyhappen.

For many young people across the UK preparing for exams is astressful enough time, but for deafyoung people like 17-year-oldDaniel Owen (pictured left) examsmeant desperately trying to makenotes while he focused on his signlanguage interpreter. Daniel, fromSwansea, took 12 GCSEs and is

now studying for his A-levels and Welsh Baccalaureate.To do his exams he had a one-to-one interpreter and20% extra time.

‘Revising for my exams was difficult as I couldn’t makenotes because I had to constantly look at the interpreterduring lessons,’ says Daniel. ‘I was put in a room on my own to do my exams, but this made me feel reallyisolated. The room was above the music department,which wasn’t soundproofed, so I could constantly hearand feel the vibrations from the drums downstairs. Thisreally didn’t help me and meant I had to concentrateeven harder on my interpreter. I suffered withheadaches during my exams and revision as I couldn’tbreak eye contact with my interpreter in case I missedsomething. It was really tough and an extra pressure.’

It is hoped that arming deaf young people with theknowledge of what they can ask for to help them atexam time, and what should be available to them –such as an interpreter or extra time as explained in the animations – may help reduce the attainment gap.Currently, around 60% of deaf children fail to get fiveGCSEs grades A*–C, compared with 30% of hearingchildren.

NDCS worked with the YAB following the successfulLook, Smile, Chat campaign run by the charity and led by deaf young people. Look, Smile, Chat aimed tobreak down communication barriers between deaf andhearing teenagers and the campaign earned the YABawards from the Diana Awards and the British Council.NDCS hopes to build on this success by creatinganimations with direct input from the YAB. The charityhopes these will be shared among friends, as well as byTeachers of the Deaf who are working with deaf youngpeople making decisions about their futures, like 17-year-old Fraser Gunn.

Fraser is profoundly deaf, and one of only a handful ofdeaf young people across the UK who have decided to do an apprenticeship – despite an increase in thenumber of apprenticeships being offered by workplacesin recent years. To date, just 0.2%, or 600, of all youngpeople doing apprenticeships are deaf.


F e a t u r e

Armed with informationTyron Woolfe has news of an innovative series of animations aimed to boost the aspirations of deaf

young people and to help them get through stressful exam periods

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Fraser (pictured left), who lives inScotland, says, ‘I think it would beuseful to have more informationabout apprenticeships becausethere can be a lot of pressure fromschools to apply to college anduniversity, and that route isn’t foreveryone. With an apprenticeshipyou are still doing training and

learning but you have the opportunity to go to collegeand get practical skills while you are “on the job”.’

Fraser is in his first year of a four-year apprenticeship at Lovell Construction to become a joiner and he hasmanaged to work with the company to increase its deafawareness.

The animations, Priya’s story: taking the ‘aaaagh!’ out of exams and Paul’s story: at college I can learn and be independent are aimed at students taking GCSEs or equivalent. Sam’s story: I’m getting paid while I get a qualification is aimed at students who may beconsidering learning on the job and taking anapprenticeship.

We want to arm deaf teenagers with the informationthey need to get the most out of school, college andNDCS – it’s important that they know what supportthey’re entitled to. These animations are a great way fordeaf young people to understand what NDCS does and

what support is available. As part of our five-yearstrategy – which has put engaging with deaf children,not just their families, at the heart of our work – weare directly involving deaf children in developing allour services.

The animations are available on the NDCS’s website for deaf young people, The Buzz(www.buzz.org.uk/myfuture). They will appearalongside a fourth animation, Am I the only deafteenager?, which aims to engage with deaf youngpeople and to tackle the problem of isolation that weknow is an issue for many of them.

The animations are important as deaf young people arecurrently facing cuts to their services, such as Teachersof the Deaf who help with their reading and languagedevelopment. NDCS has launched the Stolen Futurescampaign to call for the Government to intervene where cuts are being made. The e-petition atwww.ndcs.org.uk/stolen urgently needs 100,000signatures to get the issues debated in Parliament.

Tyron Woolfe is Deputy Director of Children andYoung People at NDCS. He joined the charity to use his skills and experience as a deaf person to tryand make a difference to deaf children and youngpeople’s lives. His key priorities are to achieve moreopportunities for deaf children and young peopleacross the UK.

The British Deaf Association (BDA) is seekingpartnerships from within the educational sectorfor its new heritage project. The BDA has

secured initial support from the Heritage Lottery Fundand is now in the process of undertaking the researchand finalising the plans for the full three-year project.

In its possession, the BDA has a wealth of filmfootage, some dating back to the 1930s, that capturesthe use of British Sign Language in a variety ofsettings and environments throughout the 20thCentury. The aim is to digitise these clips and makethem available online, accompanied by testimoniesand interviews from deaf community members,academics and historians.

While this online resource will be invaluable forraising awareness of the deaf community’s richheritage, a large part of the project will be dedicatedto developing a UK-wide educational outreachprogramme for deaf schools, mainstream schoolswith deaf pupils/resource bases, and mainstreamschools.

Teaching packs supporting this programme willinclude a DVD of film clips, learning resources andlesson plans, and they will have significant andnumerous links to both the citizenship and deafstudies curricula.

Jemma Buckley, recently appointed as Deaf HeritageProject Manager, says, ‘The BDA wants to ensurethat this project and the accompanying learningresources are as accessible, relevant and beneficialas possible for teachers. We are therefore keen toconsult with educators about the content and formatof the teaching packs to ensure that we meet thisgoal.’

As part of its research the BDA is planning a series of pilot projects for spring 2013, focused around aselection of film clips and a lesson plan/learningresource that will be provided. If you would like totake part in one of these programmes, be placed on the project mailing list or simply receive more information please contact Jemma([email protected]) to express your interest.

F e a t u r e

Reel educationThe British Deaf Association announces plans for its extensive film archive

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Tell us a little about yourself – who you are,where you go to school and what year you arein.

My name is Ellen. I am 15 years old and I attendWymondham College where I am currently in Year 11.I am also a member of Girlguiding UK.

What subjects have you chosen for your GCSEoptions?I have chosen to take textiles, food technology, extraICT and German. I really enjoy these subjects and Iam glad I chose them.

What are your media and textiles courses like?For extra ICT we have to do a project called ‘Windowon my World’ which is where you get the freedom tochoose which topic to focus on. Therefore I chose‘Deafness’ because it plays a major role in my life as I am profoundly deaf and I thought that people don’tseem to know enough about it. We had to create an‘ezine’ (online magazine), which included a movie, a lip-reading challenge and an audio introduction as well as lots of information and images aboutdeafness. In textiles, we have a sketchpad which we have to keep up to date with notes on differenttechniques, designer references and our own photos.We use this to build up some ideas about creating ourfinal garment. I am thinking of designing a WalkersCrisps themed dress with the logo and crisp packets.

What is your favourite subject?My favourite subject would have to be textiles;however, I do enjoy German because I have apenfriend who visited in September on the Germanexchange and she taught me a lot, which has helpedme so much in school. Also I like food tech becauseyou get to make different dishes, which also helps forthe future.

What help do you have in school? Is it useful?I have a learning support assistant in every lesson,who takes notes for me and is there for me if Imisunderstand something or if I need any help. It is

really useful to have this help because I can’t listenand take notes at the same time in case I misssomething out.

What would you like to do when you leaveschool?I’m not sure yet. I would like to stay on and do sixthform but I don’t know what I will do after that. I may want to do fashion design or photography orsomething with children, but I don’t know yet!

What do you like to do out of school?I am in the Senior Section (older Guides) atGirlguiding UK and I love helping out with the youngerchildren. I also like to meet up with my friends, goshopping and have a nice time or go swimming andplay badminton. Otherwise I like to relax, listen tomusic and watch TV.

Who inspires you and why?There are many people who inspire me, but thepeople who inspire me the most would be Gok Wan(fashion designer) and Ellie Simmonds (Paralympicgold medallist) because they have made it through lifewith a disability and have achieved their life’s goal,which inspires me as a deaf person to try my best toachieve what I want to achieve.

Last summer was very special here in the UK.What contribution did you make to the Olympics?I was an Olympic torchbearer and I got to carry theOlympic flame on part of the route to the Olympics!Also, during the Olympics, I had the TV on every day,cheering the athletes on while wearing my Team GBscarf!

Who nominated you to be a torchbearer and why?My mum kindly nominated me because she says thatI make her proud in everything that I do and achieveas well as always thinking of others and helping out(running my charity plant stall and Girlguiding). Shethought that as a reward, I deserved a ‘moment toshine’. I have had a charity plant stall outside my


F e a t u r e

In conversation with Ellen Ellen chats to her Teacher of the Deaf Liz Reed-Beadle about school life, what it means to be deaf

and why 2012 will always be special to her

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house for four years now, I raise between £50 and £220 each year for charities like East AngliaChildren’s Hospices, the British Limbless Ex ServiceMen’s Association and my local church and primaryschool. I grow lots of plants in my dad’s greenhouseand sell them for 50p each to ensure I make areasonable profit. Each year has been getting better,and I would like to do it again, but maybe I’ll try askydive or sponsored swim instead!

What was it like being part of the torch relay?I carried the Olympic flame on 5 July at 9.30am fromNorth Quay into the market place in Great Yarmouth.It was an amazing day and such an amazing momenthaving two minutes where the whole world relied onme to pass the flame on to the next torchbearer. Ofcourse, I didn’t want it to end but it will be a moment I will remember for the rest of my life.

What did you enjoy about it?I enjoyed every single minute of it, from getting myuniform through the post, holding my torch for the firsttime ever and running my leg of the relay, to thepublicity afterwards!

What will you do with your Olympic torch?I will keep it in my bedroom on my bedside tablealong with a photo of me as a torchbearer, which is hanging on my wall. I will pass it down thegenerations and I hope no one will sell it! I am so proud to have it!

What does being deaf mean to you?Being deaf will always be a challenge but it’s who I am,it’s a part of me and no one can change that. I’m proudof who I am, the achievements I’ve made and thefriends and family I have and I wouldn’t change a thing.

F e a t u r e

BATOD was there representing you...Between the NEC meetings, members of BATOD attend various meetings that are of particular interest to Teachersof the Deaf. This list is not exhaustive. Your representatives at the meetings listed included: David Couch, SueDenny, Derek Heppenstall, Elizabeth Reed-Beadle, Paul Simpson, Karen Taylor, Ann Underwood, Alison Weaver

Date External participants Purpose of meeting Venue

October

1 DfE Meeting about Year 6 Grammar Test DfE, London1 Ofqual Access consultation forum Ofqual, Coventry2 FMUK Regular meeting Gray’s Inn Road, London4 EOA Contact meeting University of Reading

11 NatSIP Education, health and care plan Sense, London12 EAGE Meeting to discuss English GCSE Ofqual, Coventry19 Wales Heads of Service Contact meeting regarding BATOD and CRIDE by Skype27 FEAPDA Annual Council meeting Maison des soeurs,

Luxembourg

November

1 Signature Educational conference Canary Wharf, London5 AAQAG Regular meeting Welsh Government

Buildings, Cardiff6 EAGE Regular meeting Ofqual, Coventry7 NatSIP Working day Friends’ Meeting House,

London16 NatSIP Planning course for HOSS Hamilton House, London19 The Communication Trust Contact meeting with new CEO Wakley Street, London20 Glasgow City Council Meeting regarding Glasgow ToDs NDCS, Glasgow23 DfE Workshop about KS4 reforms DfE, London23 CRIDE Meeting regarding 2013 survey Frank Barnes School,

Camden27 NDCS Meeting about KS4 reforms NDCS, London28 FLSE SEND Conference George Inn, London

December

3 NatSIP Project and reference group meetings Sense, London11 The Communication Trust Regular meeting NCVO, London

Please inform the National Executive Officer, Paul Simpson, if you know of any meetings where you feel representation onbehalf of Teachers of the Deaf would be of benefit. Although there is no guarantee that BATOD would be able to attend everymeeting, situations could be monitored and the interests of ToDs represented.

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The population of Sierra Leone is just below sixmillion, and 43% of the people are under 15 yearsof age. It is estimated that 68% of primary school

age children are in school, although in the rural areasthis figure is lower, around 50%.

Deafness in the country is often post-lingual, withmalaria, measles, rubella and meningitis the mostlikely causes. It is estimated that one in 1,000 peopleis deaf in Sierra Leone, so at a conservative estimatethere are at least 2,500 deaf school children. Thereare only two schools for the deaf, one in Freetown forday scholars, and one in Makeni, St Joseph’s Schoolfor the Hearing-Impaired, which has both boardingand day pupils.

St Joseph’s was started with eight pupils in 1979 by aPeace Corps volunteer, Tom Bristow, and at the sametime Sister Mary Sweeney left for Dublin to train as aTeacher of the Deaf. During the civil war the schoolwas closed (from 1998), and then occupied by variousforces. After that it was a shell and had to be rebuilt,reopening in 2002. Today there are over 250 pupilsand trainees aged 3–24 years (less than 10% of thetotal hearing-impaired (HI) population), 29 teachersand 30 carers, who look after the 93 boarders. SisterMary is still here, directing operations.

The challenge of fundingBefore the war St Joseph’s was funded by Cordaid,but it has had to find new donors in the last two yearsand even now future funding remains uncertain. Zoe,a volunteer funds manager from the UK, working for alocal wage, has helped the school enormously. Justrecently there was a visit from a delegation of IrishMPs, who were entertained by the pupils and whohopefully went back to lobby their government for aid.

ToD educationIn 2005 two education specialists from the UK set up a teacher training programme and all teachers were required to complete a Certificate in SpecialEducation (Hearing-Impaired) within two years ofstarting work at the school. In 2006 five teachersembarked on a Diploma in Special Education course,and two were later awarded BEd degrees. In 2009 thehead, Umu Turay, completed a Master’s in SpecialEducation in the UK, and the following year fourteachers gained their ToD Diploma. This year twomore teachers, with additional training as audiologicaltechnicians, will qualify as ToDs.

Currently the ToD training programme is beingreorganised into a part-time in-service course and will be accredited by the University of Makeni.

The challenge for HI educatorsIn African schools the teaching style is formal.Classes are usually large, and there is a shortage of trained and qualified teachers. Lessons oftencomprise copying from the board and learning by rote.


F e a t u r e

Sierra Leone – the teachingchallengeAs a frequent visitor to St Joseph’s School for the Hearing-Impaired Catherine Healey is in a good

position to shed some light on deaf education in Sierra Leone

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Deaf children require a different teaching approachand small classes. They have first to learn how tocommunicate before they can follow lessons and thischallenges traditional teaching methods. This puts astrain on the meagre resources.

The UK education experts mentioned earlier werealso active in the school from 2005, mainly focusingon mathematics and language teaching. In addition,the audiologist Monica Tomlin set up an audiologysuite with assessment and diagnostic and hearing aid provision. Each child now has one hearing aid,with plans to provide more in time. Monica and RuthMcAree set up the diploma course and Ruth providedlanguage teaching expertise in reading and speechand phonics.

I came to Makeni in early 2011 for two weeks to helpdevelop a deeper understanding of the pragmatics ofthe Maternal Reflective Method of language work. My approach is to demonstrate how to communicatewith the children more informally, and we often getsurprisingly quick results, which motivates teachers totry the technique. I have now made four trips, eachlonger than the last! The teachers are very receptiveand work hard while I am there, with workshops everyday after school. I hope to continue with this and withdeveloping the new diploma course.

The teachers are challengedWorking in a developing country has its ownchallenges and rewards. There are frequentoutbreaks of typhoid and malaria and even cholera,which result in staff and pupil absences, anotherfeature of a relatively poor economy. Several teachersin school have recently lost close relatives – a child, a sister, a mother. There are still pupils in the schoolwho have suffered because of the war, as childsoldiers or losing their family members. Manyteachers in Makeni lost everything in the war andhave had to rebuild their lives.

Large numbers of teachers are under-qualified, andsome even struggle with basic literacy themselves.Staff at St Joseph’s are given lots of extra help andencouragement from the overseas trainers. They are paid to work longer hours than their mainstreamcolleagues, but they are regarded as better qualifiedas a result.

The curriculum challengeThe curriculum for deaf pupils can be compared tospecial education in the UK 40 years ago. The usualvocational skills courses – tailoring, carpentry, catering,textiles and handicrafts – offer routes to work, and onmy last visit there was an excellent training course setup and run by experts from Milton Margai, a collegethat specialises in training disabled pupils. Theproducts of this work were very professional.

Some students are able to do the same public examsas mainstream pupils. Sister Mary is proud of the factthat most of St Joseph’s pupils who do sit the examsdo better than their hearing peers, although this isalso an indictment of the poverty of the overall SierraLeonian education system. There was an integrationprogramme for able deaf pupils, but despite beingaccompanied by a teacher from St Joseph’s, pupilswere seen to be struggling, so it was decided to set up a junior secondary school within the schoolcampus instead. The first exams will be next summer.

In African schools children are expected to help inpreparing food, keeping the campus clean, and so on, and the children all have allotted jobs. In thephotograph above, pounding the cassava is verymuch a male preserve, and the small boys enjoybeing allowed to join in and learn from the older ones,although everyone helps in preparing the vegetables.

I have worked in African schools now for over 20years and I am always humbled by the politeness andgentleness of the children, who are grateful for theireducation and take nothing for granted. For me, it is a privilege.

Catherine Healey is a retired Teacher of the Deaf.

F e a t u r e

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A reader askedWe have a child who has Nathos Micro aids. Theaudiology clinic says that the FM program has beenactivated, but when we connect the FM system wecannot get it to work. We have tested the FM systemindependently and it definitely works. Please help.

You sayIt may sound obvious, but we found that one of ourchildren’s aids had a tiny sticker over the contacts; it was really small and the same colour as itssurroundings, so it was hard to see. If it’s there,remove it and the FM should be fine. Also, if usingear-level receivers, try replacing the battery in thehearing aid as it has to power the receiver as well.

The experts* sayDid you remove the label from the contact on thehearing aid? Lots of people have been caught out bythis, and the shoes won’t be able to make contact while it is in place. There is a tiny sticker covering the contacts, which is often missed by audiologydepartments and out in the field. It’s easily done, as thecontacts are inside the battery compartment and thesticker is very small; unless it has been pointed out tosomeone, they would be totally unaware. Carefully peelit away from the contacts and, as long as FM has beenactivated, the FM system should now work.

A word from PhonakIt is likely that the cover has not been removed fromthe audio contacts. Nathos Micro is popular withbabies and small children, so we put some extraprotection on the contacts. The website atwww.phonakpro.com/uk/b2b/en/products/fm/receivers/ml12i.html contains information and a video clip whichmay be helpful.

A reader asksA radio aid seems to be broken, but it will sometimeswork if I switch on the transmitter when I am next tothe child. Does the system need to be replaced or isthere a reason for this erratic behaviour?

If you can suggest a solution, or would like to pose aquestion for our readers and experts, please contactStevie Mayhook at [email protected].

* Information provided by members of the EwingFoundation.

Audiology updatesThis page of our Magazine features innovations and discussions of what is happening in real-worldeducational audiology and gives readers the opportunity to highlight issues that they encounter in theworkplace

UpdateWhen discussing audiology policies with schoolsand services, we find that practice variesregarding pupils taking home their personal FMsystems (radio aids). The potential benefits ofusing FM systems beyond the classroom arewidely appreciated – and are addressed in theQuality Standards and the Good Practice Guidepublished by the National Deaf Children’sSociety (NDCS) – but practical concerns canprevent this becoming routine.

Objections to systems leaving the schoolgenerally focus on the cost of replacement ifitems are lost or damaged, doubts over families’commitment or ability to use the systemseffectively, or concerns about their reliability inreturning equipment, fully charged, to school.In some areas, families are asked to insure the FM system or to pay a deposit before it isallowed to go home – although the NDCS’sposition statement discourages such practice.(There may also be a problem insuringequipment that is the property of the school orlocal authority, not the family, and there is noconsistency in the way this is addressed.)

Other settings actively encourage families toincorporate the FM system into their everydaylives – accessing television and other technicalor entertainment devices; engaging inconversations in a car or restaurant, participatingin social clubs and activities, and so on. After all, clear communication is just as important in the evenings, at weekends and during theholidays as it is in class! If deaf youngsters canexperiment with using their systems in the widerworld, they are more likely to recognise thebenefits they may offer in college, the workplaceand a variety of social settings and continue touse them once they leave school.

This topic generates a lot of debate anddemonstrates the need to have a clear audiologypolicy that recognises the importance ofincluding families in planning and trainingsessions in order to ensure consistent goodpractice.

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FEAPDA is the organisation that brings togetherprofessional associations of Teachers of the Deaffrom across Europe. Each country affiliated to

FEAPDA has a place on the Council, which sits oncea year. This year ten countries were in attendance,with apologies from a number of absentees.

Paul Simpson, as President of FEAPDA and Chair of the Council, opened the meeting in October bypaying tribute to Maria Wisnet, who died suddenly in February 2012. Maria was a representative fromGermany, who had worked tirelessly to raise theprofile of FEAPDA, most recently as Secretary, and to encourage other countries to join the organisation.As a direct result of her efforts, a representative fromAustria was at the meeting for the first time. (Maltaand Romania are also struggling with small numbersof ToDs and feel they would benefit from being part ofa larger network. FEAPDA continues also to seekcontacts in Spain and in France – where there arelarge numbers of ToDs.)

Paul also paid tributeto Nadine Rischardfrom Luxembourg, whohas been treasurer ofFEAPDA for 14 years,maintaining the booksand arranging meetingsvery efficiently during

this time. Paul presented a gift on behalf of theorganisation in appreciation of her support. Fortunately,Maggie, one of Nadine’s colleagues from Luxembourg,has volunteered to take on the role in the future.

A significant aspect of FEAPDA’s work is theorganisation of the Congress every two years.Participating countries take it in turns to host it. The2013 Congress will be held in Slovenia in the beautifulseaside resort of Koper from 27–28 September. Theaim of the FEAPDA Congress is always to share goodpractice across Europe through presentations but alsoto allow delegates to network and discuss practicewith Teachers of the Deaf in other countries. The 2013 event will focus on teaching and supporting deaf teenagers. There will be a number of keynotespeeches, addressing areas of emotional competencein deaf adolescents, opportunities and challenges of cochlear implantation, and cultural identity for deaf adolescents. In addition, countries will have theopportunity to showcase good practice in working withteenagers. The traditional ‘banquet’ on the Saturdayevening is a great time to network with practitionersfrom across Europe. The organising committee assures

us also that this will be an ideal time to sample some ofthe good local wine.

The FEAPDA Council recognises the difficulties forpotential delegates in finding funding. The Slovenianorganisers are linking with Comenius so that thoseinterested in attending can apply to Comenius to fundtheir attendance. This has proved a very effective wayfor BATOD members to access funding to attendconferences in the past. The deadline for a fundingapplication is likely to be March/April. Successfulapplicants will receive funding not only for the event but also for travel and accommodation costs. Memberswho are interested in attending the Congress inSlovenia should keep an eye on the FEAPDA websiteso that they can apply before the deadline.

In 2011 the Congress was held very successfully in theNetherlands. Following the event a number of membersof the Dutch ToD association raised questions aboutalternative ways of organising the conference andasked how they could benefit more from affiliation withFEAPDA. Consequently it was agreed that a workinggroup should meet in April to discuss these issues.andBATOD will be represented at this meeting. Prior to thiswe will be seeking the views of BATOD members – solet us know what you think either through your regionalNEC reps to the NEC meeting in March or by emailingme at [email protected].

Training and professional development are corefeatures of the work of FEAPDA. The Octobergathering reflected on the positive outcomes of theLeonardo Project, in which FEAPDA worked with arange of European partners to develop an agreed setof competencies required by teachers working withdeaf children and young people across Europe. TheFEAPDA Council is concerned that this significantpiece of work should not be lost and is looking atpossible ways to take this forward.

Guido Lichtert from Belgium also sought FEAPDA’sendorsement of a proposal for which he is seekingEuropean funding. If successful, this project willprovide additional training and support to researchersworking in the field of deaf education. The Councilapproved the proposal and will provide furtherinformation if and when the funding is agreed.

Further information about the work of FEAPDA maybe found on the website www.feapda.org/

Alison Weaver is the BATOD representative on theFEAPDA Council and a former President of BATOD.



FEAPDA newsFollowing the latest FEAPDA Council meeting in Luxembourg in October 2012, Alison Weaver provides an

overview of the latest activities and looks forward to the Congress in 2013

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Areview of the BATOD website has resulted in an expansion of resource support for BATODmembers. Articles and documents about

such things as features of effective services, linemanagement, recruitment and retention of ToDs, aswell as professional issues, are available alongsidepractical items that can be of immediate value toevery member.

As a profession, Teachers of the Deaf have alwaysbeen collaborative and willing to share theirknowledge and experience. Want to know more aboutwhich assessment to use? Put a post on the ToDemail forum and there will be other Teachers of theDeaf from across the UK offering their advice. Got aproblem with a piece of equipment? Ask one of thosecolleagues and they will readily give their support.

BATOD is tapping into this collaborative approach bycreating an area of the new website where professionalsworking with deaf children and young people can placeresources and materials they have developed and founduseful. Some examples of work have already beenincluded. There are resources to support geography atexamination level; a visual dictionary to support primaryscience; interactive maths tutorials on a variety of topicsto help reinforce knowledge and understanding; gamesto support learning and pronunciation of Frenchvocabulary; revision sheets for science at examination

level – and more. These can be viewed anddownloaded by logging into the new-look BATODwebsite as a member, clicking first on the Resourcestab, then on Teaching Materials. The website remainsat www.batod.org.uk/

The aim is to expand the number and variety ofresources across subject areas, age ranges andability levels – with your help. If you have a piece of work that you are proud of and willing to share,please send it to us. A submission form can bedownloaded from the Resources area of the website.It only takes a few minutes to fill in and can beemailed to [email protected] together with theresource. If each BATOD member could send us justone item we would have a fabulous source of support!

Can you contribute?A new area of the BATOD website is now dedicated to bringing Teachers of the Deaf useful resources

and would benefit from your contributions

A ToD list?Many Teachers of the Deaf colleagues and headsof schools and services would welcome the ideaof a supply list of ToDs. We are looking into howbest to develop this but would like to gauge thenumber of possible ToDs who might wish to be on that list. Please let Paul Simpson know [email protected] if you would be interested –whether for full-time work or single days.

Context: The six-weekly meetings shareinformation about the work of TheCommunication Trust and usually have related

meetings before the planned agenda time. The first ofthe pre-meetings considered social finance and socialinvestment. This was followed by a schools specialinterest group meeting and then the Consortiummeeting proper.

Main points from the meetingsSocial finance and social investmentPeter Sebastian outlined the concept behind socialimpact bonds and investments. Social investmentbusiness seeks to provide funding sources for projectsthat tackle social problems effectively and as a resultmake savings – potential for future revenue streams.The Government set up the idea initially using moneyfrom dormant bank accounts – or from risk investors.A social impact bond (SIB) is a contract with publicsector commissioners committing to pay for improvedsocial outcomes, such as reduced reoffending orimproved health and well-being. Investment pays for arange of preventative services that improve outcomesand reduce spending on costly acute services. Thesuggestion was that The Communication Trust (TCT),I CAN, even BATOD, could work with social finance to source funding for projects, for example improvedmental health and well-being for deaf children with areduction in the need for heavy demands on child andadolescent mental health services. SIBs currently set up are: Children in care; Employment; Roughsleeping; Criminal justice; Substance misuse; Healthand adult social care. TCT will be looking into this andwill be setting up a special interest group looking atcommissioning approaches for services and how thiscould work in the Consortium’s interest.

Schools special interest group Primary curriculum – feedback from membersgenerally has shown that there needs to be moreexplicit focus on spoken language, although thesolution-focused approach was well received. It hasbeen generally welcomed although it is a pared-downcurriculum without great detail and with too muchprescription on phonics and grammar. There doesneed to be more guidance around spoken language. Itwill be seen through by Jane Hough (assessment andmonitoring, accountability, SEN). The CommunicationTrust’s submission was followed up in writing, copiedto key people regarding grammar and phonics andcopies were distributed via the newsletter.

The Communication Trust’s phonics guidance(Communicating Phonics) has gone out to all schoolsand it has had 10,000 hits on the website.

Grammar test – The Communication Trust has beenasked to attend a meeting with the DfE in October, as has BATOD. It was felt that there should be a document similar to Communicating Phonics.Concerns were expressed about capabilities to teachgrammar – strategies need to be in place.

The Better Communication Research Programmereport is now completed and agreed – it is not signed off by the Minister but is due to launch on 27 September. The Communication Trust was asked to roll it out and ‘keep it alive’. This needscross-referencing with the Children and Families Bill,research and policy and practice. A CommunicationTrust Task and Finish Group has been set up todisseminate the report content.

Schools strategyThe Hello Schools Pledge is in its final draft. Schools are encouraged to sign a ‘pledge’ showing a commitment to staff development, setting up acommunication-friendly situation for all classrooms.The Communication Trust has developed information,guidance, toolkits and resources aimed at helping all children to achieve their potential through bettercommunication skills. I suggested that the NationalDeaf Children’s Society Deaf Friendly Schoolsmaterial should also be part of this, although Ian Noonsaid it was ‘old’; certainly acoustics-related topicsshould be part of the information available. A groupwill be set up to consider how success can bemeasured for accreditation. It was felt that teachersshould be encouraged to have action researchincluded in the progression.

What Works database – this is still being developedand it is hoped that the beta version will be availablefor Communication Trust members for a trial monthbefore its launch to a wider audience.

What Works covers a range of interventions at specificages and targets. There was concern about the nameand also if there should be some items ‘that have not been proved to work’ but allow people to makeprofessional judgements. The criteria for inclusion are quite robust and evidence based. There will bestructured questions via a survey monkey on the site.

Representing you – The Communication TrustAnn Underwood highlights the key points for BATOD from a meeting of The Communication Trust at theNational Council for Voluntary Organisations in London on 19 September 2012



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Purpose of meeting: Update on test development,including feedback from the small scale trials, testframework and equality impact assessment.

Present: Benedict Coffin, DfE; Michael McCulley,Standards and Testing Agency (STA); Fiona Bowditch,DfE Assessment; representatives from the ProfessionalAssociation for Teachers of Students with SpecificLearning Difficulties (PATOSS), British DyslexiaAssociation (BDA), VIEW, Dyslexia-SpLD Trust,BATOD; Lilias Reary (National Deaf Children’s Society)and David Chater (DfE SEN) by telephone conferencing.

Main points from the meeting • No test items were provided but there are samples

on the DfE website.• The technical pre-test has been completed with 6,000

students, including an SEN cohort (not broken intosub-groups but separate, specific research fordyslexic, hearing-impaired and visually impairedstudents and their teachers: see below for hearing-impaired).

• The draft of the test will be signed off on Friday 5 October by the Secretary of State.

• The test consists of sentence grammar, punctuation,vocabulary and spelling. Both handwriting anddictation have now been omitted (pending a finaldecision by the Secretary of State).

• Small scale research was carried out on the test andhearing-impaired pupils. Researchers looked at pupilresponses and tried to identify items where pupilsdidn’t know what to do. The ‘Think Aloud’ techniquewas used (asking pupils ‘what are you thinking?’

during the test). Hearing-impaired pupils were testedand their teachers interviewed at two schools.

DiscussionThe representative for PATOSS was concerned abouthow teachers would be able to use the results to helpthem improve an individual’s performance. I addedthat a general mark for grammar would be of littlediagnostic use unless performance on individual itemswas available to the teacher.

BC asked if there were any concerns about the latestdraft of the equality impact assessment but none wasexpressed.

BC asked if the concerns addressed at the lastmeeting had been met. I said that although notpresent, I thought that issues raised via email hadbeen addressed. Lilias Reary concurred.

I voiced concerns about the carrier language andquoted the example question stems provided in theframework.

Actions for BATOD• Inform NEC of this meeting.• Contribute to further meetings.• Look at test items online.• Receive and comment on final decisions made on

5 October.

Derek Heppenstall is a BATOD modifier of examinationlanguage and an OLM trainer.

Children and Families Bill (Consortium andspecial post-meeting)There were presentations from David Hare(Whitehouse) and Matthew Dodd (Special EducationalConsortium) presenting the main areas of concern forthose with SEN. Key points made were:• What can be done about children and young people

who will be below the radar (no statement/at SchoolAction or School Action Plus)?

• Individual education plans seem to have been lostand are needed, with termly reviews.

• The local offer could exclude deaf children who mayneed regional provision.

• Don’t change the name to learning difficulties – notall children with SEN have learning difficulties!

• Cued Speech commented on what ‘signinterpretation’ meant (Anne Worsfold has sent hercomments to BATOD).

There was concern about the nature of the questionsfor the response and it was agreed that TheCommunication Trust would take a lead from theSpecial Educational Consortium draft response thatMatthew Dodd offered and use a similar format. Thedocument would be created on a fast emailturnaround.

Action for BATOD• Take part in the No Pens Day promotion.• Take part in working groups looking at

marketing/funding/Children and Families Bill.• Take part in the feedback on What Works when the

website is available.• Include The Communication Trust’s newsletter in

the monthly unmissable email.

Ann Underwood is a past President of BATOD.

Representing you – DfEDerek Heppenstall made notes on the SEN Forum meeting on the test for grammar, punctuation andspelling at the Department for Education, 1 October 2012

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Apologies: Ian Noon, Tony Shaw.

Present: Angela Deckett, Bob Denman, BruceKitchener (Chair), Merle Mahon, Stevie Mayhook,Karen Simpson, Paul Simpson (Secretary), (FionaKyle is on maternity leave).

Notes from the previous meeting: These wereagreed to be accurate.

Actions from previous meeting• The individual country reports from Scotland,

Northern Ireland and Wales are on the NationalDeaf Children Society (NDCS) and BATODwebsites.

• All English local authorities responded except six.• Birmingham responded this time meaning that in

comparison with last year a greater proportion of thepopulation was covered.

• There were disappointingly low returns from thecochlear implant centres; Merle offered to help in future to encourage this sector through herinvolvement with the Paediatric Audiology InterestGroup; a shorter version of the survey with limitedquestions could be used next time.

• 19 October is the third action research symposiumfor ToDs currently engaged in action researchprojects.

LogoThe options were presented by Merle; the groupchose the offering by Nick Lovegrove unanimously;Karen will contact him about supplying it in jpeg form;the writing under the logo will be in letters no smallerthan eight point. It will be used in all CRIDEdocuments from now on.

CRIDE draft report 2012It was agreed that when different drafts of a documentare in use the header or footer should indicate theversion and date. Angela amended the latest draft assuggestions were made. Key points included:• The apparent anomaly that profoundly deaf children

are getting less support than moderately deafchildren is likely to be explained by more profoundlydeaf children being in specialist provision notsupported by services; however, this is changingdue in part to the influence of cochlear implants.

• The apparent increase in population (7% since lastyear) is likely to be due to higher levels of reportingrather than an increase in population.

• Some services seem to be not reporting thosechildren not meeting their eligibility criteria.

• It would be more informative to use percentages ofchildren with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorderrather than raw figures.

• The CRIDE survey consistently reports additionaldifficulties at around 20% not the 40% commonlyused.

• MLD is liable to over-reporting as a category.• Angela will investigate further the reported increase

of 176% in the population in a south west localauthority.

• We are not using the terminology ‘schools fordisabled children’ – we use ‘other special schools,not specifically for deaf children’.

• We agreed that the prevalence in England isbetween 34,000 and 42,000 and over 45,000 for the UK.

• The General Teaching Council has been abolishedand its responsibilities, for example for recordingnumbers of teachers with the mandatoryqualification, have been taken over by the DfE.

• The National Sensory Impairment Partnership(NatSIP) criteria don’t determine the amount ofsupport children will receive but help localauthorities to draw up their own support allocationmatrices.

• We agreed to use a plural verb after data.

Warm congratulations were extended to Ian andAngela for their hard work on the survey.

Publication When published there should be a hyperlink to thenames of all the affiliated people from our group(Action Paul). It will be published on both websites –BATOD and NDCS – and linked from the others(Action Paul). There will be a link only from otherwebsites.

WalesThe heads of service from Wales have asked to meet with Paul to discuss among other things CRIDE,and they seemed to question its purpose. A quickbrainstorm led to the following key purposes. Merle

Representing you – Consortiumfor Research into DeafEducationPaul Simpson writes up the minutes from the Consortium for Research into Deaf Education (CRIDE)survey meeting held on 21 September 2012 at Frank Barnes School



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agreed to write a paragraph for inclusion in the reportand in future CRIDE surveys based on these uses: • Providing comparable demographic data in Ofsted

inspections.• Making decisions regarding staff and training.• Making sure local authorities are effectively picking

up children who are deaf.• Supplying data for DfE and government, for

example trends of funding and support.• Doing research leading to evidence-based practice.• Doing strategic planning.• Identifying trends in prevalence and support –

useful for training including other professionals.

Survey on the impact of the CRIDE surveyWhen the report goes out a question will be askedabout what the impact has been.

A short survey monkey could be used. Ian and Angelawill draft a questionnaire and send it out for comment

NatSIP and CRIDEBob introduced his paper asking for agreement tomove forward to explore a feasibility study bringingtogether the NatSIP benchmarking work and CRIDE. Individual pupil level data will be needed –

anonymised. The aim would be to start in September2013 with some of the local authorities involved in theNatSIP work.

It may be possible to seek funding from the DfE forthis work as it is keen for such an expansion to takeplace. Pupils would not be identifiable – just a numberwould be used. We would aim to start small and buildup and it could be annually updatable.

Merle referred to the national register of deaf childrenwhich exists in Australia. Paul will contact Trudy Smithfrom the National Association of Australian Teachersof the Deaf and ask about it.

CRIDE 2013More time will be spent at the next meetingdiscussing the implications and practicality of a thirdCRIDE survey in 2013.

Date and place of next meetingFrank Barnes School, 1–4pm, Friday, 23 November2012.


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Context: There are half-termly gatherings of arange of special educational needs (SEN)organisations and other organisations meeting

under the auspices of the Federation of Leaders inSpecial Education (FLSE).

Present: Representatives from BATOD, Engage,special school headteachers, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), the National Association of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained SpecialSchools (NASS), the Special Schools Network (SSAT),and two senior local authority (LA) officers.

Summary of the main points of the meeting1 Matters arising from the previous notes• Non-maintained schools are now to be seen as

partners and should be included in the local offer ifalready used by that LA.

• Banding arrangements are being considered in LAsfor special schools to determine what the top-upshould be.

• There is a lack of clarity about post-16 funding.• The positive news about funding of LA specialist

support services may be time limited – this needs tobe explored. (Editor’s note: We have since heard thatthese arrangements are permanent.)

• Maintained special schools have no upfront fundingfor residential placements.

• There need to be shared guidelines for how thecollaborative working between education, health andsocial care will operate.

2 New Ofsted framework• Progression materials are still to be used (not called

guidance any more).• Synthetic phonics are to be used and will be

monitored by Ofsted at the same time as it isencouraging personalised learning.

• Performance management is taking on a newrelevance.

• Teachers can have previously designated satisfactoryperformance redesignated as requiring improvementand then being subject to capability procedures; this will cause difficulties with other unions andprofessional bodies. If a department is under-performing the head of department could have his orher pay reduced; if not, the school will not receive anoutstanding grade for leadership and management.

3 Members’ comments and activity• FLSE has been concentrating on funding issues,

achievement and learning and young people over 19.• BATOD discussed its work with Ofqual on GCSEs,

the mandatory qualification, the grammar, punctuationand spelling test, the Consortium for Research intoDeaf Education and initial teacher training.

• NASS made representations to the Department forEducation (DfE) when it decided not to include theindependent special schools in the remit of the Bill;this has not succeeded.

• NASS has released its mental health and complexneeds materials on its website. It will soon produce areport showing that many NASS school placementsare cheaper than their maintained counterparts. Areport into social investment of education shows whatthe savings and wider advantages can be as a resultof making the best placement decisions in relation todealing with the consequences of incorrect decisions.

• Engage – the term behavioural, emotional and socialdifficulties (BESD) is likely to be dropped as it is notseen as helpful – perhaps CLD (complex learningdifficulties) would be better?

• NAHT has received legal advice that the GCSEdebacle cannot be shown to have specificallydisadvantaged students with protected characteristics.There is great concern about the means used to testspelling, punctuation and grammar (GaPS) beingtotally outside the usual context of spelling,punctuation and grammar. There is concern aboutwho will fund careers advice for young people.

• Special school heads – for children with very complexneeds it is frustrating and unhelpful to keep talkingabout underachievement rather than being realisticabout potential. It is not supportive to give parentsfalse hope.

4 All the organisations fed back on the draftprovisions in the Children and Families BillCommon concerns were:• the lack of legal obligation on health• non-statemented children• funding for post-16 provision• the fact that the pathfinders are supposed to be

informing the process but have not made muchprogress yet.

Action for BATOD• Inform NEC members about the meeting.• Attend further meetings.




Representing you – Federationof Leaders in Special EducationPaul Simpson files his report on a meeting of the Special Education Conference of the Federation of

Leaders in Special Education held in London on 26 September 2012

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This and that…Email news to [email protected]

R e g u l a r s

Training forthe BSL testTraining for the British SignLanguage (BSL) Production Testtakes place on 17–19 April atCity University London. As wellas practising using the testpackage, attendees will learnabout sign linguistics, signlanguage acquisition and thedevelopment of narrative skillsin hearing and deaf children.There is a follow-up day inSeptember. For details visitwww.city.ac.uk/lcs/compass/bsldevelopment/assessingbsldevelopment.html or contactSue Swinbank on 020 70400150 or [email protected].

The EducationShowThe 2013 Education Show takesplace from 14–16 March at theBirmingham NEC. There are fivemain themes: School LeadersSummit, Learn Live, PrimarySENCO training, The AcademiesForum, and the PTA-UK NationalConference. Visitors to theClickView stand D85 will be able to discover how video learning isbeing made accessible for deafchildren.There is more informationavailable on the website atwww.education-show.com/

Deaf Education in the SeventiesA new ‘Hidden Histories’ exhibition was launched on the SussexDeaf History website in September 2012. The exhibition, DeafEducation in the Seventies, explores the world of residentialeducation during the decade.

The exhibition takes a look at what life was like in three schools forthe deaf – Hamilton Lodge, Ovingdean Hall and St Thomas – andfeatures narratives from children who attended those schools andare now in their 40s or 50s. Their stories include both cherishedand difficult memories.

The 1970s was also a period when the assumed approach to oraleducation (pure oral method) was challenged. One forgottendoctorate, featured in this exhibition, was by William ‘Bill’ Watts,who tested the levels of intelligence in deaf children without usinglanguage (Montessori method). He became the assistance Directorfor the Reginald Phillips Research Unit, which specifically focusedon deaf education, based at the University of Sussex. Until twoyears ago, this historical fact was lost in the mists of time.

The exhibition is part of the Hidden Histories: Intercultural Dialogueproject, funded by Grundtvig. The project was managed at theUniversity of Sussex and worked with partners in Finland, Irelandand Austria. For further details visit www.sussexdeafhistory.org.ukor www.hiddenhistories.euproject.org/


Supporting teachers and learnersSoundfield voice reinforcement is a crucial way to improve learningenvironments, enabling everyone to hear the teacher’s voice clearly. With voice-command technology, Juno has made Soundfield technologyseriously simple. The new system from PC Werth is FM-systemcompatible and available as a fixed four-speaker or standalone unit.

But what’s really got people talking about the Juno Soundfield System is its revolutionary lesson capture software. Juno’s ability to record bothspeech and visuals from an active whiteboard means that teachers cannow capture and save any lesson, share it, and allow chosen students,parents or peers to access it from home!

Total inclusion and fairness are promoted because Juno functions as a quality Soundfield system and a lesson-recording tool. This criticallysupports slower, impaired or disadvantaged learners while providingwelcome revision and review prospects for all students.

Already a hit in the US, Juno is upgradeable and fully compatible withexisting ICT installations, including all active whiteboards. Plus, as acompletely portable system, you can use the Juno when and where it’s needed most. To learn more contact [email protected] or visitwww.soundforschools.co.uk/ See also the advertisement on the insidefront cover of this Magazine.

SSttoopp pprreessss!!Kathy Owston’s review of theAdvanced Bionics (AB) NeptuneProcessor, in the last issue of theMagazine, is now out of date. ABhas recently announced that theNeptune is now fully warranted foruse in oceans, rivers and lakes. Theprocessor and aquamic just need tobe rinsed thoroughly in clean waterafter being immersed in salty water,and placed in the dry kit every night.

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R e g u l a r s

A storybook app ITV has launched the world’s first animated storytelling app withBritish and American sign language. Designed to make reading funfor all children, the Signed Stories app is fully accessible in signlanguage, subtitles, narration, animation and music. It aims to make books easier to read for deaf children and those with specialeducational needs, including autism, Asperger’s syndrome, dyslexiaand Down syndrome.

As part of the app, ITV has created digital versions of a wide rangeof award-winning picture books in partnership with leading children’s publishers. The app features bookssuitable for early years and primary school children, including contemporary stories, updated folktales andfairytales from international book publisher Child’s Play.

The Signed Stories app is available – through Apple’s App store – on iOS devices, including the iPad,iPhone and iPod Touch. It is free to download and includes a free version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.All books featured within the app are individually priced.

Users are able to customise the app to suit their individual needs. Parents, carers and teachers can benefitfrom guidance notes on how to get the most out of each book. It also comes with a free British SignLanguage or American Sign Language video dictionary, which grows each time a new book is downloaded.Subtitles can be customised to improve reading for dyslexic children. The iPad app also carries free signlanguage learning games with every story downloaded.

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R e g u l a r s

ReviewsTitle Auditory Communication for

Deaf ChildrenAuthor Norman P ErberPublisher Australian Council for Educational

ResearchISBN 978 1 74286 020 6Price £46.50Reviewer Corinda M Carnelley, peripatetic ToD,

London Borough of Croydon

The name Norman P Erber is familiar to manyTeachers of the Deaf of a certain age (myselfincluded!). This is his latest work, published by the Australian Council for Educational Research, and it provides a practical approach to thedevelopment of auditory communication skills.

The introduction gives a brief account of how life has changed in the realm of deafness during the past 25 years. It offers a brief paragraph about eachdevelopment, and a clear summary.

This pattern is repeated throughout the book and it is the simplicity of the writing and the clarity of layoutwhich make what can be an inaccessible topiccompletely accessible. The book is not only readablebut easy to dip into. For example, the title ‘Auditory

Skills Matrix’ would not normally have meflicking through thepages, but a shortexplanatory paragraphwith a clear diagram andI’m hooked!

There is also a clearexplanation of therationale behind theGlendonald AuditoryScreening Procedure,which I have alwaysfound challenging.

Erber talks about the three stages of auditoryinstruction: conversational approach, experienced-based method, and practice on specific auditorytasks. Not all Teachers of the Deaf will warm to hisdoctrinaire approach and some of the language isclearly Australian/English but this does not detractfrom the overall readability of the book and itsaccessibility. Students wishing to investigate a widerange of practical listening activities that can beapplied during everyday interactions with deafchildren need look no further.

Title Diverse Perspectives on InclusiveSchool Communities

Authors Diana Tsokova and Jane TarrPublisher RoutledgeISBN 978 0 41559 458 5Price £24.99Reviewer Corinda M Carnelley, peripatetic ToD,


This book presents thevoices of a wide range ofstakeholders giving variedperspectives on inclusiveeducation. The accountshave been collectedthrough in-depth interviewsand they focus on how toensure that all children areeducated in truly inclusiveschool communities.

This is not an easy read –mainly because of the

depth of the research and documentation involved.However, it is extremely thorough and the authorshave gone out of their way to ensure that allperspectives are covered.

One of the chapters contains the stories of families andyoung people as told to the authors. We are all familiarwith the struggle faced by families of children withspecial educational needs (SEN) but it is still soberingto read their accounts. Interviewees also give their owndescriptions of how they see inclusion and what couldbe done to improve (their perception of) the situation.

The overall impression, reading the book, is of a ratherbreathless delivery. This is because much of it is directreporting from interviews and one can almost hear thesubject speaking. However, it does offer insights notalways available to readers and is thought provoking inmany ways.

The book concludes with a discussion of the keylearning points and would be an interesting addition to any SEN staff library.

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Title The effective teacher's guide toautism and communicationdifficulties – practical strategies(2nd edition)

Author Michael FarrellPublished 2012Publisher RoutledgeISBN 978 0 41569 383 7 (paperback)Price £19.94 (Kindle edition £17.95)Reviewer Helen Maiden, advisory teacher for

hearing impairment, Physical andSensory Support, Surrey

This is a small (less than A5) size paperback in aseries of books covering a range of disabilities anddisorders, from behavioural and emotional disorders,sensory impairments to moderate, severe andprofound learning difficulties. Each book, it says,'describes practical strategies that enable theeducational progress and personal and socialdevelopment of pupils with particular disabilities anddisorders’.

This new edition (previous edition published in 2006) is aimed at making the information more accessible toa wider range of readers, including those in differentcountries. The 2006 edition had much reference tolegislation that was current in the UK at the time.

The book begins with an overview of the very well-educated and highly positioned author MichaelFarrell. The introduction (chapter 1) gives the titles of the other books in the series and then describeswhat is new in this edition, ie that it ‘focuses more on strategies that work without undue reference to aparticular national context’. It goes on to outline thetypes of difficulties and disorders within the book thatare taken from classifications used both in the USAand the UK. Some terminology that is more familiarin the USA, Australia and Canada, such as ‘speechpathologist’ rather than the more familiar term ofspeech and language therapist in the UK, is usedthroughout the book.

The introduction is split into short sections covering:• Autism and communication disorders• The teacher and the speech pathologist• Form and content• Delay and disorder• Within child and contextual explanations• A framework for communication disorders• Development and verbal dyspraxia and dysarthria.

Each of these sections gives brief information that ishelpful and clarifies information referred to in laterchapters.

Chapters 2–6 look at ‘Communication Disorders’,with each chapter considering different aspects ofthis area. Each chapter has an introduction clarifying

what is covered and givingan explanation of the aspectof communication disorderthat is being discussed.There is also a ‘ThinkingPoints’ box at the end,suggesting considerationsthat the reader may wish to make in his or her ownsetting. Each chapter finisheswith a list of ‘Key Texts’, anda brief comment about thefocus of the texts listed.

Chapter 2, which focuses on speech, considersidentification and assessment. It goes on to look inmore detail at specific speech difficulties, phonetics,prosody and phonology. Strategies are suggested forraising phonological awareness through the wholecurriculum, for example when introducing newvocabulary. The chapter also mentions differentprogrammes and resources; it looks briefly at theuse of error analysis and articulation exercises,alternative and augmentative communication,therapy and organisation.

The following chapters are similarly set out and look atgrammar, comprehension, semantics and pragmatics.

Chapter 7 looks specifically at autism, itsprevalence, causes, identification, assessment andprovision. Several programmes and interventions arementioned, including the Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication handicappedChildren (TEACCH), discrete trial teaching/training,pivotal response training, sensory integration, thePicture Exchange Communication System and socialstories.

Chapter 8, the conclusion of the book, looks back at the focus of each of the previous chapters. Itconsiders again curriculum and assessment,pedagogy, resources, therapy and organisation,emphasising the key points made in the precedingchapters.

As a final word in the book Farrell encouragesreview of provision and highlights close linksbetween parents and professionals. He alsomentions ‘foundational disciplines’ and refers thereader on to another of his books, Foundations ofSpecial Education.

This book is well laid out with small sections and iseasy to read as each section is relevant to an areaof focus or study. The book makes some simplesuggestions for strategies to use with all pupils orwith specific groups; it also has more in-depthsuggestions and mentions schemes and otherresources that can be followed up for furtherinformation as required by the reader.

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Title If you see a crocodile… don’t forget to scream!

Published 2009Publisher Orchard Toys Price £11.75Reviewer Helen Maiden, advisory teacher for

hearing impairment, Physical andSensory Support, Surrey

The contents of this game include: 30 double-sidedcolour spot cards (five each of six colours withcrocodiles or water splashes on the reverse), six ’finish’spot cards, four characters, four character stands, onegame board, one 3D boat house, one 3D boat andone colour spot dice.

The aim of the game is to be the first player to reachthe boat house. The first player begins by placingtheir character on the white spot on the jetty androlling the colour spot dice. They then choose a colourspot card from the middle of the board that matchesthe spot colour shown on the dice. If the reverse ofthe card chosen shows a water splash the playermoves their character to the next colour spot of thesame colour on the game board. If the underside of the card chosen shows a crocodile, the playerscreams and their boat character remains where it is. The colour spot card is then discarded and placedinto the 3D boat. Play continues until a player reachesthe ‘finish’ colour spot by rolling the correct colour(and avoiding the crocodiles). That player can thenplace their character into the boat house and is thewinner.

As with all games from Orchard Toys, the card piecesare colourful and sturdy. They are easily assembledand can be good as an early jigsaw puzzle activitybefore the actual game even starts. There is anopportunity to name-check some animals and colourvocabulary as you are setting up the game and thechildren are helping you.

Suitable for two to four players and suggested for agesthree upwards, this can be a really fun, action-packed(and noisy!) game. Instructions about how to play areclear.

It is a very helpful game to work on those all-importantturn-taking skills. It’s great for colour matching andrecapping on the ‘Row, row, row your boat’ nurseryrhyme. There are lots of opportunities for discussionabout the different animals, lots of opportunities toemphasise ‘splash’ – a lovely word! And lots ofscreaming! Peripatetic teachers working with pre-schoolers will find this a great game to have in the bootof their car and for getting everyone involved in their visit.

If you are not sure of the variations of this classicnursery rhyme, here are a few suggestions:

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream,merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream.Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream, if yousee a crocodile don’t forget to scream.Row, row, row your boat gently down the river, if yousee a polar bear don’t forget to shiver.Row, row, row your boat gently to the shore, if you seea lion don’t forget to roar.Row, row, row your boat across the reservoir, if you seea pirate stop and say ooo-arrr.Row, row, row your boat right across the puddle, if yousee your mummy there give her a lovely cuddle.

Title Totable (portable) personalSoundfield system

Price £295Reviewer Ezra Arhin (aged 10 years)

I have a moderate (ski-slope) bi-lateral sensorineuralhearing loss and wear two hearing aids. I tried theolder personal Soundfield systems but always feltquite self-conscious when using them. This new onefrom PC Werth is very ‘22nd Century’ and I liked howit looked a lot.

The sound quality was very good. There was somefeedback when the teacher came too close, butgenerally it was OK. My teacher was keen to use the system, including the boom microphone. I know

that some teachers are not, and this can be aproblem for some children.

The Totable is very easy to use, with absolutelyminimal instructions necessary. It is easy to charge,although I did feel that an improvement would be tohave a battery indicator on the speakers (as on amobile phone) so that I knew when it neededcharging.

I connected it to the computer (once again very easy to do) and it gave better sound than usingheadphones. It was like having my own set ofportable speakers. I think this new system is betterthan those other black boxes, both in terms of how itlooks and how it sounds.

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Title Rhyme RobberPublisher Orchard Toys Price £9.50Reviewer Alison Wagner, ToD, London Borough

of Tower Hamlets

The game, which is aimedat ages five to nine,consists of four player‘robber’ boards, 48 rhymecards, one rhyme guideboard and instructions.

Orchard Toys producessome great games for

young children and this ranks as one of my favourites!The aim of this game is to ‘win’ or steal as manyrhyming words as possible. It is designed for fourplayers (although it can be played with fewer). Eachplayer has a ‘robber’ board and chooses a card fromthe cards placed in the middle to add to their pile ofcards if they can make a rhyming pair. Each time theyhave a rhyme they need to say it out loud. The elementof fun comes when players have a card that rhymeswith someone else’s top card in their pile and then theyare allowed to ‘steal’ that player’s whole pile of cards.

This is a great game for younger children who arejust learning to recognise words and rhymes, but itcan also be used for more confident readers who justwant to have fun, as players always need to be onthe lookout for potential cards to steal. It is also auseful resource for practising turn taking and listeningcarefully to others.

The cards are colourful and the text on them is clear.With the set I have used for this review, we haveproduced some copies of the ‘help cards’ so thatchildren who struggle with the rhyming words caneach have a help card. The help cards have all thewords and pictures that appear on the cards groupedaccording to their rhyme endings – for example, pie,tie, cry, eye – to be used for reference.

We now have a growing collection of products fromOrchard Toys in our service as they are such goodresources. Problems arise with the toys when cardsare lost, so they need to be carefully looked after andchecked following each use.

I shall continue to use this resource with the childrenand I look forward to the next game from OrchardToys!

Title Let’s Sign – Early Years, SecondEdition BSL Building Blocks Childand Carer Guide

Authors Cath Smith and Sandra TeasdalePublisher Co-Sign Communications and

DeafBooksPrice £9.99ISBN 978 1 90591 322 0Reviewer Corinda M Carnelley, peripatetic ToD,


Reviews are supposed to be thought provoking andunbiased. May I say that I have always been a greatadmirer of Cath Smith and her sign books, so this isnot unbiased. The only thing I don’t like about the signbooks is that I didn’t have the idea first!

This revised, colour second edition of Let’s Sign EarlyYears is specifically written for children and theircarers in whichever setting they are. The early yearsare the optimum time for the establishment ofcommunication, laying the foundations of languagedevelopment, and the introduction to this bookprovides a clear and reasoned discussion aboutmanual communication and its history. This is followedby a list of handy hints about ‘starting with BSL’; forexample, ‘Keep responses simple’ and ‘Eye contact isparamount in communication with the deaf child’.

The introduction is followed by an explanation of‘direction, orientation and movement’ and another on

basic handshapes. There are pages on directionalverbs, inflections and theimportance of non-manualfeatures. The main part ofthe book is a dictionary ofover 300 signs that would be commonly used with small children and babies –everything from aeroplane tonappy. The book concludeswith lists of further reading,useful contacts and the all-important index, which iseasy to use.

This is a reference book andwould not necessarily be ofany help in the heat of themoment – unless you kept it beside you on a piece of string. However, it is an absolutely essentialreference for use withfamilies who have decided touse sign with their baby. Yes,I’m biased, but I think it’s anessential part of the Teacherof the Deaf toolkit. If youdon’t believe me, just ask any other early yearspractitioner.

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Title Teddy Bear GamePublisher Orchard ToysPrice £9.50Reviewer Corinda M Carnelley, peripatetic ToD,


This is a colour-matching game suitable for playingwith pre-schoolers or infants. It is based on the ‘TeddyBear’s Picnic’ rhyme – but you don’t need to knowthe rhyme to play the game.

What you do have to be able to do is to roll the dice,pick a matching card, turn that card over and countthe number of bears on it. Some of the cards don’thave bears on – but parts of a picnic basket. Whenthe picnic basket is completed the game is over, andthe person with the most bears on their picnic blanket(board that looks like a picnic blanket) is the winner.

However, noneof the children I played thisgame with could read theinstructions so I came up with endlessvariationsbased on theirlearning needs:colour matching,

matching numbers of bears, adding up numbers ofbears, even a discussion on what bears might takeon a picnic.

The cards all come in a sturdy box, which isproduced in Norfolk – what’s not to like?

Title Educating Children and YoungPeople with Fetal AlcoholSpectrum Disorders

Authors Carolyn Blackburn, Barry Carpenter,Jo Egerton

Publisher RoutledgePrice £19.99ISBN 978 0 41567 020 3Reviewer Corinda M Carnelley, peripatetic ToD,


I found this book profoundly shocking. Not becausethe material enclosed is any more appalling than anyother SEN textbook, but because of the abject levelsof my own ignorance on the topic.

Yes, I knew that on a basic level a high amount ofalcohol in the mother’s bloodstream could not bebeneficial to a growing foetus, but I had never reallyconsidered the information further. I was, however,somewhat mollified to read in the introduction that ‘therange of learning difficulties associated with childrenwho have fetal alcohol spectrum disorders... (is) anemerging but little understood area’. If you readnothing else this year, dip into the foreword (only twopages) where there is the clearest explanation I haveever read about how alcohol consumption in pregnantwomen affects a foetus at different stages of itsdevelopment.

The book explains the impact that fetal alcoholspectrum disorders (FASDs) can have on a child’sbrain; it discusses overlapping and co-existingdisorders, such as ADHD and autism spectrumdisorder, and provides teaching resources andclassroom strategies.

In a classroom, children with FASDs present withhyperactivity, short attention span, mood swings, poor

memory, lack of social skills,problems with auditoryprocessing and visualsequencing, sensoryintegration difficulties andnumeracy difficulties. Ofcourse, not all children withFASDs present with all of thesymptoms, but any one ofthese in combination with ahearing loss is a recipe for a challenging time for bothteacher and child.

One of the chapters details the history and effects of alcohol use on the developing baby in the womb.Another discusses the impact of FASDs on learningand development. There is also a chapter on thecomplex pattern of learning presented by children withFASDs and suggestions of curriculum approaches.

The book has extensive references, case studies, and an exceptional glossary. My only criticism is thatthe number of acronyms used throughout the textmakes it difficult to read fluently. Many of the teachingstrategies to support cognitive and communicationdevelopment will be familiar to readers of thisMagazine; for example, break tasks into small,achievable steps, identify key words and conceptsand pre-teach, and provide tactile examples of whatyou are teaching.

This book isn’t about deafness. In fact, the word‘deafness’ doesn’t even appear in the index. However,I defy anyone to read it and not instantly think of achild they know or have taught and wish that they had read this book prior to knowing or teaching them.It is an absolutely fascinating read and I highlyrecommend it.

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A-level Advanced levelAAQAG Access to Assessment and Qualifications Advisory GroupAB Advanced BionicsACE Assessment of Comprehension and ExpressionADHD Attention Deficit Hyperactivity DisorderAO Awarding OrganisationAQA Examination boardBAEA British Association of Educational AudiologistsBAPA British Association of Paediatricians in AudiologyBASS Birmingham Advisory & Support ServiceBATOD British Association of Teachers of the DeafBDA British Deaf Association/British Dyslexia AssociationBEd Bachelor of EducationBESD Behavioural, Emotional and Social DifficultiesBPVS British Picture Vocabulary ScaleBSL British Sign Language CACDP Council for the Advancement of Communication with Deaf

People (now known as Signature)CEO Chief Executive OfficerCHESS Consortium of Higher Education Support Services with

Deaf StudentsCLD Complex Learning DifficultiesCPD Continuing Professional DevelopmentCRIDE Consortium for Research into Deaf EducationDCAL Deafness, Cognition and Language (Research Centre)DDA Disability Discrimination ActDfE Department for EducationDfES Department for Education and SkillsDVD Digital Versatile DiskEAGE External Advisory Group on Equality (for Ofqual)EAL English as an Additional LanguageEBac English BaccalaureateEHRC Equality and Human Rights CommissionEMTAS Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement ServiceEOA Examination Officers’ AssociationESOL English Speakers of Other LanguagesESRC Economic and Social Research CouncilEYFS Early Years Foundation StageFACE Furthering Access to College Education FASD Fetal Alcohol Spectrum DisorderFEAPDA Fédération Européenne d’Associations de Professeurs de

Déficients Auditifs (European Federation of Associationsof Teachers of the Deaf)

FLSE Federation of Leaders in Special EducationFM Frequency Modulation (radio)FMUK UK FM working groupGaPS Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (test)GCSE General Certificate of Secondary EducationHI Hearing-Impaired/ImpairmentHOSS Heads of Sensory ServicesHOSSER Heads of Sensory Services Eastern RegionI CAN Speech and language charityICT Information and Communications TechnologyiOS iPhone Operating SystemIQ Intelligence QuotientJCQ Joint Council for QualificationsKS Key StageL1/2 First/second LanguageLA Local AuthorityLENA Language ENvironment Analysis MenB Meningococcal group B (disease)

MLD Moderate Learning DifficultiesMOSAIC Meningococcal Outcomes Study in Adolescents

and in ChildrenMP Member of ParliamentMQ Mandatory QualificationMSI Multi-Sensory Impaired/ImpairmentNASS National Association of Independent Schools and

Non-maintained Special SchoolsNATED National Association for Tertiary Education for

Deaf peopleNatSIP National Sensory Impairment PartnershipNCVO National Council for Voluntary OrganisationsNDCS National Deaf Children’s SocietyNEC National Executive Council/National Exhibition

CentreNECTAC National Early Childhood Technical Assistance

CenterOCR Examination boardOfqual Office of Qualifications and Examinations

RegulationOfsted Office for Standards in Education – inspectorate OLM Oral Language ModifiersPATOSS Professional Association for Teachers of Students

with Specific Learning DifficultiesPhD Doctor of PhilosophyPI Performance IndicatorPTA Parent Teacher AssociationQTVI Qualified Teacher of the Visually ImpairedRNIB Royal National Institute of Blind PeopleScope Charity supporting disabled peopleSEN Special Educational NeedsSENCO Special Educational Needs Co-ordinatorSEND Special Educational Needs and DisabilitiesSense National charity for people with deafblindnessSIB Social Impact BondSID Safer Internet Day SIG Special Interest GroupSOAS School of Oriental and African StudiesSOEIC South of England Cochlear Implant CentreSSAT The Special Schools NetworkSSP Sensory Support PractictionerSTA Specialist Teacher Adviser/Standards and Testing

AgencySTASS South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic

StructuresTCT The Communication TrustTEACCH Treatment and Education of Autistic and related

Communication handicapped ChildrenToD Teacher of the DeafTROG Test of Reception of GrammarTV TelevisionUCL University College LondonUK United KingdomUKDSU UK Deaf Students’ UnionUS United StatesUSA United States of AmericaVIEW Professional association of teachers of visually

impaired childrenVI Visually Impaired/ImpairmentYAB Young People’s Advisory Board

If you have found an acronym in the Magazine that isn’t explained inthis list, then use www.acronymfinder.com to help you to work it out.

Abbreviations and acronyms used in this Magazine

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R e g u l a r s

Date Organisation Meeting topic VenueJanuary

15 James Wolfe Primary School Open morning for professionals James Wolfe PS, Randall Place,

Centre for the Deaf Greenwich, London SE10 9LA

17 UKCoD/Alliance on The Health Reforms – their Impact on

Hearing Loss and Deafness Services for People with Hearing Loss and Deafness Hamilton House, London

25 BAPA Annual Conference SOAS, Brunei Gallery, Russell

Square, London WC1 0XG

26 BATOD Steering Group Association business London

26 Manchester University & BATOD Initial training session Teacher of the Deaf

Mentor/Mentee Programme University of Manchester

February

5–7 Anne Davies Steering A True Course: Leadership and Service

Development in the Changing World of Audiology Radisson Hotel, Durham

13 BATOD SIG & Deafness+ Study Day Deafness and Autistic Spectrum Conditions London venue

March

1–2 Hashir Aazh First International Conference on Hyperacusis: Causes, Birkbeck College, University

Evaluation, Diagnosis and Treatment of London

4–8 Hashir Aazh Tinnitus and Hyperacusis Therapy Masterclass Birkbeck College, University

of London

9 BATOD and BAEA Achieving Potential with Technology Birmingham

10 BATOD NEC Association business Birmingham

20 BATOD South Twilight – Show and Tell – Assessments and Resources The Speech, Language and

Hearing Centre, Christopher Place,

Chalton Street, London NW1 1JF

April

11 SOECIC Bilateral Cochlear Implants in Children: safe and effective Turner Sims, Highfield Campus,

University of Southampton

SO17 1BJ

17–19 City University Assessing BSL Development – Production Test City University, Northampton

(Narrative Skills) Training Course (plus one other day) Square, London EC1V 0HB

23 James Wolfe Primary School Open morning for professionals James Wolfe PS, Randall Place,

Centre for the Deaf Greenwich, London SE10 9LA

May

10–11 BATOD Steering Group Association business Birmingham

June

8 BATOD NEC Association business London

26–27 Anne Davies Hearing Aids: The Inside Track James Cook Hospital,

Middlesbrough

September

6–7 BATOD Steering Group Association business Birmingham

27–28 FEAPDA Congress Teaching and Supporting Deaf Teenagers Slovenia

Meetings and training CalendarThis page is an extract from the Calendar to be found on the BATOD website. Please note that it is not exhaustive. Itemsnoted on this Calendar may have been advertised within the Magazine or the information reported by telephone. BATOD isnot necessarily the organising body. Please contact the organising body (column 2) for details of conferences, not the Editor of this Magazine.

The Calendar on the BATOD website is edited as soon as we know about meetings. Additional information about courses and registration forms may also be linked to the calendar entries.

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Officers of Nations and RegionsBATOD contacts and Magazine Distribution

Northern Ireland [email protected]: Rebecca MillarSecretary: Valerie McCreedyTreasurer: Antonette Burns

Scotland [email protected]: Carol ThomsonSecretary: Jean McAllisterTreasurer: Post vacant

Wales [email protected] Chairperson: Revolving post (contact Sally

Davies)Secretary: Lisa WhitneyTreasurer: Rhian Gibbins

East [email protected]: Jo SayersSecretary: Trina RankinTreasurer: Joanne Hughes

BATOD Magazine distribution from:The Seashell Trust, Stanley Road, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire SK8 6RQ

Association Magazine ISSN 1366-0799Published by The British Association of Teachers of the Deaf, 41 The Orchard, Leven, Beverley HU17 5QA

Printed by: Information Press Ltd, Southfield Road, Eynsham, Oxford OX29 4JBMagazine Project Manager: Kath Mackrill

Articles, information and contributions for theAssociation Magazine should be sent to:

BATOD Executive OfficerMr Paul Simpson

tel/fax 0845 6435181email [email protected]

...as should Association information and generalqueries.

Advertisements for the Association Magazineshould be sent to:

Mr Arnold UnderwoodBATOD Publishing and Advertising41 The OrchardLeven, BeverleyEast YorkshireHU17 5QA

tel/fax 01964 544243email [email protected]

Full guidelines for submissions and abstracts ofpapers published in the Journal ‘Deafness &Education International’ are to be found atwww.maney.co.uk/instructions_for_authors/dei

Enquiries related to the Journal to:Dr Linda Watson

email [email protected]

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.editorialmanager.com/dei

DISCLAIMERThe Editors and the Association do not necessarily endorse

items or the contents of advertisementspublished in the Magazine and cannot accept

responsibility for any inaccuracies.Please note that items from this Magazine may not be

reproduced without the consent of BATOD and the sourcemust be acknowledged.

Photocopying items may breach copyright.

Midland [email protected] Chairperson: Cate LatchfordSecretary: Angie WoottenTreasurer: Robert Miller

North [email protected]: Sue DennySecretary: Trish CopeTreasurer: Sandy Goler

South [email protected]: Seonaid RyanSecretary: Joyce Sewell-RutterTreasurer: Meryl Hunt

South West [email protected]: Post vacantSecretary: Hazel SutherlandTreasurer: Post vacant

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Tips and information for Teachers of the Deaf · 2018-02-16 · value of all professionals working...

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