Academies Bill becomes law and something about sausages

I was reminded of the old saying this week that laws are like sausages; you really don’t want to know how they are made…

The Academies Bill is now law, meaning that lots of schools will soon be able to convert to academies, and be independent from local authority control. I personally don’t mind where deaf children are taught, providing they get the support they need. But in most areas, specialist support services are provided by the local authority. So there was always a real question mark over how academies would be able to support deaf children when they’re cut off from the local authority. There were also some big questions over where the money for this would come from, given that academies effectively disperse school funding far and wide.

In an ideal world, there would have been plenty of time to consider and reflect on these issues and come up with solutions that work. But the new Government was hell-bent on getting the Academies Bill into law as soon as possible to allow schools to convert from September. That didn’t stop the House of Lords from trying to slow things down. There were lots of lengthy debates on specialist support services and special educational needs. To the Government’s credit, some big concessions were made early on to help consistency in the legal framework on special educational needs. But they were reluctant to move on specialist support services. It was incredibly frustrating. The Government recognised there was a problem. But wouldn’t come forward with any solutions before the Bill became law. Their response could basically be characterised as “Meh…”

Enter the amazing Baroness Wilkins, a long standing NDCS supporter. With help from NDCS, she kept returning to this issue, put forward a draft amendment to the Academies Bill and eventually forced a vote on it in the House of Lords. The Government rarely loses votes in the Lords or the Commons. It lost this one. It was the 2nd defeat in the Lords for the new Government, and arguably the first major one.

And so the law was changed. It requires funding for support to remain with the local authority, to prevent it being dispersed far and wide. It also means the Government has the power and responsibility to ensure that any large scale conversions to academies do not disadvantage deaf children and other children with low incidence needs. To our surprise, the Government didn’t try to reverse the change to the law, though that was probably because its own deadlines didn’t allow for this. They have even made some fairly positive noises about it, despite trying to resist it in the Lords.

To me, perhaps the most disconcerting thing was that I drafted the change to the law on behalf of the Special Educational Consortium, despite not being an expert in such things and without access to an army of Government lawyers. On the one hand, I’m proud it wasn’t laughed out. On the other hand, I’m slightly alarmed that someone like me has effectively made the law. Is this how Judge Dredd felt?

It’s not the end of the road and the new law doesn’t revolve the issues and concerns fully. So NDCS and parents of deaf children will need to monitor what’s happening in academies going forward. But overall, despite a few weeks of frustrating to and fro, the end result is equivalent to a succullent sausage.

Making audiology youth-friendly

Image courtesy of NDCS

Confession time: until I was around 25, I didn’t have a clue how to read an audiogram. If you asked me as a child, how deaf I was, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Ask me to retube my hearing aid, and I probably would have gone running to Mummy.

Why? Because nobody ever really explained it to me. I’ve blogged before about my unhappy experiences at the audiology clinic as a child. Audiology services fitted me up with a hearing aid as a child and then pretty much left me to it. Rarely was I asked for my opinion or views. Rarely did a trip to the clinic go without my audiologist trying to talk to me when he had just taken my hearing aid off. Worse of all, the hearing tests used to give me terrible tinnutis, and the audiologist had the nerve to tell me off when I incorrectly pressed the buzzer during the hearing test because my ears were beeping and ringing all over the place.

For these reasons, I’m really excited about the National Deaf Children’s Society Over to You project. It’s looking to improve deaf young people’s experiences of audiology services through a project in Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham, my old hood in London. I think it’s a really important job and it’s great that audiologists in this area have stepped up to the challenge, to make their services youth-friendly and to work to empower deaf children and young people.

Luckily, I now have a great audiology clinic. What makes them special is that they take the time to explain things to me and to ask me questions and get my views. Best of all, they NEVER try and talk to me when I haven’t got my hearing aid on!

Watch this space for more info about the Over to You project. In the meantime, if you want to share your good/bad audiology experiences, drop a line below!

How I conquered the 3 Peaks for NDCS

This time last week, when it dawned upon me that I would be attempting to climb the three highest mountains in Great Britain within a few days, I remember thinking to myself that I say “yes” to new challenges far too easily. Now, I reckon I should say “yes” more often…

The weekend started with a long long drive in the back of a mini-bus from London to Fort William in Scotland, where I proved my incredible ability to sleep anywhere, anytime. Accompanying me were my fellow walkers / escapees from the clinic – Abi, Kathik, Karen and Louise – and our two drivers / accomplices – Mark and Nina. I had been told that it’s grim up North, but never had I realised how true this is – moving from 25 degrees plus in London to constant grey drizzle in Fort William was not the best wake-up present I’ve ever had.

After some last minute shopping and prep, we moved over to Glen Nevis to meet the NDCS events team, Emily and Clare, and the challenge event organisers. Our equipment was checked, we were given a safety briefing and posed for the obligatory “How crazy are we?!” photo at the start line, and off we went. I felt a mix of emotions. Nausea was one of them. Dread was another. Nervousness completed the set. More than anything, I wanted to get it over with.

Half an hour later, I was walking steadily upwards and enjoying some gorgeous scenery. I began to relax, and entertain the possibility that I might actually not only pull this off, but do so in style. Before I knew it, I had walked so high up that I was now among the clouds. Visibility dropped to a minimum. The path became rocky and I was surrounded by snow and ice fields. I half expected Gollum to go bounding by muttering something about his precious. I could barely see a thing and all I kept thinking is how cool it this, to be walking among the clouds.

I dragged my team mates up and before we knew it, we were up at the very top of the highest point in Great Britain. I can safely say I’ve rarely felt so exhilarated and thrilled. I couldn’t see a thing, it was incredibly windy and freezing cold but I didn’t care. I was quite literally bouncing around on top of the world.

Another drive though the night later and we were off up Scafell Pike. A much steeper path upwards and the drizzle of rain now turned to a deluge. It was too much for one of our team members but the rest of us persisted. Sadly, we weren’t allowed to the very top, due to 90mph gusts at the top – pah! A little disappointing but I knew full well it was going to be murder getting down the slippery rocky steps in the rain, and we’d made it so high to be in the clouds again, that I didn’t really care. By now, the feeling of exhilaration was tempered by a rather strong desire to be wearing dry socks once again.

Happily, the weather cleared for Snowden and we were able to climb it among some gorgeous sunshine and some even more gorgeous scenery. The climb up was much less severe and again, I was bounding about with excitement. Sadly again, we were denied a shot at the very top due to gales, but once again, I didn’t really care. We were high enough and my Mum had explicitly warned me not to go and get blown off a mountain.

Ironically, walking down was the biggest challenge of all. I really wanted to nail it. But I was also by now dealing with a rather sharp and niggling pain in my ankle. I was determined to walk through the pain and would have chopped my leg off and crawled if necessary. Happily, it wasn’t necessary. A few hours later, I was running to the finish line and bouncing up and down on my dodgy ankle (which had now cured itself, or I’d forgotten about it).

NDCS were kind enough to feed us with the hugest portion of lasagne I’ve ever had at a special party afterwards which was a really nice relaxing way to end the challenge. In the end, the biggest reward was knowing that I had helped raised lots of money to help deaf children and pulled off something I had previously thought would be near impossible. I wouldn’t say it was a walk in the park, but I have completely surprised myself on how do-able the challenge was to me. It turned out I had it in me all along, which is a very nice feeling to have.

Which leaves me to point you in the direction of our fundraising page if you’d like to sponsor our efforts. Any donation is much appreciated. And if I’ve inspired you to take on a new challenge, I see the NDCS Challenges team have a range of challenges to satisfy all levels of insanity. My advice is to say “yes”; it may be the best thing you’ve ever done.

Deaf Awareness Week in Parliament

Image courtesy of NDCS

The NDCS/RNID parliamentary reception on Wednesday was a huge success. 57 MPs came, the deaf children, young people and adults were fantastic and the cakes were lovely.

I was in charge of making sure the deaf children and young people were fully involved, but I was barely needed. They were hugely confident and assertive in telling MPs about the importance of deaf awareness and what action they wanted MPs to take. They were so good and so confident, that it was a bit scary to be honest.

Lots of photos were taken which are now winging their way to local media across the UK. Hopefully, this will get the message about deaf awareness far and wide.

Overall, it’s been a great Deaf Awareness Week. Lots of NDCS supporters have been sending in their thoughts and tips, and we also took the opportunity to share these with MPs.

It’s a shame we have to wait a whole year now for the next Deaf Awareness Week, really…