In with the new: Queen reveals new education laws

Image courtesy of BBC news online

She may not been the musical theme on the X Factor (though it was fun to see John and Edward clarify that they were performing the hits of Queen, the group, and not Her Majesty), but the Queen had her annual fun day out last week on the 18th, when she paid a trip to the Houses of Parliament to read out the Government’s plans for the year ahead. Or rather for the 70 days left of parliamentary business before the next general election.

Two bills of interest to NDCS. Firstly, the Equality Bill. This is in fact a ‘carry over’ Bill from the last parliamentary year so NDCS will be carrying over our lobbying work on access to examinations for disabled young people.

The second bill is a new one, the Children, Schools and Families Bill. It contains a whole range of new proposals on education including on teacher training, curriculum, Ofsted and safeguarding. But one the proposals that is getting a lot of attention is the pupil guarantee, for children to have various entitlements to PE, one to one support, etc. Although it has its critics, I personally think it’s could be an interesting idea. We know that deaf children experience variations in the quality of provision they receive across England. If was drafted in a favourable way, could the new guarantee help ensure that all deaf children get a minimum standard of provision, with nobody left behind?

NDCS will be taking a close look at the Bill to see what opportunities it presents to improve education for deaf children. In the meantime, any thoughts on the Bills? Anything in particular NDCS should be lobbying on?

Data on how deaf children are doing at school

Apparently, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. And then there’s a new category: figures relating how deaf children get on at school.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families have given us the latest figures on the attainment of deaf children and we intend to publish them next Tuesday with some accompanying analysis and a pretty little spreadsheet. I don’t think it will come as a huge surprise when I say the figures will confirm that there is still a large attainment gap between deaf children and all children. We’ll be doing some media work to promote the figures and to call for more support for deaf children at schools.

At the same time, I’m bracing myself for a barrage of tut-tutting. The figures are quite controversial in some quarters because they don’t include all deaf children, only those who are getting specialist support at schools. Some have argued it’s misleading to use these figures and that it demoralises professionals.

I take a different view. The figures are not perfect but they are still the best available. No evidence has been provided to suggest the figures are unrepresentative or that there is not a wide attainment gap between deaf children and their hearing peers. If there was, I’d quite happily go home and watch Hollyoaks all day.

I see the point about demoralising staff. Which is why we’re always careful to say that we think professionals are dedicated and doing a good job with a lack of wider support and funding from their local authority and central Government. In any event, should professionals working with deaf children be exempt from wider discussion and scrutiny about how deaf children are doing?

Finally, the data is used for an important end – to shine the spotlight on the education of deaf children and to persuade Government to take action. If we held off from ever using data unless it was 100% verifiable and perfect, then we may never be able to make the case for action. And all the time, the education of deaf children would suffer. And that’s not acceptable.

It’s going to be interesting to see the reaction. In the meantime, what do you think? Are we right to publish the data and to use it to shine a spotlight on education of deaf children.

Primary curriculum review fails deaf children?

Sir Jim Rose’s review of the primary curriculum was published yesterday. It promises fairly fundamental changes to the way young children learn at schools. And with one in five children having a special educational need, surely the report will have lots to say about how such children can learn effectively in the classroom?

Nope. Nada. Zilch.

It was painfully depressing and tiresome and predictable. There was nothing in the main report’s recommendations about meeting the needs of children with special educational needs. There was a brief mention later where it said that the teaching of phonics might not work for a “minority” of children and that teachers should seek specialist advice. Note that the onus is on teachers to do this, not on the Government to provide advice and support. And frustratingly, it refers to feedback from parents of “mixed experiences” in schools meeting their child’s needs, but then does nothing to really address this.

NDCS did a press story on this and we’re likely to be banging on about this until we get a government commitment that the curriculum must be accessible to all children, and that guidance must be made available on how to do this for deaf children. Frankly, I think it’s ridiculous that teachers are expected to tailor their teaching on literacy, emotional well-being and languages with nothing in the way of guidance and support.

Deaf children and campaigns: review of 2008

Apologies for the delay in blogging again. I returned to work last week but was far too grumpy and cold to blog/think about anything apart from my warm duvet.

I also did a bit of reminiscing about 2008 and a year of campaigns at NDCS. My top three highlights were:

1) Getting our first campaign report Must do better on the educational underachievement of deaf children launched. 45 MPs came to the launch of the campaign report and 156 MPs (nearly one in four) signed early day motions supporting the campaign. It was the first time we had set out our campaign objectives on this subject and provides us with a strong basis to continue campaigning on this issue this year.

2) It was a horrible and technical issue but we got out teeth stuck into some work on accessible examinations and managed to get the Government to redraft some legislation in our favour. We’re now also members of a group working to make further improvements.

3) We also launched a campaign on the newborn hearing screening programme to address localised problems in the delivery of the programme, particularly in London. As a result, we’ve got a meeting with the Chief Executive of NHS London soon and we got ourselves on the telly, raising awareness of the issue.

The lowlight? An independent review on child and adolescent mental health services containing no reference to the needs of deaf children, and barely any reference to the needs of disabled children. This was despite concerted efforts by us to demonstrate that deaf children were at particular risk of developing mental health problems. We’ll be redoubling our efforts on this issue, this year.

Overall, I feel optimistic about the direction in which things are going. Although there are still times the Government will publish a report with zero or limited reference to the needs of disabled children, the needs of children with special educational needs are being referenced more and more. We now have a larger campaigns team at NDCS, freeing up some capacity. And there is a feeling that more and more people know who we are and what we want/need, with deaf children higher on the agenda.

Main priority in early 2009 though will be our planned campaign on acoustics. I’ll be blogging on our planning for this.

In the meantime, what were your highlights/lowlights for deaf children in 2008? And where should be go in 2009? Be great to hear your thoughts.

An end and a beginning for deaf children in Westminster

Last week, the parliamentary year ended. And then this week, a new one began. Nobody did an Auld Lang Syne, though the Queen did dress up a bit and hit the town.

With the end of the parliamentary year, all parliamentary petitions (known as early day motions) were wrapped up and no more signatures could be added to them. So we did a bit of number crunching to see how many MPs supported one or both of the two early day motions that were tabled in the last year on deaf children and education. These were early day motions 592 and 1607. Both called on the Government to take action to close the gap in attainment between deaf children and their hearing peers, and both pointedly pointed out that deafness is not a learning disability.

And the total number of MPs came to…. 156. Considering there are 645 MPs, this is nearly a quarter of all MPs. Since Ministers or anyone with a small part in running the machinery of Government cannot sign an early day motion, 156 is really quite good. I’m pleased. It’s allowing us to say that one in four MPs support our campaign.

But we won’t be looking back. On Wednesday, the Government set out it’s priorities for the future and its legislative plans for the year ahead via the Queen’s speech. NDCS did a news item on this, setting out the Bills that NDCS is going to be paying close attention to. For example, the proposed Equalities Bill might provide us with an opportunity to put forward changes that will benefit deaf children. This will be a big piece of work for us going forward. The proposed Children, Learning and Skills Bill might also be an opportunity for NDCS as well.

So its out with the old and in with the new…

PS Did you spot anything in the Bill that caught you eye or which might positively impact on deaf children? Let us know any thoughts you might have…

Getting ready for the party: final preparations for the party conferences

The party conference beckon ever closer. And like all good parties, I have been spending absolutely ages getting ready for it – though without the prospect of having a sausage on a stick to nibble on at the end of it.

I find myself nervously wondering if the party will go well. But we’re quietly optimistic. For the Liberal Democrat party conference, we’re doing a little experiment by inviting MPs to meet with a local young deaf girl called Laura. At the time of writing, ten MPs, including some senior Liberal Democrat bigwigs, have signed up to hear more about some of the experiences that deaf children face directly from a deaf child herself. One MP can make a powerful difference for us in the Houses of Parliament. So, with ten, we may even be able to change the world for deaf children and do ourselves out of a job.

As well as looking up biographies of all the MPs we’re meeting and sorting out logistical arrangements, we’ve also been thinking carefully about some of the points we’re going to impress on MPs. We want to tailor our messages around the particular interests of the MP but we’re also definitely going to be banging on about NDCS’s campaign to close the gap in attainment between deaf children and their hearing peers and our campaign report Must do better!. Three priority areas for us will be:

* Phonics and deaf children: getting the message out that phonics are inappropriate to many deaf children.

* Specialist support: the lack of skilled staff available to support deaf children in many parts of the UK.

* The need for better data on how deaf children are doing in schools at a local level.

At the risk of sounding like a self-important hyperactive TV news journalist, I’ll be blogging from the party conferences at the heart of the action, giving you regular updates on the top events. So look out for that next week as we head down to the seaside in Bournemouth.

WHEN…TEACH…ERS… TALK… REALLY… SLOWWWWWWLY…

I go where the work takes me. It would be nice if these places were Barcelona or Florence but as I’m the NDCS campaigns officer, yesterday, work took me to Newbury in Berkshire.

Anyhow, the reason I was in Newbury was to meet a young deaf person called Laura (who actually lives in Dorset – a long story). As part of our quest to become a more child-centred organisation, Laura has been recruited to help us with our campaigns work in the future (which you’ll be hearing more about in future blogs) so I went to learn more about her. Immediately, I could see that she would make an excellent role model and spokesperson for deaf children – very intelligent and articulate and very much demonstrates the art of the possible. That deaf children can achieve as well as their hearing peers and prosper if they are given the right support.

I learnt a bit more about her background and we talked for a bit about things that gone less well. She reminded me about something I used to get annoyed about – teachers not being deaf aware. Like me, Laura has had some excellent teachers who’ve gone out of their way to support her. But, also like me, Laura has also had some really patronising teachers who don’t have a clue.

Like the teacher…who…talks…really…slowly…like…you…are…a…five…year…old…or…a…complete dumbo…

Frankly, I would be mortified when anyone spoke like this to me when I was growing up. Now if anyone tries it, I tell them to stop being so silly and to speak normally. I may even slap them if I think I can get away with it. But for a child, it’s not always easy to challenge your teacher and tell them that it’s not necessary to talk so slowly or explain that it really doesn’t help. I imagine that many deaf children suffer the embarassment of being spoken to so patronisingly in the classroom in front of their peers in silence.

Then you have the teachers who just haven’t had the deaf awareness training or they’ve forgotten it. They forget that deaf children lipread and that you need to face them if you’re speaking. They put on DVDs that don’t have subtitles. They tell deaf children off for being lazy when the child is exhausted from having to lipread all day and is struggling to concentate.

This is not an attack on teachers (though I do think, like in any industry, there are some rubbish ones out there and I don’t think anyone should shy away from that). Our campaign report on education calls for improved teacher training so that all teachers working with deaf children have a good understanding of how to work with deaf children effectively. We also call for whole-school training whenever a deaf child enrols at a new school, everyone in the school gets refresher training. I’d also personally like to see deaf children empowered and be invited to give their feedback on teachers and whether they are suitably deaf aware. I don’t get the impression this really happens very much at the moment.

Anyhow, look out for more of Laura soon!