So what was all the party conference fuss all about?

When the party conferences finished a few weeks back, I was at a stage when I couldn’t look at a MP on the TV without screaming “No! No more!” and looking wide-eyed for a hill to run up. Happily, I’ve now recovered enough to look back and attempt a sum-up of the NDCS experience at the party conferences 2009, bookending all of the daily blogs I did here last month.

Looking at the numbers, altogether, we met 57 MPs, peers and candidates for election. Of these, 27 were Ministers or Shadow Ministers, including:

* Lead on education for each party, and another four junior education ministers.
* Minister responsible for Building Regulations.
* Minister for Disability, and his Conservative counterpart.
* Minister responsible for audiology services.
* 11 prospective parliamentary candidates who are likely to be influential in the next Parliament.

Not bad, if I say so myself. All of these chin-wags helped us achieve cross party support for our campaign on acoustics which, in turn, helped us achieve our recent campaign victory and the new package of measures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. In fact, the conferences came at just the right time for us, allowing us to do some precision lobbying at the moment it mattered.

Part of the reason why so many MPs wanted to meet with us was Louis Kissaun, our deaf young person with us, who was able to explain the issues in a more direct way to MPs. After all, it’s young people like Louis who suffer most from rubbish acoustics. Louis seemed to enjoy himself: you can read our little interview with him here.

More than anything, the conference was a chance to chin-wag, muscle in on conversations, network and have an informal chat about our work and concerns, which is something you can’t really put a price on. It was one big Mastercard priceless moment if you like. Lots of unexpected opportunities arose during the conference, like a chance encounter with a journalist from ITV Yorkshire, think tank academics working on special educational needs, other charities concerned about new schools, and so on. And not forgetting all the fringe meetings. We attended around 30 and tried to sneak in a question at every one.

By August next year, I will have forgotten how tiring three weeks of schmoozing is, and will be raring to go again…

Prep for the party conferences 2009

Image courtesy of www.schooley.net

I’m getting quite excited – the travelling circus will soon be coming back to town. Yes, the party political conferences are upon us once again. Did it ever really leave? It doesn’t feel that long ago from last year when I was feeling dead proud of Laura Bolter for showing firsthand to MPs that deafness shouldn’t hold anyone back and also being overly excited by a freebie Slinky, courtesy of NASUWT.

As always, a lot of work has gone into preparing for the conferences. Sadly, it’s not just a merry jaunt around the UK to talk politics over cocktails. Some of the key elements of our preparation have included:

1) Arranging meets. The real value for a small charity like NDCS is the opportunity to get to meet lots of MPs in a relatively short space of time. So for the past month, my colleagues have been busy writing letters and chasing MPs on the phone. Whilst I’m wary of naming any at the risk of jinx-ing it, we are set to meet some of the big beasts. And this year, we’re also meeting some of the would-be MPs, otherwise known as Prospective Parliamentary Candidates. The aim is to make sure that the next generation of MPs are familiar with our work when they take up residence in the halls of power.

2) Getting our ‘asks’ right. One of the early lessons I learnt as a campaigner was to always have something to ask a MP to do. So we’ve been thinking how to tailor our wish list of actions for MPs to do to support us as appropriate. For most MPs, we’ll be focusing on our Sounds good? campaign and encouraging MPs to support the call for mandatory acoustic testing. But we’ll have different asks for MPs who are interested in, for example, health and social care issues.

3) Planning which fringe meetings to go to. These are not actually a chance to discuss the most stylish haircut length over the forehead but, in essence, seminars on a range of topics, normally set up by a charity or organisation to promote their cause (or themselves). Normally, a senior MP will come along to speak so it’s always interesting to see what he/she has to say. And normally there is also a questions and answer session at the end, giving charities like NDCS an opportunity to flag up an issue.

4) Working out which stalls to visit. This is the bit where the conferences feel more like a student fair. Lots of charities and organisations will have a little area in the exhibition centre to promote their cause/themselves. It’s a good opportunity to network and make new friends. Many give away freebies, which I may have got a bit carried away with last year…

And that’s our prep to stalk MPs 2009 in a nutshell. The Liberal Democrats are first up and we’ll be heading to Bournemouth to see them next Monday. You can follow the latest here at this blog, and also via Twitter.

So what does it sound like for a deaf child in a school with rubbish acoustics?

As a campaigns officer, we’ve used a range of tools in our attempts to cajole Government into taking action on acoustics in schools for deaf children as part of the Sounds good? campaign. Two things, in particularly, have worked particularly well…

1) Deaf children explaining the personal impact of poor acoustics in their own words. You can now see the BBC2 See Hear feature on acoustics on youtube. Some of the children’s comments are really powerful – like how poor acoustics makes them feel lonely and left out in the classroom. Recommended viewing.

2) A sound simulation of what it sounds like for deaf children when they’re in a classroom with poor acoustics. We used this to powerful effect at the parliamentary event we did back in June where a group of deaf children demonstrated the simulation to MPs. The simulation is now available on our website for everyone to listen for themselves. It is just a simulation – but it gives a powerful indication into how much harder it is for deaf children to listen and learn in the classroom. As one of my colleagues said, it’s a real “ear” opener.

The campaign is now moving into a new phase, and there’ll be new campaign action soon. Watch this space…

UPDATE! (11/9/09) We’ve just launched a new campaign action. We’re asking our supporters to contact the Children’s Minister, Baroness Morgan, to agree a change to the law on acoustics. We want to make sure all new schools get tested for their acoustics before they open. So if you want to help make sure deaf children don’t feel left out in the classrom, take action now!

Young deaf celebrity pops into NDCS office

I caused a minor frission of excitement in the office on Wednesday when Louis Kissaun, who had a leading role in the Channel 4 programme, Shameless, earlier in the year, came into the office. My colleagues hadn’t been so excited since the Helpline team bought some Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

What was he doing here? After a successful turn last year by Laura Bolter, we were thinking a few months back what young deaf person we could bring along to the party political conferences this year. And then Louis turned up on Shameless and the answer fell into our laps. We contacted his school and the rest is history.

It was great to meet Louis and to have him on board. It’s clear he’s going to do a great job. We know that MPs are going to be keen to meet with him to learn about his experiences growing up deaf and, of course, being on Shameless.

Our prep for the party conferences now starts in earnest – so look out for more details in coming months.

Have you contacted your MP yet? Reminder no.3

The campaign for better acoustics in schools is reaching a critical phase. In around a month, we will be hosting a parliamentary event where we will be asking MPs to come along and listen to a simulation of what bad acoustics sound like to a deaf child. And we will also be publishing our findings from some requests for information to local authorities. We’re still collating the replies – but initial findings suggest that way too many local authorities have schools which have not met the government’s standards on acoustics and that urgent action is needed.

The aim of all of this to try and maximise the pressure on the Government to take this urgent action and specifically, introduce a new requirement for testing of schools for their acoustics.

The letters that our supporters are sending to their MPs are really making a difference because these same MPs are writing to Ministers at the Department for Children, Schools and Families to ask them what’s going on. The hope is that a bit more pressure will help us get what we want.

So if you haven’t already, now is the time to contact your MP! As always, it’s easy, quick and you don’t need to know your MP is.

At the time of writing, 295 people had already contacted their MP. It would be fantastic to push this over 300 and to start to edge up to 350…. A few quick clicks is all you need, starting here.

I’m now on leave for a week, but I’ll be blogging about attainment data and the latest on our acoustics campaign when I get back – so watch this space.

The readout: NDCS meetings with Ministers and MPs

All of our scheduled meetings with the three Ministers and a MP went ahead. And we got good results from them all! I’ve allowed myself a tub of Pringles to celebrate.

Firstly, the meeting with Phil Hope and Ann Keen, Ministers at the Department for Health: they were concerned about failings in the delivery of the newborn hearing screening programme, and said they would monitor the programme carefully to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Secondly, the meeting with Iain Wright, Minister responsible for building regulations at the Department for Communities and Local Government: he seemed to be in support of the campaign and said he would work with Ministers the Department for Communities and Local Government to try and find a way to introduce acoustic testing in new school buildings.

And apparently, Iain Wright is very concerned about the impact of listening to loud music on ipods so the RNID Don’t lose the music campaign clearly has been making waves.

And thirdly, the meeting with senior Conservative MP, John Bercow, was very positive. He was happy to support our campaign on acoustics and may hopefully be hosting a parliamentary event for us…

Obviously, all of this is good but warm words in themselves don’t lead to concrete action. So we’ll be doing a lot of work on follow-up in writing various letters to the people we’ve met, setting out what was discussed and agreed and trying to push things along. But at the very least we hope, if only for a short while, we had the undivided attention of senior politicians and that they won’t forget the needs of deaf children for a while…

MPs debate deaf children and the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

MPs have now gone through the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning (ASCL) Bill, line by line, and considered all of the amendments. Such was their determination to do it, they ended up staying up in Parliament until well past midnight. This left me with an image of MPs sitting in a room with their pyjamas, clutching hot water bottles and teddy bears, but anyhow…

NDCS concerns got raised a few times which we were pleased with. Anything that raises the needs of deaf children within Parliament is always good news. Here’s a very brief run down of what was said:

1) Teacher training. We want the Government to give teachers an explicit entitlement to training if a child with special educational needs enters the classroom. Currently, it’s proposed that all employers will have the right to request training. We think teachers need to be proactively encouraged and enabled to take up training to work with children with special educational needs – and given a clear entitlement to this.

The Government made some positive noises about ongoing efforts to improve teacher training so that teachers know how to work with children with SEN. But no new rights. So we’ll continue to lobby on this.

2) Ofsted. We wanted an amendment that would make sure that a school couldn’t be given a ranking of good or outstanding unless provision for children with special educational needs is also good or outstanding. The Minister said it would be “highly unlikely” if this happened. This in itself was helpful and gives us something to hold the Government to account to. But then again, we were left wondering that if it will be highly unlikely, why not make it completely impossible? So again, we’ll be continuing to lobby the Government on this.

3) Acoustics. We again made our call for pre-completion acoustic testing to be required in all schools. Here, we were disappointed by the Government’s response which pretty much said that a review was ongoing. It didn’t really respond to any of the concerns raised and didn’t take us any further forward. You can guess what we’ll be doing next.

There was also a bit of debate over apprenticeships and disabled people which I’ll come back to another time as we’ve had some interesting correspondence with Government officials on this.

So when will we get to do some more lobbying? The Bill will soon have its third reading in the House of Commons where MPs basically tie up loose ends. Then it will be the turn of the House of Lords to look at the Bill. The plan is to engage with and brief peers on our concerns on the Bill in the aim of making improvements to benefit deaf children.

Trying to change the law on Ofsted

I mentioned that we’re trying to get the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill amended so that Ofsted can’t relax the inspection process for “good/outstanding” schools unless the inspector knows their stuff about deafness, and unless provision for children with special educational needs is also good/outstanding.

Well, we’ve taken the first step by drafting and suggesting an amendment. We’ve given it to a MP, Annette Brooke who has been a big supporter in the past and happily, she has agreed to put forward the amendment. It will get debated later this month by a committee of MPs who are scrutinising the Bill in more detail. Hopefully they will agree it’s a good idea.

Our amendment will change clause 210. And the committee has yet to get to clause 40 and they meet twice a week – so I suspect it will be a while before get to debate it though. So in the meantime, I’ve been drafting a briefing that tries to sell the case for this amendment and will be sending it out to MPs this week.

Will keep updating on the progress on this one – so watch this space.

NDCS campaigns at the party conferences: a post-mortem

The party conferences are now over and I’m back in London, oddly excited by the prospect of spending a whole 5 days in the office.

So was it all worth it? My considered view is yes. I think we, as a small-ish charity, punched above our weight and made a range of new connections that we can now follow up in the coming months. Having tallied the number, we met or accosted 23 MPs, 6 MSPs, the Children’s Commissioner for England, the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Acting General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, and many other key figures. Of the 23 MPs, we met several senior figures, including the (then) Minister for Disability, Anne McGuire, and shadow Ministers in the Liberal Democrat and Conservative party. We have also have a long list of people to meet in coming weeks who weren’t able to meet with us at the party conference. On the whole, MPs have been receptive and keen to hear from us – and there is a sense that the NDCS ‘brand’ is increasingly better known in political circles.

And, of course, having a young deaf person at the Liberal Democrat party conference made a huge difference. It’s an experiment we’ll be looking to repeat in future years.

But how was it really? The Guardian has an interesting article (warning: this article contains naughty words) on this quotes a man comparing it to a freshers’ week

“Quite exciting, but quite stressful,” he added. “You keep thinking, am I having a good time? Or do I actually want to go home now? You never feel quite sure if people like you or not. And you keep wondering if you’re missing something better going on somewhere else.”

I can sympathise. It’s a very odd feeling to be on edge all the time, like a meerkat looking to see what’s going on 24 hours a day. It’s also a pretty tiring experience to do three times over three weeks. I refer to the conferences as the travelling circus, purely because you to get to meet many of the same lobbyists and charities again. And again. And again. It’s like Groundhog Day. But it was still all very enjoyable. Now that some time has elapsed I’m nearly looking forward to doing the same thing all over again next year!

Campaigning for deaf children at the Labour party conference: day 2

We may have peaked too soon but today at the Labour party conference was relatively quiet compared to yesterday. We had arranged to meet one MP but he forgot about it and rang us later in the day to apologise profusely. Oh dear, but as he asked to arrange something after the conference, we’re not complaining too much.

And then later in the day, the conference pretty much grinded to a halt for the Prime Minister’s speech. I watched it on a big screen alongside lots of other lobbyists / stalkers of MPs and a TV cameraman who kept shoving a camera in people’s faces to get a ‘reaction’ shot only to find that most people’s reaction was along the lines of “why is there a camera lens peering up my nostril?”

Instead, we took the time to tour the exhibition stands (and get more freebies). The exhibition stands are an opportunity for charities and other organisations to show off their work. It does cost money though – someone mentioned a cost of £13,000 for the space and for their banners – and more if you for a big garish displays to entice in the punters and MPs. The value for us is that it allows us to chat with other organisations working with children to see what scope there is to work together. Action for Children had a particularly interesting stand where MPs had been invited to say what they wanted to happen for children. Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, had written:

Every child has potential and every child can succeed whatever the barriers with the right help and all our support.

A very neat summary of what our Close the Gap campaign is all about – so quite nice to see it written down by a Government minister.

Although we haven’t met as many MPs as with the Liberal Democrats, this is to be expected since we don’t have the draw that Laura provided – after all, who wants to meet a boring old campaigns officer when they could meet a sparky clever 15 year old girl? But it’s still been a useful way of making connections and getting ourselves noticed. We’ll be using thank you letters to futher bind these new connections.

But back to London tomorrow to get ready for the Conservative party conference in Birmingham – where we have more networking to do and, importantly, more freebies to get hold of. So watch this space.