How the acoustics campaign victory woz won

Well, it’s been two weeks now since we won the campaign victory on acoustics and the Government announced a package of measures to improve acoustics in new schools. So how did it all happen? Having mused and reflected upon it, here are what I think were the five key ingredients behind the campaign success:

1) Getting good media coverage. We were fortunate that the Times Educational Supplement, which is read avidly by civil servants and Ministers at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, were keen to follow the campaign throughout the year and to keep highlighting the issue with stories popping up in January on the launch of the campaign, May about support from other disability charities and, more recently, in October about a new school with poor acoustics.

2) Getting the message out to MPs and peers. We invested lots of time and effort in making MPs aware of the campaign, encouraging them to sign a parliamentary petition and to write to the Department to demand action. We couldn’t have done this without our supporters taking action and writing to their MP to check they were on board. In total, nearly 600 emails or letters were sent to MPs and the Government on acoustics by our supporters. It helped that we had a simple message that was easy for MPs to understand and get on board, all of which ensured we had a cross-party army of supporters within Parliament…

3) Making sure deaf young people led the way. Of course, one of reasons why so many MPs were keen to support the campaign is that they had attended a parliamentary event we arranged in June and met with a group of deaf young people to hear about their own personal experiences of poor acoustics, and why action is needed. The same group also appeared on the telly on BBC2 programme See Hear to demand action. They made a powerful appeal for action which was difficult for MPs and the Government to ignore.

4) Making sure we developed a strong case for action. Whether it was doing our own survey of local authorities to confirm that too many new schools were being built with poor acoustics or commissioning research from a school in Essex to show the dramatic impact that improved acoustics can have, we were keen to make sure that our briefings to Government were backed up by a compelling set of facts, pointing to a problem that needs to be solved.

5) Negotiations over a possible law change. Having got lots of attention from MPs and peers, several were keen to try and get the law changed to improve acoustics. Baroness Wilkins, a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness, tabled an amendment to the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill. We were quite lucky in a way; the Government was already behind schedule on this Bill and were keen to reduce the amount of time spent on debates in the House of Lords. But a good campaign exploits any luck and opportunities that presents itself. And so we entered into a game of brinkmanship and a series of negotiations to agree to a deal whereby the Department agreed to acoustic testing in exchange for the amendment being withdrawn. We ended up getting a good package that surpassed our expectations of what we could realistically achieve.

All in all, a good result for deaf children and lots of lessons to take forward to the next big campaign! I can’t chose but any thoughts on which was the most important factor out of this five?

End of term report on acoustics campaign

Parliament has now broken up for summer. As a campaigns officer, my initial response to this news is always “Praise be!”. As much as I love MPs, the summer months give us a time to reflect, strategise and do some blue sky thinking. Or some grey sky thinking if you’re enjoying the same weather as I am.

One thing we’ll be reflecting on is our Sounds good? campaign on acoustics. Looking back, I think we can point to some solid campaign ‘wins’, including:

* A recognition by the Government that there is a problem over poor acoustics, to which action is needed.
* A commitment to publishing guidance on how to achieve good acoustics.
* An unofficial clamp down on the use of alternative performance standards from those set out in government guidance, where there is weak justification.
* A recommendation of acoustic testing in new ‘minimum standards’ for new schools published by the Government.
* A reference to acoustic testing in new draft contracts for use by local authorities for new secondary schools.
* A promise to review the acoustics in new school buildings in future “post-occupancy evaluations”.

We’ve done this backed up my widespread support. Nearly 80 MPs have signed a parliamentary petition on this, 45 came to a parliamentary event, 16 organisations have endorsed the campaign and over 400 members of the public have contacted their MP to call for action on this issue.

All of this is pretty good. If we were to end the campaign tomorrow, I would do so with my head held reasonably high as I rush to buy some Pringles to celebrate.

But there is one very important thing missing that we think is needed: a hard mandatory requirement for new schools to be tested for their acoustics. Nothing has been put forward that would be a watertight requirement and which would apply to all new schools (and not just secondary schools). Without this, we don’t think there is any real incentive to make acoustics a top priority. It would fall off the radar as soon as we stopped our campaign.

Baroness Wilkins, a strong NDCS supporter, has been pressing to get the law changed to introduce this new requirement and her amendment will get debated after the summer. We had a meeting with civil servants last week to discuss this and we have a commitment that they will be seriously thinking about this.

In the meantime, we’ll be thinking about ways in which we can keep the campaign on the top of people’s minds when Parliament comes back from summer… Any ideas?

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.

Deaf children and Ofsted: inspecting the inspectors

Have been spending a lot of time recently on the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill – which I call the ASCL Bill for short, mainly because I can never hit the ‘c’ bit in Apprenticeships without falling over my words, and sometimes literally just falling over.

It’s the first time as a campaigns officer I’ve got my teeth into looking at detail through a Bill and exploring possible changes and amendments to it – so I’m on an exciting learning curve. One change we’re leading on is the proposal around the education inspection agency Ofsted which touches on one of our objectives for our Close the Gap campaign.

The Bill proposes that schools get a ‘health check’ rather than a full blown inspection if they are ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. So we have tabled an amendment to the draft law that would have the effect of making school health checks conditional on whether the school has been inspected by someone who has good awareness of the needs of children with special educational needs. This is because NDCS we’ve come across several examples in the past of units for deaf children being inspected by people who clearly knew nothing about deafness and did not even know how to communicate with deaf children. Any conclusions they make are clearly not going to be particularly helpful.

Being realistic, and me being cynical, I think it’s unlikely the amendment will be accepted by the Government. But at the very least, there will be a helpful debate on this in Parliament and it will be a powerful means of getting our point on this across to decision makers.

I’ve also attended a few meetings on the ASCL Bill with a range of other charities to see how we can link up. One issue that I hadn’t spotted before – but now have thanks to these meetings – is that the Bill would require you to have a good GCSE in English to do an advanced apprenticeship. There is apparently no exception for children whose disability makes it much less likely for them to get a good GCSE in English. For deaf children whose first language is British Sign Language, it’s a clear, discriminatory barrier to doing an apprenticeship. So it’s likely we’ll be making noises about this too.

The ASCL Bill is making its way through Parliament now – so watch this space.

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…

School’s out!

Parliament broke for summer yesterday (or “rose for recess” as Parliamentary wonks like to put it) and they don’t come back until October. On the one hand, I’m slightly jealous. On the other, I’m slightly relieved. I feel a bit like a teacher who’s spent the last few months watching over a bunch of manic hyperactive children, monitoring closely what they’re up to and what they’re saying and keeping a constant eye out for mischief. I can now breath a sigh of relief that they’ve all gone home for the summer and have a cup of tea.

In their rush to get things done before the summer, there’s been a rush of activity in the corridors of power. Here’s are three examples of things that have been going on in Parliament recently that impact on deaf children:

1) The Special Educational Needs (Information) Bill , which I talked about in an earlier blog, is now set to become law. It quickly passed through the remaining hurdles left in the House of Lords and the Queen has graciously agreed to approve the Bill by giving it her ‘royal assent’. As this is a private member’s bill, put forward by Sharon Hodgson MP, which don’t normally succeed, this is really good news. In requiring the Department to collect and publish more information about children with special educational needs, the Bill will hopefully be a powerful catalyst for change and have a positive impact for deaf children. Top marks for Sharon!

2) John Bercow issued a report about services for children with speech, language and communication needs. Many children who are deaf, for example, may need speech and langauge therapy and/or communication support so this report was a good opportunity to make sure their needs are taken into account. It follows a call for evidence last year where we encouraged parents of deaf children to input thieir views. Nearly 10% of the final responses came from parents or professionals working with deaf children. My esteemed colleague, Angela Deckett, has talked about this on her excellent blog for professionals.

3) Lord Morris asked a parliamentary question (PQ) in the House of Lords about our Big Plans event that we held a while back. A PQ is an opportunity for MPs or Lords to get the Government’s official ‘position’ on something. It also provides us with a quote that we can throw back in the Government’s face when we need to hold them to account on something. Sometimes though, answers can be horribly vague as to border on meaningless. I should know – in my previous job, it was my responsibility to occasionally draft answers to PQs.

Anyhow, below is the PQ and the answer!

Lord Morris of Manchester asked Her Majesty’s Government: What consideration they have given to the key findings of the National Deaf Children’s Society’s recent survey of the needs and views of deaf children and young people as they affect government departments; and what action they will be taking.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Children, Schools and Families (Lord Adonis): The National Deaf Children’s Society’s report Changing Your World Youth Consultation was launched on 10 June 2008. This said that that young people want to see more mainstreaming of activities for deaf children and young people. The Youth Opportunity and Youth Capital Funds which we introduced in 2006 give young people a direct say over activities and facilities in their area. It is a universal programme with a focus on reaching disadvantaged young people including those with disabilities. Young people can participate in three ways: as an applicant for funding: as a grant giver; and as a beneficiary of the activity or facility provided through the programme.

Young people also want more information and advice made available to them. The National Core Offer was launched as part of Aiming High for Disabled Children on 15 May 2008. The National Core Offer is a statement of the standards which families with disabled children can expect across the country from local services. It is concerned mainly with early years, education, youth, social care and health services, but is also relevant for those delivering housing, leisure and transport services.

The core offer will ensure that parents of disabled children are involved in determining provision; have a single assessment of need where possible; are clear what they are entitled to and how to access the service; give disabled children and young people the option of being fully involved in the development of local services and designing their package of care; and are not subject to multiple assessments before services are provided.

Apart from the fact that it got the name of our report wrong and seemed confused about what our event was about, it was useful for us as the Government confirmed that deaf children should be benefitting from two important Government initiatives – the Youth Opportunity Fund and the Core Offer. So if we suspect this isn’t happening anywhere in the country, we can quote the Government’s reply on this to remind them!

So there you have three examples of Parliamentarians making mischief – creating new laws, publishing reports and asking pertinent questions. No more mischief-making until the autumn though (in theory). I will probably miss them in a few weeks…

Delicious MPs. Shame about the cakes.

Well, the launch of NDCS’s Big Plans seemed to be a big success. Lots of MPs and Lords came to hear about our plans to become a more child-centred organisations, that puts deaf children at the heart of the decision-making process. I’m a big believer that nothing should be done for deaf children, unless, as much as possible, it’s done by them (how we do this in campaigns is one of the challenges I need to get to grips with over the coming year – ideas very welcome).

Chairing the event was Tara, a sparky, intelligent young girl from Middlesborough who, earlier in the day, was chatting away to Newsround. And we had lots of deaf children in attendance talking to the VIPs. Once again, they all made my job look easy. Pesky kids…

And, quite a few MPs and Lords came along to meet the children – including Malcolm Bruce (NDCS Vice President and parent of a deaf child), Annette Brooke, Sharon Hodgson and Tom Levitt so their presence was really welcome. They may not be household names – but they’ve done a lot of work over the years for disabled children. My job at the event was to make the most of their presence. These VIPs were not allowed to leave unless they knew all about our Big Plans, had met some of the bigwigs at NDCS and were fully persuaded of the need to campaign for deaf children in Parliament. Depending on how malicious I was feeling, I would also ask them to name as many Kylie Minogue hits as possible.

I do sometimes find these events difficult, mainly because of the communication barrier, but also because you really have to be direct and fearless and go straight up to the VIPs before someone else nabs them. This time though, I was determined to make full use of the sign language interpreters and to get my fangs into a few MPs and Lords. Fortunately for me, many were receptive to our arguments of the need for action and keen to support us. Result.

Sadly, I was so busy getting my fangs into MPs, that I didn’t get a chance to get my fangs into the food. Shockingly, there were no canapes but there were some gorgeous lush looking cakes. Which the kids all ate… After my job and now after my cakes… pesky kids, indeed…