Deaf Children in the mainstream:

A challenge worth having!

In an educational climate of great change Keegan Hall-Browne Lead ToD at
James Wolfe Primary school’s Centre for Deaf children in Greenwich
reflects on the challenges of educating deaf children in a Total
Communication mainstream DSP.

In the ever changing world of deaf education, the advances in implantation, digital
aiding and FM technology, not to mention the historical and never ending debate
over choice of setting, which language and communication method and all this
surrounded by the political and cultural ideals of the Deaf community and the
majority hearing parental populace, is it any wonder that educating a deaf child and
the choice of educational placement is an immense challenge for professionals and
yet more so for our children’s parents. From oral-aural to pure sign-bilingualism, the
spectrum of choices is vast and as with all spectrums the “middle ground of grey”
between these implied extremes is never transparently clear to our parents. What
then are the challenges of a Total Communication setting or a DSP (Designated
Special Provision) in the heart of a thriving and majority hearing mainstream school
such as our own?

Challenge 1: Language & Communication.

With over 400 non-signing hearing peers and nearly 90 adults from the same
linguistic background, our biggest challenge is for our deaf children to feel these
hearing people are communication partners and part of their social and academic
learning community as much as their deaf peers and our specialist staff. Therefore
we embed practices of learning and teaching BSL into school life. BSL forms part of
our whole school Modern Foreign Language curriculum and is taught to all staff and
children weekly by a native deaf BSL user. The profile of BSL is continually raised
through events such as the national Sign2Sing, the NDCS Fingerspellathon,
interpretation of all public school events and out Centre’s annual Performance in the
Park. We offer free BSL adult classes to our parent and staff community and
actively encourage all bus escorts to attend and learn too. The importance is placed
on lifting those ever present barriers to communication and socialisation that arise
from linguistic and language differences in a mixed environment. It is for us as much
about training and exposure as it is about engendering the right attitude towards our
deaf learners’ identity.

Challenge 2: Inclusivity & Access to a broad, balanced and aspirational curriculum.

It is commonly agreed, and rightly so, that deafness in itself is not a learning
disability, therefore it is a deaf child’s absolute right to access the same educational
opportunities as their hearing counterparts. This access is even more crucial within
a mainstream setting, if our deaf children are truly to feel full members of their wider
school community and experience. To this end our school operates a child
determined ratio of age-appropriate mainstream inclusive education, supported
through BSL interpretation and adult adaptation of learning, coupled with specialist
support in our Centre classes with access to a qualified Teacher of the Deaf. Our
ToDs plan, teach and ensure the children’s language, literacy, communication (for
some who need it: a more differentiated numeracy input) needs are developed to
their fullest potential. We also provide stimulus and direct teaching for their PSD
(Personal & Social Development) to ensure they grow as confident young people
with a positive sense of self. To further support inclusion and broader access our
Deaf Instructor delivers the deaf studies curriculum in weekly lessons that include
some of our hearing children too. In addition all our deaf children attend the
mainstream BSL lessons to learn alongside their hearing peers offering them the
opportunity to excel in their first language and be the “teachers” who support their
hearing peers to learn.

Challenge 3: Perceptions of Academic achievements & Dispelling the myths.

There are many supposed myths surrounding deaf children’s potential, their
academic abilities and whether signing with your child will hinder their development
and achievements. These often negative perspectives exist amongst many stake-
holders in deaf education, including our parents and if not positively challenged
through pedagogical attitudes, school policy and practices can eventually become a
self-belief for our deaf learners. We know from our experiences at our school that
with the right attitude, level of support including interpretation, a language rich
environment that: a) meets the child where they are at, b) celebrates and explicitly
teaches them about their bilingualism and c) where a whole school community
values and engages with their linguistic and cultural differences, our deaf children
can and do have the same chances at success as their hearing peers. Is this not
what makes for a successful education? It is definitely worth working for and helps
us to dispel the myth: “deaf means can’t and therefore means failure”.

Challenge 4: Growth, Improvements and “never resting on your laurels”.

The parental conundrum over what the future of their deaf child will be like and what
will best support them to achieve their fullest potentials will always be like “crystal
ball gazing” for parents and professionals alike. However, the challenge for us all in
this exciting specialist field of education is to ensure we continue to: question
ourselves & our community, to work with advances in technology, to involve and
engage our parents, to be innovative and creative in our approaches and ensure that
by looking at the whole child, we continue to foster attitudinal challenge. We need to
continue to be the facilitators of our children’s own personal and academic growth,
help them to develop their pride and enable them to achieve their best to ensure they
can build their own successful futures. We do this by recognising and relishing these
challenges, by improving: upon ourselves, our provision, our attitudes, our
experiences and encouraging our children to reach for their own improvement. Thus
we actively work to ensure that none of us ever “rest upon our figurative or literal
laurels”.

Challenge 5: Keeping it up!

The “business”, to use a politically charged term, of education in this current climate,
surely, is to challenge, inspire and enable success. This final challenge
consequently is the most significant of all. The challenge is: to keep challenging
ourselves and the whole parent, school and child community daily. Why should we
do so? Clearly we do it for nothing else than the sake of the children in our care and
securing their futures.
Another aspect of challenge inherent in deaf education, often irrespective of setting,
is the overcoming the feeling of being a minority in a greater majority. This is a stark
challenge within our Centre where our deaf children from less than 5% of the total
school population and where our roll and new admissions continue to fall. How then
do we ensure we raise the profile of this minority as distinct and valuable members
of the school community? One method has been through sharing good practice,
reaching out to our parents and external multi-professionals through our Parent and
Professional Opening mornings. By opening our classrooms, inviting people in, our
deaf children and our Centre are celebrated as a significant aspect of our school. By
sharing good practice our deaf children become shining examples of deaf learners
and feel a sense of pride in what they can do and achieve. Our Open mornings have
certainly increased our children’s confidence, inspired our innovative attitudes
towards teaching and learning, improved our positive school ethos towards deaf
education and inclusion, whilst helping to secure a steady increase in our numbers
on roll.

These challenges with the strategies I have described above to face them are just
some of the ways in which we continue to strive for the best for all our children, along
with others, such as comparative data groups, engagement with university research
and national consortiums. Nonetheless, this ongoing massive challenge: of
educating deaf children, as was intimated in the title of this reflection, is the crux of
what we at James Wolfe’s Centre for Deaf children do, but one which I am sure will
sit well with all across the spectrum of deaf education, and one which is certainly
“worth having”!
Keegan Hall-Browne