Six in 10 teachers believe deaf children will continue to underachieve at school unless changes are made to the current system, a new survey has revealed.
The poll of around 5,700 primary and secondary school teachers, commissioned by the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS), found only five per cent either disagreed or strongly disagreed that deaf children would underachieve at school without changes to their current education.
The majority (84%) of England’s 33,000 deaf schoolchildren are in mainstream schools, where qualified teachers of the deaf (TODs) provide specialist support.
However, TOD numbers have been cut by 17% over the past decade and deaf children continue to achieve an entire grade less than their hearing peers – prompting NDCS to call on the government to plan long-term support as part of its ongoing review into special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Mike Hobday, NDCS’ director of policy and campaigns, said: “The overwhelming message from teachers across England is that the current system prevents them from helping deaf children to reach their full potential in school, which is a damning indictment.
“Deaf children already achieve less than their hearing classmates at every stage of school and it is gut-wrenching that most teachers do not believe this will change.
“The Government must use the SEND review to finally level the playing field for deaf pupils by investing in more Teachers of the Deaf. Failing to do so will leave thousands of deaf children to struggle on alone.”
In a statement, a Department for Education spokesperson said: “All children and young people, including those who are deaf or have a hearing impairment should receive the support they need to succeed in their education.
“There is a legal requirement for qualified teachers to hold relevant mandatory qualifications when teaching classes of pupils who have a sensory impairment.
“Our special educational needs and disability (SEND) and alternative provision green paper proposals will build on this support, aiming to change the culture and practice in mainstream education to be more inclusive.
“This includes through earlier intervention, improved targeted support and better workforce training.”
By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.
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Hartmut
October 11, 2022
The “educational” problems deaf children face is
1) 90 % or more of deaf chiildren are born to parents who do not sign;
2) their acquisition of English via monolingual means, that is, in the exclusion of sign language, like BSL in the UK.
Both situations produce deaf adults who are smilingual, not only in English, but also in a signed language, like the BSL. This further results in limited knowledge horizons of those “deprived” deaf individuals. Their reading level, that is, their ability to understand written English is also severely constrained. That is what one speaks of “linguistic and cognitive deprivation”.
The educational system, including Early Language Intervention, should redirect the orientation from its monolingual “obsession” (via aural-oral modality only) toward a bilingual BSL and English (with emphasis on the written modality). Resources to make this education possible must be organized, using available organizational provisions and public funds provided by national, state, or local governments or health insurance. It must include the national and local Deaf Community. On the national level it means production of learning materials using video. On the local, it amounts to local Deaf people as resources for learning sign language of parents and siblings and serving as sign language language models for deaf children.
Jo Dennison Drake
October 11, 2022
My belief is teachers can be in the habit of being prophetic of their charges. Not realising that if their deaf pupils could hear more would do better. Instead deaf children are judged upon current ability and taught at that level so teachers consider their pupils achieving as expected instead of realising that with proper support their deaf charges could achieve so much more!
Karen
October 12, 2022
Deaf children don’t necessarily need to be able to hear in order to do well though. Students with BSL can and do do well.