BSL in schools

Very interesting article I came across, by Ian Noon, who is campaigns officer for the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) He is commenting on a new Bill that proposes a new law whereby schools will have to teach primary school children a foreign language. Ian goes on to say,

"Looking at the small-print, this is defined in the Bill as a “modern foreign language” and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) will decide later what languages schools will be able to offer in meeting this requirement.
Alarms bells rang when I read this because British Sign Language is, by definition, not a ‘foreign’ language. It’s an official Government bells-on recognised language in this country. So I emailed the civil servants working on the Bill to get to the bottom of this.

The answer? Not good. Schools will not be able to teach British Sign Language and meet this new primary school languages requirement. I was told that there would be nothing to stop them teaching it as a separate subject if they wanted to. But the signal sent to schools will be quite clear – British Sign Language, which is the first language of around 70,000 people in this country, does not have the same status as languages like French or Mandarin in our schools.
I don’t know about you but as a deaf person, I’m quite offended by that.

Malcolm Bruce MP (who signs himself) has written to DCSF for an explanation. Hopefully, this will prompt the Government to think again… "
Do please comment on this article if you are offended by this as most people seem to be. www.silent-sounds.co.uk/blog