British Sign Language – it’s not an ‘ology’

Debbie Harris
Jan 2025 • 3 min read
British Sign Language – it’s not an ‘ology’
I read a News article last year about plans to introduce a GCSE in British Sign Language (BSL). I would have loved to have had this as a choice when I was selecting my options some decades (*ahem!) ago … what a brilliant idea.
Signing isn’t only used by deaf folk; it has also been a tool for communication for sufferers of autism for many years as well as for people with speech impairments and/or learning difficulties. Obviously it is also used by the carers of these members of our community and by anyone playing a supportive role in their health and wellbeing.
The British Deaf Association estimates that over 150,000 people in the UK use BSL with ‘only’ 87,000 of them being actually deaf.
I have struggled with significant hearing loss for the last 20 years and so this is a subject close to my heart. I benefit from the advancement of hearing aid technologies and am able to manage my partial deafness very well … but I know that I’m lucky.
This new GCSE is a great step towards equality for the deaf and seeks to improve inclusivity and reduce isolation for deaf and hard of hearing children in our Nation’s schools.
I am always in favour of practical exams in useful subjects that can be meaningfully used in adult life and frankly think BSL could and should be taught in our schools earlier than age 14-16, but we have to take the wins when we can.
I have a heart for education and I am always on the lookout to learn new things … perhaps I may even do a GCSE in BSL (likely to be far more interesting than most of the learning opportunities that tend to land in my inbox … being mainly around the financial services industry of course!)
We often talk here about how little ‘financial education’ our young people receive in our schools – many leave the education system without understanding what income tax is; what a pension is; how to budget etc – many of them are going straight into paid work (so have an immediate need to have some decent financial awareness/knowledge) and many of them head off to University (to live on their own for the first time, with no real idea about balancing a budget; or even how much things cost – utilities, council tax, household insurance etc) so it seems to me there’s a gap in the system here for this too; a need to be met.
Many schools attempt to cover some of the priority information in PSHCE sessions but if you have any other suggestions for how we can help our school-leavers; we’d love to hear them. If you have children or grandchildren in this age group, do you think a ‘workshop’ style event would be useful or even just a ‘workbook’ – both of which would potentially have the objective of arming your young people with some of the financial basics?