adept newsletter may 2016adeptuk.co.uk/uploads/adept newslettermay16.pdfmay"2016" "...

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What is Adept? We are a broad group of people working to improve the services in educational settings for deaf people of all ages. The committee of adept Scotland includes educators, audiologists, communication support workers, educational interpreters, and researchers.

Development Training Day for CSWs and Educational Interpreters

Saturday 11th June 2016 We are bringing together and training CSWs (Educational Interpreters) who use BSL in their work with Deaf pupils and students. Being a CSW can be isolating, so this day is an opportunity to network, socialise, and learn in a supportive environment. ADEPT Scotland will lead discussion on issues in the work of CSWs. The afternoon will be a training session for CSWs to receive CPD, learn from each other and other experienced professionals, and to discuss what types of training you would like in the future. Participants will have a range of experience, training, and skill in BSL, but should have practical experience of CSW in the field.

The language of the day will be English.

Venue : Renfield Centre, 260 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 4JP Time: 10am – 4.30pm Cost: £10 on the day Reserve your place: http://bit.ly/21j9uot Contact: [email protected]

ADEPT Scotland Newsletter

May 2016

We welcome new committee members, who must be adept members. The committee meets three times a year at different college venues.

In this issue you will find information on: What’s new with us Recommendations for educational policy BSL assessment to support access The BSL (Scotland) Act Teacher of the Deaf Facebook group Scottish Parliament investigation on deaf children’s attainment Useful links Tracking Deaf students into employment Events for 2016

May 2016 ADEPT SCOTLAND NEWSLETTER

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Impact of adept training days: using BSL assessment to inform support and access requirements Nicola Mitchell is a BSL trainer and was a popular presenter at our event in Stirling in May 2015. Following her presentation that day, we were pleased to learn that at least one college had started to use Nicola’s expertise during assessments for Disabled Students’ Allowance. Nicola’s assessment of a student’s BSL skills is helpful when planning the kind of support required during the student’s course of study. Find out more about Nicola’s presentation in the event summary on the adept Scotland webpage. There you will also find a downloadable guide to having initial discussions with deaf students about their language levels on entry to college, as a way of determining their support and access requirements. Visit Nicola’s own website and contact her with your enquiries at http://www.academyofbsl.com

Adept Scotland Election Briefing – pass on to your candidates To help ensure access, we recommend: • Qualified BSL / English interpreters to work in schools, colleges and universities with deaf

students who sign. • Government support for the establishment of a course and register of qualified notetakers in

Scotland - to help raise attainment of students with disabilities. • The right of every young person to a work experience placement at school, with appropriate

support, as recommended by the Wood commission – but before 2020! • Every college in Scotland to have a designated and qualified assessor of deaf / Deaf students

to screen, assess and make recommendations about the access arrangements and qualifications of staff providing support.

• It can be difficult for mainstream schools to meet the educational needs of all deaf pupils. There is evidence that resourced based provision can support these children more appropriately. There is a need for an increase in this provision across Scotland.

• The fundamental premise of the education system is that children hear clearly all relevant information from the teacher and each other at all times. In order to achieve this all schools should be built to appropriate acoustic standards. We believe that Scotland should follow England and Wales and have statutory acoustic standards for all new nursery, school and college buildings including refurbishments.


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British Sign Language Act (Scotland) 2015

Last September the BSL Act was passed in the Scottish Parliament after over a decade of preparation and lobbying from Scotland's Deaf community. The Act is closely modelled on the Gaelic Language Act of 2005, requiring public bodies to make plans to promote the minority language. However, there are some important differences. The Gaelic Language Act mandates a board of Gaelic speakers to instruct public bodies to produce a plan, whereas the BSL Act has a National Advisory Group (NAG) composed of half Deaf BSL users from the community and half hearing people from national bodies. Education is a topic which the NAG is likely to address as a priority. One of the hearing people on the NAG is Helena Gauntlett from the Scottish Funding Council, which will provide a strong link with Further and Higher Education. Unusually, three young Deaf BSL users will represent the views of Deaf young people on the NAG, and collect views from a wider group of Deaf young people drawn from across Scotland. But unlike the better economic times of 2005 when the Gaelic Act started to be implemented, there is no funding set aside for implementing the BSL Act apart from translation of the plans into BSL. All universities, colleges and local authorities will be required to make a plan and some will probably set aside funding to do

so. By October 2017 the first National BSL plan will be produced, for national organisations such as SQA, Education Scotland and national NHS services. A year after that, and taking advice from the national plan, other public bodies must make their plans too. Adept Scotland hopes that schools, colleges and universities will take up this opportunity to review the views of Deaf BSL users who currently attend and who could in future attend their institution. From information we have collected, Deaf BSL users are often frustrated with the unqualified interpreters that are provided, the gaps when classes are not interpreted, and the poor understanding of professional role held by these paraprofessionals. Schools, colleges and universities could offer BSL classes for other students and staff. They could audit their services to make sure BSL users can independently access a complaints procedure and other services such as counselling. For more information about the BSL Scotland Act and how it is being implemented, visit the Deaf Sector Partnership website which is implementing the Act on behalf of the Equality Unit in the Scottish Government's civil service. http://deafsectorpartnership.net/

Thinking about going to college? Spend a week in City of Glasgow College and find out what being a college student is really like. Date: 6 -‐‑10 June 2016 Time: 10am – 4pm each day Where: City of Glasgow College Contact: Margaret Sharvin, Employment Adviser Tel: 0141 341 5346 Mobile: 07436 267402 Email: [email protected]


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Teacher of the Deaf Facebook Group

Joe O’Donnell The need to share information, keep up with the latest technology changes and share good ideas is important in every line of work but particularly within deaf education. The pressures on time and budgets mean that professionals have less opportunities to meet up at courses and network. Teams are also getting smaller and are becoming more isolated. The idea of using Facebook came from seeing professionals working in these conditions. I've been trying to pass on ideas and practices I've seen in the different teams I'm working in but for some time now I have felt that there must be a more effective way to do this. What was needed was a place we could post information to, where people could comment on the post and a place where the information could be stored and retrieved at a later date. A colleague

working in Inverclyde had started a email group using the Glow platform. All schools in Scotland have access to Glow and it was expected that TOD's would join and participate in this group. However, not many teachers joined and for some reason this idea never really got off the ground. The TOD West Scot Facebook group began in Dec 2015. We now have 24 members made up mostly of TODs but there are also parents, audiologist and some company reps as members. There are a small number of people who post regularly and I'm sure this will grow in time. Most of the posts are on articles to do with technology issues, new teaching apps, issues in Sign Language, and info on particular types of hearing loss. Some teachers have also started posting requests for particular information they require. This area is one I

would like to see develop further. One of the main problems I have encountered is getting people to join the group if they are not on Facebook. Unfortunately, if you want to join the group you have to join Facebook. However, you only have to set up a very basic profile page and the only activity you need to have is with our closed group. If you want to join the group search for "TOD West Scot" and ask to join. I will then accept your request and you will receive updates on any posts to the group and be able to post anything of interest. As in all groups, what happens in them and how they evolve and grow is down to the members of the group. If you have an interest in any aspect of Deaf education please join, read, post and

Useful links The Limping Chicken Blog. Information about the Deaf Community, current events, and deaf awareness. This is useful for learning about deaf people and might be good reading practice for deaf students. http://limpingchicken.com Scottish Council on Deafness has a useful monthly newsletter with updates on everything from legislation to subtitled cinema and interpreted theatre performances. http://www.scod.org.uk BSL Scotland Act Facebook Group. Outreach from the Scottish Parliament. Deaf people share information about the importance of legal protections and linguistic access. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1470165406637765/?fref=nf

April 2016 ADEPT SCOTLAND NEWSLETTER

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At the same time Parliament was considering the BSL Bill, the same committee which oversaw the passage of the BSL Bill, the Education and Culture Committee, also undertook an investigation into the attainment of pupils with a sensory impairment. The committee collected views from a very wide range of statutory and voluntary bodies from across Scotland as well as individuals. We reported on the work of this committee in our last newsletter. The report concluded that the Scottish Government and local authorities could do much more to raise the attainment of deaf and visually impaired children. The committee particularly singled out the poor data collection from the Government because there were no statistics held about the exact number of teachers of deaf children or their qualification levels.

These teachers must hold a specialist qualification to work in schools, though this policy does not apply to colleges. The civil service responded robustly arguing that their provision is high quality, but the Committee replied (letter, 8.3.16) saying that Education Scotland could also do much more to improve consistency in performance between local authorities. This interesting exchange of views can be seen online (link below) along with all the evidence and the Committee's final report. Adept Scotland would like the Government to urgently take up an issue highlighted by this report: acoustic conditions in schools. Scotland does not have any statutory guidance about school, college or university buildings and acoustic conditions. The guidance in England is often referred to, but it is not mandatory

and in any case does not apply to existing buildings, only new build. We would like to see new guidance for Scotland for existing and new build nurseries, schools, colleges and universities which encourages these institutions to develop better acoustic conditions in sections of each building, and eventually all of them. Social areas should not be forgotten either - and again in this respect the English advice is not so useful. We would like to see a new set of policy guidance for all Scottish education buildings.

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/87932.aspx

Scottish Parliament investigates deaf children's attainment


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Tracking Deaf students into employment

Joe O’Donnell

Last December I attended a seminar in Edinburgh called "Developing the young workforce". The seminar looked at the progress being made so far in skills development and apprenticeships in Scotland. It looked in particular at the development of college partnerships, senior vocational pathways and apprenticeships and measures to encourage employer engagement with Scottish youth. The key issues for me were raised firstly by Derek Brown from Fife. He made the point that pupils with additional needs are almost twice as likely to end up in negative destinations after school. He also stated that this was despite the fact that these children were attaining higher qualifications than they had been in the past. In Fife 136 young people with negative destinations had additional needs. Paul Little, Principal and Chief Executive, City of Glasgow College felt that the most

important thing to do was to connect schools with businesses. Over the next 10yrs there will be a demand for 12m employees yet only 7m are in training. He also stated that college students are more ready for employment that university students and that colleges will now have industry academies rather than academic departments. These industry academies are closely linked to industry and it is planned that students will have a job guarantee when they complete their course. Barry McCulloch, Senior Policy Advisor, Federation of Small Businesses, felt that direct engagement with a business was necessary because 60% of small businesses have never engaged with schools, only one in five are currently active in schools and only one in ten have used publicly funded support in the last year, "Their knowledge of what is being delivered, how and why it is being delivered, is very basic."

For me as a professional working with deaf children these were the comments that hit home. They made me think about how we could use this information to move forward in a way that would make it more likely that the young people we work with can move more successfully into long term employment. One idea would be to directly approach City of Glasgow College and offer to provide support to the deaf students and staff involved with them on their courses. The students could then be tracked through to their work placements. There we could then offer awareness raising and practical support to the business on how to provide the deaf individual with the appropriate support. At the same time we would be working with the student/ apprentice on developing their self advocacy skills. If anyone else feels that this might be a useful way to move forward, or has any other ideas please get in touch.


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adept UK Conference Our full day annual conference is the highlight of our year. With topical keynotes during the morning, and afternoon presentations, the event is always a day to remember, excellent for CPD purposes and for networking opportunities. This year we are delighted to present the following keynotes:

Keynote 1: Rachel Sutton-Spence Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil

Keynote 2: Craig Crowley, MBE CEO of Action Deafness

adept members: £40 special rate to celebrate our 40th anniversary

(NATED, trading as adept)

Non-member rate: £90

(includes refreshments & lunch) You can use the PayPal link on the adept website for delegate fees, but make sure you have filled out a delegate booking form.

For delegate application forms please browse the website: www.adeptuk.co.uk

This year we are testing a different format to the day. Instead of afternoon workshops, we will have more presentations, thereby giving everyone the opportunity to take part in everything. We will also be including more plenary/breaks between presentations, in an attempt to avoid information overload. More opportunity to press the flesh and browse stalls.

For a range of afternoon presentations, keep checking the website for details.

The venue is accessible from just about anywhere in the UK. Just a few steps from Derby railway station in the historic Railway Quarter of the UK's most central city.

Roundhouse, Pride Park

2 Roundhouse Road Derby

DE24 8JE

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