To mark Deaf Awareness Week, last Friday I went to an assembly at Brighton’s Hamilton Lodge school and college for deaf children.

It was such an informative event and I learned more about communication, British Sign Language, and the difficulties of lip reading. I also learned about fingerspelling and this link takes you to the chart that I’ve been trying to familiarise myself with over the weekend - http://www.british-sign.co.uk/fingerspelling-alphabet-charts/. Other useful websites that the school’s Principal kindly shared with me are listed at the end of this blog.

My favourite part of the assembly was the roleplay by the Year 10s, who did a fantastic performance on the right and wrong way to get a deaf person’s attention.

I really appreciated the opportunity to hear more about issues relevant to the Deaf community here in Brighton & Hove: one of the issues raised was lack of funding for deaf sport in the UK and I’ll be raising this with the Sports Minister.

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www.batod.org.uk  A professional’s association for Teachers of the Deaf

www.ndcs.org.uk An advocacy organisation that offers a wealth of information and advice

www.bda.org.uk Another advocacy organisation focusing on Deaf sign language users