Tell us about yourself I am 30 years old and severely dyslexic, I have not let this get in my way. In fact I love being that little bit different. I am a from a single parent Deaf family where the primary language is spoken English however there is a great pride for Deaf culture and identity and when I was growing up I was introduced to SSE as a communication method and lapped it up. I was signed to before speech. The visual nature became a much easier way to communicate and learn spelling especially. When I was 18 I decided I wanted to formalise my signing into BSL (as did my mother) we went to level 2 classes together and soon realised we were signing bsl in a matter of weeks. Lots of our
You may have missed it, but the Department for Education (DfE) issued a press release recently welcoming the fact that qualifications in 12 community languages, ranging from Arabic and Bengali to Polish and Urdu, have been saved (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/community-languages-saved-to-ensure-diverse-curriculum-continues). It means that young people will still be able to take GCSEs and A levels in these languages, recognising how important these skills will be in an increasingly global economy. No mention of BSL though! We know that more people want to learn BSL than French or German! In Scotland they already have a BSL Act, are developing a BSL National Plan, and it will apply to a
