Award Winning Deaf Teacher An Inspiration For Deaf and Hearing Children Alike

My most uplifting moment of the year so far was when I interviewed Alysha Allen, who has won the 2020 Teacher Of The Year Award despite being profoundly deaf

Teacher with a pupil wearing a hearing aid — Alysha Allen, award winning deaf teacher, who teaches hearing children

Last year was a very good year for Alysha Allen who teaches pupils at Brimsdown Primary School in Enfield. She won a pretigious award and was recognised as an outstanding teacher as well as an influential figure in the deaf community.

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      string(5721) "expertsin their child’s behaviour and that any concerns expressedabout sensory status, health needs or changes in behaviourshould be taken seriously by all professionals.Vol 2.4 n www.teachingtimes.comDisabilities/ConditionsEvery Child Journal52Despite the fact that all the children of parents whotook part in the study were deaf, 12 of the children hadno reported access to a Teacher of the Deaf (ToD). Parentsvalued support where the ToD was actively involved andcommunicated with them. Parents were less satisfiedwhere the ToD input was sporadic, where it was identifiedon the child’s statement but did not materialise andwhere identification of a learning disability resulted in theToD being withdrawn. For one family trying to establishcommunication with their daughter who has profounddisabilities, lack of access to sign language tuition raisedsignificant problems:“It has been a bit disastrous I would say. It is a bitself-help, self-taught because we have a busy home… Dhas been trying to self-teach himself and then I will sayto him, ‘what is she doing, what is she signing?’ and hewill either know and say ‘oh, that means…’ or he doesn’tknow and we both look at each other – we don’t know. It’sheartbreaking.”[10]Parents were clear that whilst services should be readilyavailable, access came at a personal cost for many. Whereparents were able to advocate and challenge they weremindful of others for whom this may be not be possible:“You have just got to be persistent really. I think a lot offamilies just haven’t got the energy to do it or they are notarticulate enough to do it and they are really disadvantaged.If you can’t do that then you do just get fobbed off.”[23]Poor professional practiceLack of training, understanding and insight all lead to a poorexperience for children. Even at a basic level, professionalsfail to identify and diagnose symptoms. Parents whoqueried their child’s very poor head control were falselyreassured to learn a year and half later that the child hadhydrocephalus which should have been recognised andtreated in the first months of life. In other cases poorpractice resulted from a lack of detailed consideration ofneeds. One parent with a profoundly deaf daughter whohad very complex needs was advised to use sign language.This meant the mother learning British Sign Language(BSL) whilst caring for a very premature baby who was fedthrough a nasogastric tube and required significant medicalintervention. The mother’s regrets around this issue providean insight into the problem of well-meant advice that wasbased on incomplete knowledge of a child’s needs. Thismother shares her story:“And when we started to learn the sign language,obviously we didn’t get a response, we went to the doctorsand the paediatrician at nine months and said we arelearning sign language and doing everything – in a way itwas causing a bit of friction at home because I was tryingto learn it and my husband said she is not responding, andI said well they say it takes a hundred times or a thousandmillion times before a child says mum, but we never realisedshe was blind. In a way I wish I had maybe just cuddledher, we were just desperate to do everything correctly tomaximise the child’s potential.”[49]The mother’s sense of guilt and recognition of lostopportunity is a timely reminder that professionals needto take a holistic approach to meeting needs. In seeking toprovide early intervention, particularly where children havevery complex needs, the importance of a holistic approachshould not be underestimated.Where lack of training is evident parental outrage isunderstandable. Parents have to learn how to appropriatelymanage their child’s identified special needs quickly. Thismay include complex medical interventions or simply bestpractice in managing hearing aids as illustrated in thisparents comments:“Sure Start Nursery: we pulled him out of that becausewe went to pick him up, it was happening quite often, butI started to pick him up at times other than when I said Iwould pick up because I was worried about him, and henever ever had his hearing aids whenever I went to collecthim, they said they were a risk to the other children, achoking hazard.”[39]In removing this child’s hearing aids the nursery nursehad effectively isolated this child, making it impossible forwww.teachingtimes.com n Vol 2.4Disabilities/Conditions Every Child Journal53him to have any contact with the adults or other children inthe group. Importantly, the nursery had made no requestto the mother or other professionals regarding how toappropriately handle their concerns.In many cases there was a sense of professionals beingoverwhelmed by the complexity of needs. Typically insuch situations the default position is to focus on what anindividual knows. This results in the child being seen as anumber of labels rather than an individual with complexneeds. A holistic approach that seeks to understand thepotential synergies that exist between different conditionsand needs is one that parents felt most benefited their child.For those children who are medically fragile andtechnology-dependent, requiring a high level of support andexpertise, finding a suitable placement can be challenging:“There are no facilities for [child] for that, nonewhatsoever. We couldn’t get anybody to take her from acare point of view. Some special needs children do go tonurseries where they have additional training, but there isnowhere in this area that would accept her. Even for the sixweek holidays, because I am"
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Special Needs

Listening Loss And Bad Behaviour

14 Oct 2011

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      string(5642) "This month’s FeaturesGlobalactivitiesfor SpecialSchoolsInternational links canbenefit everyone. Inthis article we find outhow special schoolsare making the most ofglobal partnerships.An increasing number ofpupils in special schools aregaining the British Council’sInternational School awards.Through this type of  work thepupils are able to extend theirboundaries, increase theirexperience and understandingof  people. They experiencecollaborative learning anddiscover more about the livesof  other young people, oftenthose with disabilities andoften getting a lot less helpthan they do.http://www.teachingtimes.comThis month’s FeaturesThe technologies used are varied.Some include Skype, digital videos,digital photography, Clicker, MicrosoftPhotostory, Widget, Symbol Worldand animations. 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It is workingwith three South African specialschools in Cape Town using digitalblue camera and films made by pupilsin their animation club.Three teachers from Longcausevisited Tafelberg High School in CapeTown, its junior school and anothertwin special school, Glendale whichwere to be part of  a joint project.Tafelberg caters for children withADHD from infants up to studentsof  18. Most of  their students wereof  mainstream ability in terms ofacademic and sporting skills. Theteachers from Longcause gained aninsight into how special education wasprovided in another country whichwidened their perceptions.Tafelberg returned the favourvisiting Longcause during”, Africa/UK” week.  The Tafelberg studentsreceived a guided tour of  the schoolwhich gave the English studentsan opportunity to develop theircommunication skills. They all met theLord Mayor and Lady Mayoress ofPlymouth who came to take part in aspecial assembly.A mixed group of  students wenton to experience a morning’s sailingwhich was greatly appreciated by theTafelberg students, few of  whom getthe chance to sail in South Africa.During the visit the studentsprepared and performed for aninternational audience presenting, anupdated version of  an old story, “LittleRed Football Shirt” and dramatisedrenditions of  “Widecombe Fair” and“Yellow Submarine”. The Englishstudents also learned more aboutthe cultural diversity in Africa asthe Tafelberg group sang the SouthAfrican national anthem which is inseveral languages.The Tafelberg students enjoyedplaying football, rugby and dodgeballwith teams from the neighbouringsecondary schools, Hele’s andRidgeway, so the internationalexperience extended into other partsof  the community.WoodlandsWoodlands Special School has linkswith Twin City Special School,Ghana. Their link was fundedthrough the British Council initiallinking grant. A visit to Ghana tookplace to set up the foundations of  thelink and joint curriculum work. Theyalso a have longstanding link with LeManoir School in Caen, Normandy http://www.teachingtimes.comThis month’s Featuresand students experience the culturaland linguistic opportunities providedby a residential visit every year withboth groups visiting each other’sschool for a week’s stay.Woodlands special school Headteacher Andrea Hemmens explains,“The students don’t usually get theopportunity to speak with othersoutside the school or go abroad.They don’t meet so much with otherpeople.  The global work gives abroader experience of  other countriesand other people’s lives. They meetreal people. Connections are madewith others and it helps them to thinkabout their own lives.”The teachers from Ghana andUganda inspired everyone. Theconditions in some of  the schoolscould only be described as brutal.The English students were impressedby the ‘can do’ attitude.To keep in touch the schooluses email addresses as it is morereliable and they have tried videoconferencing. Many of  the childrencan’t speak, so they use accessibletechnologies like switches andindependent aids. Using photos,digital pictures and video clips meansthey can ‘talk’ regardless of  language.These images are then uploaded ontothe web.Priory Woods SchoolChildren at Priory Woods School andArts College, an all age communityspecial school situated in eastMiddlesbrough, benefit from theirglobal experiences. 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Special Needs

Global activities for Special Schools

26 Nov 2012

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      string(5568) "moment Cock threw the bone outside. Dog raced after it and before itcould bounce twice he had leaped on it and chewed it. The girl was shocked.Before Dog could sit down to his meal again, Cock sucked another bone and threwit out. Before it could land on the ground, Dog had jumped out and grabbed it inmid-air. He had knocked over the cup of water in his haste, and when he re-entered the house he was still happily crunching the bone.The girl walked out of the room.191Pidgin and Creoles                                 EXTENSIONUsing InformantsIf some of you have families who came to this country from the Caribbean, youcan act as informants on the information in this chapter.Tell your teacher and classmates whether you can speak full creole (called“patois” by the community). Give them further examples of Caribbean English.Caribbean LiteratureMany of the best novels written in English nowadays are by African andCaribbean writers. They choose to write in an English which we can allunderstand, but which is not exactly the same as Standard British English.Here is the opening of a novel by a writer from Trinidad, Earl Lovelace:“The Wine ot Astonishment”God don’t give you more than you can bear, I say. ‘Cause for hundred of yearswe bearing what He send like the earth bear the hot sun and the rains and thedew and the cold, and the earth is still the earth, still here for man to buildhouse on and fall down on, still sending up shoots and flowers and growingthings.But what sin we commit? What deed our fathers or we do that so vex God thatHe rain tribulation on us for generations? What is it, the children ask, aschildren will ask who don’t know, who open their eyes in a world where the foodnever ’nuff and the house falling down and the police in we tail and themagistrate trembling to send us to jail, who see us carrying on our shoulders aload more heavy than anybody else own.So I tell them: What God will vex with you for? You ain’t do God nothing. Goddon’t vex with his children.But children ain’t fooled. They have their own eyes. They know; so they sitdown on the bench in the kitchen watching me, waiting for me to tell themmore.So I tell them:Is because we could bear it. For God ain’t make this world by guess. Thingshave meaning.‘And if He give us this … If He give you this, Reggie’, ‘I tell my last boychild, isbecause you … we could bear it and rise.’Caribbean English and British English are different in some ways.Find examples in this passage. Look for:1. Words 3. Pronouns2. Verb forms 4. Sentence constructions192EXTENSION                                              Chapter 27Chapter 28 – Language VarietyLanguage FamiliesIn this chapter you will learn:1. That living languages change2. That writing acts as a brake3. How to make a family tree of languages4. The Indo-European family of languages193Language ChangeLanguages die when nobody speaks them. For example, when tribes of AmericanIndians or Australian aborigines are wiped out, their languages die with them.Or a language dies when most of the speakers find it more convenient to speaksomething else. For instance, the Cornish language died out about a hundredyears ago, because the Cornish people found they needed to speak English morethan Cornish.Such languages are dead languages.Dead languages are the only ones which do not change. Like all other living things,living languages change all the time.People who do not understand this sometimes get very cross. They think anythingnew is bad and write to the newspapers complaining about new uses for old words,or about changes in grammar and pronunciation. They are wasting their time:languages change because the speakers change.We saw in the last section that new languages are born when speakers of differentlanguages have to communicate: Even left to themselves, however, languageschange.You can see this in your own life. You do not speak exactly the same as yourparents. And they do not speak exactly the same as their parents. Languageschange a little bit with every generation. If they did not, they would die.Interjections as examples of language changeA seventh part of speech is the interjection. This is not related to the rest of thesentence. It is used to express surprise, anger, joy etc. Examples of interjectionsare: Oh! Gosh! Wow! Bother!Consider examples of the following:Note: Remember if you are in school: not all words used as interjections aresuitable for quoting!1. interjections that sound old-fashioned to you. (Probably “Gosh!” is one.)2. interjections that sound new and fresh to you.3. the latest word for “very good” (For example: fabulous, ace)4. some words which mean “very good” but are now out of fashion.5. the latest word for “very bad”. (For example: diabolical, crumby)6. words which mean “very bad” but are now out of fashion.7. the latest word for “fool”. (For example: wally, drongo)8. words which mean “fool” but are now old-fashioned.194CORE                                                        Chapter 28Writing and Language ChangeThe words you have considered on page194 are not often written down,so they change very quickly.Writing acts as a brake on language change: we saw how writtenChinese has kept together the different dialects of Chinese. 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Creative Teaching & Learning

Breakthrough to Learning Book 1: Language Awareness

23 Feb 2012

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      string(5648) "English, drama andhistory, but also to other curriculum areas like maths, art, geography, science and evencooking!Highlights include:■ Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon – a map of the town as a young Shakespearewould have known it, along with a selection of activities to help pupils walk in hisfootsteps and meet some of his friends.■ Shakespeare’s windows – a tessellation and shape activity to explore windowdesign in Shakespeare’s time.■ Interviewing Shakespeare – pupils become reporters ready with some cleverquestions to ask their special radio guest, William Shakespeare.■ Dressing Shakespeare’s actors – exploring the properties of materials to discoverthe best clothes for different situations and characters.You will also find links to off-site resources, such as a cache of CPD videos on teachingShakespeare to primary school children and an online library of all of Shakespeare’sworks, including a concordance, which enables users to search for any words within theplays – useful for tracking down the location of a particular quote or to find out howmany times Shakespeare used individual words.Photo by Alan Fletcher80Vol 7.3School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comPrimaryFileNational events What else is on?2016 is such a special year for anyonewho loves Shakespeare, and there areso many great things to look forwardto. One special event planned for thisyear is the re-imagining of New Place,Shakespeare’s family home, which wasthe largest house in Stratford-upon-Avon at the time and where he spentthe last 19 years of his life.From 1 July 2016, visitors willbe able to walk in Shakespeare’sfootsteps as they trace the footprint ofhis family home and discover the storyof the world-famous playwright at theheight of his success as a writer, familyman and prominent citizen of hishome town. Excitingly, late last yearwe announced that archaeological work on the site had uncovered the old kitchen andlocated Shakespeare’s oven and cold store. I wonder what Shakespeare most enjoyedfor his dinner? Perhaps a good capon like his merry but plump character Falstaff.An exhibition in neighbouring Nash’s House will focus on Shakespeare the man,allowing visitors to get to know him better and to consider what he was like as a father,a husband and a townsman.If you can’t visit us in person…We know visiting us in person is simply not possible for everyone. For those people,as well as for those who have visited and simply want to enjoy more, 2016 will see usembracing technology to provide a range of digital opportunities.Alongside the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust website, we manage a number ofblogs, including Blogging Shakespeare, Finding Shakespeare and ShakespeareLives Here. Our largest digital audiences have been attracted by our MOOCs – MassiveOpen Online Courses for those unfamiliar with the term. Run by our education andcollections team, they are targeted at interested individuals, undergraduates, A-levelstudents and language learners, and have been developed with partners such as theUniversity of Warwick, the British Council, the Royal Shakespeare Company and theUniversity of Birmingham. These courses have already attracted over 100,000 students!http://www.shakespeareliveshere.co.uk/tagged/NewPlace?ref=navhttp://bloggingshakespeare.com/http://findingshakespeare.co.uk/http://www.shakespeareliveshere.co.uk/http://www.shakespeareliveshere.co.uk/http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/learning/enthusiasts/moocs.html81Vol 7.3School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comPrimaryFileNational eventsFor our younger Shakespearians, we are working on a series of videos entitled‘Collections in the classroom’, which was launched on the Shakespeare Week websiteduring Shakespeare Week. These take five key objects from our collections and explorethem in a lively and engaging manner with the help of our wonderful in- house actingteam, Shakespeare Aloud!A truly special year for teachers and pupils alikeSo, 2016 has a myriad of educational content – from Shakespeare Week to our in-house education for children and adults; from those who know very little (yet) aboutShakespeare, to those who consider themselvesexperts.I will leave you with a quote from the University ofWarwick’s professor of Shakespeare and performancestudies, Professor Carol Rutter, which I think evokes thedepth and breadth of what can be explored throughShakespeare.She wrote: ‘An introduction to William Shakespeareis one of the most important things we can give ourchildren. He’s someone they can know for the rest oftheir lives. He’ll tell them some of the most electrifyingstories they’ll ever hear. He’ll talk to them aboutsome of the biggest ideas they’ll ever have to thinkabout and deal with. He’ll give them access to someof the most fascinating, terrifying, troubled, funny,endearing people they’ll ever encounter. He’ll givethem language that will continuously stretch theirintellectual and emotional capacities, language triedout and tested in Shakespeare’s fictive world that willequip them to imagine and be themselves in their realworlds.‘He’s a scientist who puts humanity under themicroscope. A composer whose poetry puts musicin our bodies and teaches us to sing. A painter, whoputs together astonishing spectacles. In every areaof human activity – from mathematics to gardeningto astronomy to military discipline – he’s there,prompting us to think and feel. In a very real sense,Shakespeare isn’t on the syllabus. Shakespeare is thesyllabus.’Elizabeth Dollimore is Primary Learning Managerat the"
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Leadership

Celebrating 400 years of Shakespeare

29 Mar 2016

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