British Sign Language (BSL): Guide

BSL in Schools

British Sign Language is used in some schools for deaf children to enable them to access the curriculum, develop their knowledge and understanding, as well as develop their social and emotional skills.  Some schools use a bilingual approach where BSL and English are used and taught separately, while other schools use a mixture of BSL and English (Total Communication approach) to teach and communicate with deaf children. A Resource Base, is a provision in a mainstream school with additional staffing and resources to support deaf children. BSL is used is some Resource Bases.

Some mainstream schools are including BSL lessons in the curriculum to promote understanding (Deaf Awareness) between deaf and hearing people and develop the communication skills needed for hearing children to communicate with their deaf peers and with members of the Deaf community that use BSL.

A BSL curriculum is currently being designed for primary and secondary schools with the aim of pupils learning BSL, its features, history and culture, and most of all, the language itself, to ensure that every deaf child has the right to an education in their native sign language as well as for those learning sign language as a second language. The BSL curriculum is yet to be completed and disseminated for use in schools nationally.