Frank Barnes School for the Deaf, London

We visited the Frank Barnes School for the Deaf in London. It is the only Bilingual-Bicultural Primary school there. All of their staff are required to have at least a Level 2 British Sign Language background and are offered higher Levels at the school. All staff sign in public areas so that the students have access to language at all times. Similar to our school they have a weekly parent Sign language class. They also send out a questionnaire to parents asking what types of workshops/lectures they would like to have and based on feedback are able to offer a few different workshops per school year. These workshops are also opened to the community and to the medical professionals. Their classrooms are set up in clusters with a common area for larger group work and two classrooms off of that area for smaller group lessons in Math, ELA, Science, and History. This allows for teachers to work together to provide for the children. While the classrooms are much smaller than ours, they are very language rich environments. They very recently started a 0-3 year old group and it is still a work in progress. It is currently opened only two days a week. When the children reach their 6th year they take the same test as the National students for "middle/high' school". This year they had 3 out of 7 or 8 students pass the National exam at a Proficient or better and are going on the the next level for school. It was really great to be able to meet some of the students and chat, unfortunately, they have the same rules as we do about filming without parental consent. The students were fascinated that we can sign with one hand and we did our best to show what we had learned (spelling our names and few other signs we were able to pick up). It was a great experience and we are full of ideas that we can't wait to share! Here are few pictures of the school: front entrance, library, classroom, preschool outdoor play area and our guide, Sandra David. She is a part time teacher and part time Assistant Head.