Grumpy Old Deafies

We've previously blogged about the possible closure of Frank Barnes. This situation is now becoming more urgent, and it seems that Deaf children are being sidelined for other initiatives.

The latest campaign e mail is copied below, which explains the situation:

I emailed you previously to invite you to a meeting of experts in the deaf education field at Frank Barnes school, Harley Road, London, NW 3 3BN on 6th November 2007 between 10.00am- 12.pm.

You should also have received an invitation from Andy Knowles, Camden CSF Assistant Director of Access and Inclusion.

I am contacting those of you who have not responded or are unable to attend to explain the importance of this meeting.

The situation is that under Camden's bid for "Building Schools for the Future" programme, Camden want to build a new secondary school/academy.

They have sold the land Frank Barnes is sited on in a secret deal with UCL who will sponsor the building of a City Academy (secondary school).

Consequently, Camden are removing us from our site. The parents wanted Camden to offer us a new site and to build us an all age school offering BSL education from 0 to 18 years old. Camden refused because they say they do not have a suitable site nor funding. They gave us two options

- A merger with Blanche Nevile school in Haringey
- A new build 35 place deaf school collocated on the site of a Camden primary school

The council will make a decision on which one in February 2008 after a consultation with all stakeholders involved. At present Camden have only made guarantees for £1million towards the project (to build 35 place deaf school) and a re-build is expected to cost between £4.5 – 5.5 million.

The aim of the meeting on 6th November is to discuss the above 2 options plus the concept of developing Frank Barnes as a 'Regional Centre for Deaf Education' and assess them against the 'Special needs test' (a checklist of criteria set down by the government for the planning and developing of new Special education provision).

We hope to provide Camden with clear evidence of the importance of Frank Barnes School's continued existence as a regional centre for deaf children.

The reason we are making a case for a regional centre is because we presently only have 4 children from Camden and Camden has many other deaf children that go to other schools because they provide oral/aural education or inclusion in mainstream, especially those children with cochlear implants. Unless we can be re-located near a mainstream school we are unable to offer such a service.

I want to emphasise that 'links with mainstream children' to us means only that which is appropriate to our pupils e.g. opportunities for occasional reversed integration with small groups of hearing children who can sign (if and when appropriate) - not marginalisation in the wider hearing world.

Also the regional centre concept resulted from a paper by the NDCS commissioned by the London Regional Partnership. The LRP asked the NDCS to research trends in deaf education internationally and present some "models" that could be potentially rolled out for other 'low incidence' children with SEN e.g. Autism. As a school we are very keen to expand the numbers of children on our roll and are aware that there are certain groups of deaf children that have no suitable school in London apart from us e.g. multi sensory needs, SEN

We are not in support of a merger with Blanche Nevile because the school presently from our perspective does not have the capacity for all our pupils nor the facilities we need e.g. parent centre for BSL classes, parenting skills courses, training centre for outreach and developmental work etc. Also its communication philosophy - although also called sign bilingual - is very different from ours e.g. they use SIMCOM, because it provides for deaf children with a much broader range of deafness than we do at present.

Consequently, they do not have the same level of direct teaching of the curriculum in BSL as Frank Barnes School. Please note that this is in no way a criticism of Blanche Nevile School.

Camden say that they can't establish a Regional Centre within the timescale (building is planned to start in 2010) because of the logistics of getting all the regions to communicate and agree. We ask that we are re-built with the capacity for expansion into a regional centre in the future, which hopefully includes secondary provision.

To give you some contextual information I've attached an outline of the model proposals for a Regional Centre [paper created by Frank Barnes, informed by the NDCS paper].

Our situation has now become more urgent because we have until February 08 to make a strong case for the building of model provision for Deaf children in London and we need your support.

If you are not able to attend, but would like to support us, please write to the following two people:

1. Lord Andrew Adonis - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools and Learner Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3BT. [Note from GOD: the department's e mail address is: info@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk - address it to Lord Andrew Adonis, request that it is forwarded?]

2. Keith Moffitt – Leader of Camden Council, Cllr John Bryant and Cllr Mennear all based at Camden Town Hall, Judd Street, London WC1H 9JE. [Note from GOD: his e mail address is keith.moffitt@camden.gov.uk]

We ask you to please request that Lord Adonis and Camden Council support the re-building of Frank Barnes School for Deaf children as a regional centre to ensure that our sign bilingual expertise and practice continues to serve deaf children across London.

We would also ask you to please request that the DCSF support Camden Council to fund this project by either allocating funds from central government or encourage the 15 other Local Authorities we serve to contribute to the rebuilding costs.

If you find writing this letter difficult, please contact me, and I can give you a template letter.

Thank you so much for your support in this matter - I do appreciate both your time and commitment to our school. And also we happy to pay for your travel expense.

I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible on 6th November 2007!

Please show your support for Frank Barnes School. This is important. Again Deaf education is getting sidelined, and the government has set up initiatives that goes against quality. How can we even be think we are equal participants in society, if we are sidelined - and at that not even fully compensated - in favour of other initiatives?

See also:
Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children: what's the future?
Parliament: Cost of Deaf Education & Effectiveness of Appeals
Parliament: BSL in schools
The unofficial BDA Congress 2007 report

Further Reading:
Building Schools for the Future
Camden: Building Schools for the Future