CEY1342
Written evidence submitted by the National Deaf Children’s Society
1.1. We are the National Deaf Children’s Society, the leading charity for deaf children. We give expert support on childhood deafness, raise awareness and campaign for deaf children’s rights, so they have the same opportunities as everyone else. In addition, through our Bright Start programme, we provide support and training to early years practitioners working with deaf children.
2.1. Many deaf children are identified early in life, often shortly after birth through newborn hearing screening. However, more than 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents who have little prior knowledge or experience of deafness. High-quality early years support to families and other early years practitioners is crucial in helping to make sure deaf children develop good language and communication.
2.2. Providing deaf children receive the right support, right from the start, we believe they can achieve the same range of outcomes as other children. However, government figures show that in 2022 just 34% of deaf children in England achieved a good level of development in the early years foundation stage, compared with 65% of all children.
2.3. In our response to the Education Committee inquiry, we focus on three key issues where we feel action is needed to ensure that the early years and childcare system effectively meets the needs of deaf children. We believe that action in these areas will also benefit other children with special educational needs and disabilities and more widely:
i) gaps in the specialist SEND workforce
ii) training available to mainstream early years practitioners
iii) joint-working among professionals in the early years.
3.1. Teachers of the Deaf are teachers who have gained an additional qualification in teaching deaf children. They are often employed by local authority specialist education services for deaf children and will often work with families in the very early years, soon after a child is identified as deaf. They are uniquely placed to provide specialist early intervention. For example, they play a key role in:
3.2. A world in which there are fewer Teachers of the Deaf will likely result in more:
3.3. Many of our members describe the difference that Teachers of the Deaf have made to their confidence in the SEND system and in childcare. An example of a parent quote is shown below:
“Our Teacher of the Deaf is the only member of staff who truly understands and liaises with all the team involved with our son, from audiologist, SLT [speech and language therapist], teachers to our family. Communication between services would not exist if it was not for them. They know the specific and very individual needs of my child as they know him very well… All the staff from nursery, pre-school and school have been very impressed with our Teacher of the Deaf and feel they would not have been able to support our son as well without their input.”
3.4. Data collected by the Consortium for Research into Deaf Education (CRIDE)[1] shows that, despite the importance of the Teacher of the Deaf role, there are significant wider workforce challenges. This is hampering their ability to provide effectively early intervention support in the early years.
3.5. We believe there are two key related reasons why the number of Teachers of the Deaf is falling:
1) Funding. Although there is more funding going into the high needs block, we still come across examples of budgets for local authority specialist education services being cut or frozen. Evidence from our annual Freedom of Information requests to local authorities show a sustained pattern of cuts to budgets to these vital services over many years. Families also tell us that specialist support for their children is increasingly being rationed. Funding for these services and their early intervention work is not protected or ‘ring-fenced’ meaning there is a risk of it being squeezed by wider SEND funding pressures, such as increased demand for statutory plans and specialist placements.
2) Failings in workforce planning. The SEND system does not provide the necessary incentives for local authorities to fund the training of new Teachers of the Deaf until and unless they have a vacant post, at which point many often find they are unable to recruit. As set out earlier, wider funding pressures mean that they will have limited funding anyway to proactively train new Teachers of the Deaf. There is no wider government funding available or strategy in this area.
3.6. We believe that the development of a specialist SEND workforce strategy, which includes investment in Teachers of the Deaf and other specialist professionals is the biggest single step that the Department could take to ensure that the childcare and early years system, as well as the wider SEND system more generally, is working well for deaf children in the early years.
4.1. It is important that families with deaf children can be confident that their child will receive high-quality support in any early years setting. An understanding of how deafness might impact on learning is important if early years practitioners are able to provide deaf-friendly support in a way which supports deaf children’s language and communication, and social wellbeing. To enable this, early years practitioners should be able to access specialist information and advice from Teachers of the Deaf. It is also important that their training also provides them with a basic understanding of deafness.
4.2. This is especially important in relation to deafness because there is a high likelihood that an early years practitioner will be working with a child with a temporary hearing loss. It has been estimated by NICE[2] that one in five pre-school children in the UK will have glue ear at any one time. Evidence shows that even a short-term or mild hearing loss can have a significant impact on a child’s development.
4.3. They may also be working with a child with permanent deafness that has not yet been formally identified. Around half of permanently deaf children are born deaf whilst the other half become deaf during childhood, often in the early years.
4.4. At the time of writing, the Department for Education is currently consulting[3] on the criteria for level 3 qualifications by early years practitioners. We believe these should be strengthened to help ensure early years practitioners are better able to meet the needs of any child experiencing deafness. Key changes needed include:
5.1. Children will undergo a check on their progress and development at the age of 2, through the Healthy Child Programme development review and the progress check (if in an early years setting), sometimes brought together in an integrated review.
5.2. The SEND review makes a commitment to explore ways to “upskill early year practitioners” and “encourage further integration” with the inclusion of “any relevant professionals” in the two-year checks for children. We support this commitment. We believe that more should be done to secure effective joint working between all professionals working with deaf children in these checks. This includes health visitors, early years practitioners and Teachers of the Deaf.
5.3. We think that Teacher of the Deaf involvement can particularly add value to these checks for the following reasons:
5.4. There are also wider benefits in raising awareness of childhood deafness among health visitors to ensure that all practitioners are equipped with the knowledge and skills to spot the signs of an unidentified hearing loss as early as possible and to connect families with the right support to improve outcomes.
5.5. Parents have also told us that it’s important that professionals work together in a holistic way and that their Teacher of the Deaf has the opportunity to be involved in the two-year checks, as the below quotes from families show:
“[The health visitor] didn’t know my child had hearing loss and [the review] just seemed like a pointless tick boxing review… for example, she was asking about how is the speech, etc. and I would say well these sounds are missing I think it’s because of the hearing loss and so on but then was there any advice or anything like that, ok, she’s behind and then next question.”
“It would definitely have been helpful to have both professionals in the same room (Teacher of the Deaf and health visitor) who could have both used their experience to do a joint assessment. There are some areas where I’m always wondering if things are happening because my son is deaf, or just because he is a toddler, e.g. behavioural patterns.”
“I believe that will be helpful if the Teacher of the Deaf could be involved in the review which mean [they] can help to encourage the targets for my son, such as motor skills which can be useful in nursery, so we can work together to achieve what best outcome for my son.”
5.6. In terms of current practice, we know that Teachers of the Deaf are already involved in integrated reviews in many areas. However, it is not universal. Figures from the Consortium for Research into Deaf Education (CRIDE) shows that 53% of local authority specialist education services do not contribute information to the integrated review (or do so only for a few children) whilst only 14% reported that they contribute information for all or nearly all deaf children.
5.7. We also know that in many areas, their involvement seems to depend on existing pathways and relations and can be vulnerable to changes in staffing. For these reasons, we think the involvement of Teachers of the Deaf in the integrated review should be statutory in the same way their involvement is also required in assessments for Education, Health and Care plans.
5.8. We know from our local engagement casework that many local authority specialist education services for deaf children are keen to be more involved and we believe that this proposal has the support of the wider sector, including from the Institute of Health Visiting.
6.1. At the time of writing, we are expecting the Department for Education to publish a response soon to the SEND review consultation paper that was published last March. We would welcome any scrutiny that the Committee can provide on how the SEND review will support early years support for children with SEND. In particular, the proposed new national standards aim to ensure more consistency in the experiences of children with SEND. We support anything that would provide more clarity to families on what they should expect and what reasonable adjustments might look like in practice, particularly in the vital early years.
6.2. As set out earlier in our response, we do not believe that any reforms to the SEND system will succeed unless and until there is a focus on the specialist SEND workforce. This includes professionals working in the early years, such as Teachers of the Deaf.
January 2023
[1] Data from CRIDE 2021 and 2022 England reports – www.ndcs.org.uk/cride.
[2] National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence. Clinical Guideline: Surgical Management of Otitis Media with Effusion in Children. 2008 - www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg60/evidence/cg60-surgical-management-of-ome-full-guideline2
[3] https://consult.education.gov.uk/early-years-workforce/early-years-educator-level-3-criteria/
[4] www.ndcs.org.uk/documents-and-resources/success-from-the-start-a-developmental-resource-for-families-of-deaf-children-aged-0-to-3/