Pupils awarded for sign language skills

Fourteen children at Woodside Primary School have received an award for learning British Sign Language. 

The pupils successfully passed their Signature BSL 101 exams and received gold badges and certificates at a special ceremony. Signature is the leading awarding body for deaf communication and language qualifications in the UK.

All children at Woodside have weekly sign language lessons and earlier this year, the school appeared on a BBC documentary about the benefits of learning BSL. 

Caroline Ginty, Headteacher at Woodside, explains: “Not only does BSL make our school more inclusive, studies have also shown that it has academic benefits too. The children absolutely love their lessons and have worked exceptionally hard this year. 

“Every one of our Year 6 pupils who sat the exam passed and we are extremely proud of them. We know that they will take their learning with them to secondary school and beyond, confidently communicating with people who are deaf or hard of hearing.” 

All schools in Ivy Learning Trust offer BSL lessons, which are taught by deaf instructors and teach deaf awareness as well as language skills. 

Pupil Evangelia, 11, loves BSL so much that she wants to become an interpreter when she’s older. She says: “I’ve been learning sign language at school for about four years and I really enjoy it. It’s taught me a skill for life and given me the opportunity to be able to communicate with deaf people in the future.” 

Noah, 11, also received the award. He says: “The BSL lessons are really fun and interactive. We have conversations with our friends which is great practice for real life situations and it means that I will be able to talk to, and help, deaf people.”