School signs up to break world record
A school which provides a centre especially for hearing impaired children will take part in a sign language world record next year.
Northgate Primary School, in Green Lane, has provided specialised education for hearing impaired children for around 25 years and will take part in a national record-breaking attempt for the second time.
The record attempt on February 6 - which is organised by the charity SignHealth - aims to see the most people signing and singing at one time.
Mary Bowles, manager of the school’s special support centre (SSC), said all the children were excited.
She said: “I know there was great excitement last year, it was very successful and all the staff wanted to do it again this year. I’m sure the children are very excited to be involved.
“It’s something the school embraces, they all embrace the sign language.”
There are currently 17 hearing impaired children and 13 members of staff trained specifically for the SSC.
The children spend the majority of their time in the mainstream classes so all the pupils see sign language in use.
Mary said: “We’re doing our Christmas performance at the moment and a lot of children join in with the signs with the singing.”
She added: “One of the big advantages is we have a sizeable group of deaf children so even though they are all have their separate mainstream classes they have the opportunity to be with other deaf children during the classes they have together, such as literacy.
“That way they have got the best of both worlds, it’s a lovely thriving primary school which they are very much a part of but at the same time there’s a good understanding of their needs.”
“There are so many of us that have the knowledge we can impart it to the main stream staff all the time so it’s a very deaf aware school which makes it easier for the deaf people within it because people understand their special requirements.”
SignHealth works to improve health care and achieve equal access for deaf people
More than 800 schools have signed up so far for next year’s attempt, which will see young people from all over the country and overseas will sign a song, entitled ‘sign2sing’, which has been composed especially for the event.
This will be the charity’s third sign2sing event and the charity is hoping to involve more than 175,000 youngsters.
Earlier this year 114,277 children took part in the 2012 event, including pupils from Crawley, and smashed the world record. The previous record was 94,489.
For more information about sign2sing visit the website at www.sign2sing.org
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Wednesday 19 June 2013
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