The mother of a 10-year-old boy who is profoundly deaf fears her son is missing out on his education due to a lack of teaching staff with British Sign Language (BSL).
Caroline, from Blackley in Manchester, believes the current situation is leaving her son Thomas – who is also visually impaired – isolated and she is concerned he is “not learning anything meaningful”.
“Many people assume all special schools can meet every disabled child’s needs, but really when your child has a multi-sensory impairment (MSI) it’s like a postcode lottery,” she said.
A statement from Manchester City Council, on behalf of the school, said it worked to ensure the “best offer and outcomes for all of our children”.
A Freedom of Information request by the charity Sense found 65% of local authorities in the north-west of England did not employ a single specialist teacher to support deafblind children.
There are 832 deafblind children across 25 local authorities in the region, according to the most recent statistics from the Department for Education.
Deafblindness is defined by the Deadfblind UK charity as “the loss of sight and hearing to the point where your communication, mobility and ability to access information are impacted”.
Caroline said: “For most of his time at school, there are no signers with him who could teach him using BSL.
“He’s in a special school and the teachers there are all amazing, but I fear that they can’t meet his needs.”