In what can be seen as a groundbreaking move, 16-year-old Niamdh Braid has won a legal battle against her local authority that enables her to have a British Sign Language interpreter in her class for school lessons. Braid, who has been deaf since birth, wears hearing aids, but in noisy environments has been struggling to hear. By using her preferred mode of language – British Sign Language (BSL), it opened up the possibility of accessing her learning. She launched legal action against Fife Council last year after missing vital learning within the classroom.
Braid attends Auchmuty High School and it has deaf provision through teachers of deaf children. However, the post only requires a BSL level 3 qualification and not having a Level 6 BSL qualification for an interpreter is a problem. Previous requests by her and her parents to have a BSL interpreter fell on deaf ears.
Braid claims that through this tribunal, Niamdh and her family succeeded because Fife Council could not provide a lawful excuse for not having an interpreter within the classroom. The tribunal ruling stated “the failure to provide advanced BSL support meant the claimant was “missing things in class and does not know what she is missing”.
The decision of this tribunal has far-reaching implications and comes amidst the context of deaf children leaving school without any formal qualification. Mark Ballard from the National Deaf Children’s Society, which funded the legal battle, stated, “Deafness, by its very nature, means that children can just disappear into the back of the classroom.” Ballard went on to say that he hoped other councils would follow Fife’s example, “putting in place the support that deaf children need, rather than parents having to go all the way to a tribunal to get what should be theirs as a right.”
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