By Ffion Harris

British Sign Language is going to be part of the school curriculum from September in Wales.

Sign Language and deaf inclusion are the theme of this years Deaf Awareness Week. Each year has a different theme surrounding deafness.

To celebrate BSL being added to the new school curriculum, many deaf awareness societies and groups have taken part in class trials to see how the children respond to the sign language lessons. Naomi Wray, the President of the Cardiff University British Sign Language Society, spoke about her experience being deaf and what it means to have BSL taught in schools.

“We’ve gone into primary schools because British Sign Language is going to be part of their curriculum in September. We wanted to give them a little trail sign language, just to see what they thought.

The response has been excellent, it’s been so nice to see people engaging in the classes and wanting to learn sign langauge.”

In the UK, there are over 10 million people living with some form of hearing loss, some people being born deaf and others losing their hearing later in life.

Naomi said ” I went from being able to hear and then all of a sudden not being able to hear. I couldn’t communicate with anyone because no one knew sign language. So, it’s definitely important to spread that sign language is a very necessary language to learn, just as much as any other lanaguge.

There are so many people who would benefit from people knowing sign language and being able to communicate with them.”