Students Discover During BSL Celebration Week

Students have been celebrating the anniversary of the recognition of BSL as an official UK language with a week of activities. This included a visit to the local museum and motivating talks from four Deaf role models. The week reinforced the importance of the official acknowledgement of minority languages and the pride we take in using BSL.

Visit to RAMM Museum

The local Royal Albert Memorial Museum had discovered a 200 year old mug with a BSL fingerspelling alphabet design. On Monday students visited the museum where they were allowed to hold the mug and looking around the museum’s store containing 35,000 items.

Some of the letters had changed over the 200 year period, the students discovered, such as letters F and Q. The group discussed how languages can transform over time and why a mug like this might have been produced. It had clearly been made in a factory so lots of the mugs would have existed. Afterwards the students had a tour of the store containing animal skeletons, old timepieces and glassware.

Primary students also got the chance to visit the museum later in the week. The mug was displayed in the museum’s Visitors Choice Window to coincide with BSL Celebration Week.

Deaf Role Models Talks

Thursday saw student aspirations being lifted with visits from Deaf speakers Harry Hilliar, surfing champion, Sarah Lawrence, editor of Deaf lifestyle magazine SL First, Dave Ellington, film maker and Cathie Robins-Talbot a Youth Worker from Swansea.

Harry Hilliar brought along his Deaflympics trophies and urged students to follow their dreams. Sarah Lawrence explained how she got to where she is today and what students could do to improve their job prospects. She also discussed the importance of BSL to her life.