As a teacher, you need to make reasonable adjustments for your students when they have an Educational Health and Care Plan (EHCP). This is usually communicated to you via your SEND coordinator and is for children with a special educational need or disability.

At the beginning of a new school year I was told that I would be teaching a deaf student and that the advice was to make sure that she sat at the front of the class. There wasn’t really much more support or guidance than that.

Obviously I followed the advice and sat the student at the front of the class, in clear sight of the board and right near my teaching desk. I thought that this was enough. After a few lessons of working with her I started to pick up on cues that she was not happy. I pride myself on building strong relationships with my students and something just wasn’t right.

Whilst the class was working I knelt by her desk and asked if everything was OK. She said ‘I’m fine’ and paused. I knew there was more that she had to say so I waited a few seconds to give her more time. Waiting doesn’t always work but in this situation thankfully it did!

‘Actually…When you played that YouTube video earlier I really struggled to focus on it. The sound was too loud and you didn’t use the captions’. I was mortified. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t even thought to switch the captions on. I thought that making the video a little louder would be more helpful, I was totally naive to her needs. I was assuming what she needed rather than asking her. I felt dreadful and apologised immediately. I told her that I would always use the captions from now on and that I would discreetly check with her that the sound levels were appropriate for her needs.