“If all people in England could sign, then deaf people wouldn’t be disabled. It’s not a mental disability, it’s not a physical disability, it’s just a lack of communication.” For a split second, Callum Fox, 33-year-old teacher of the deaf at Northern Counties School, used silence, a journalist’s greatest tool, against me, and I sat stunned for a moment.

I’d promised the three interviewees, shifting silently in their seats, that this interview would just be a quick chat when I’d first entered. With Fox’s statement, my promise was broken. I was clearly ignorant of the world I’d just entered and the interview was going to be much more serious than I’d anticipated.

In 1949, state education was inaccessible to those with special learning needs and so a group of parents, whose children were diagnosed with cerebral palsy, set about creating their own school.

While fundraising in a local pub, they happened across an inheritance fund, left by Percy Hedley, to support local causes. With this newfound financial backing, the parents began the Percy Hedley Foundation, opening their first school in 1953, with just 12 students, explained Louise Horsefield, 43-year-old head of fundraising and engagement at the foundation.

This year, the Percy Hedley Foundation is celebrating its 70^th anniversary, and in this time has opened a second school, a life-long adult learning programme, a college and four residential homes. Now, they help over 600 people with a vast array of learning needs per year.

In Jesmond, the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb was opened in 1861. As society’s attitudes changed, the institute was turned into The Northern Counties School (NCS), becoming nationally renowned: “There’s a lot of the deaf community that knows somebody or is somebody that’s been here, so the name Northern Counties is huge in the deaf community,” said Fox. “It’s as famous as Eton.”

In 2005, the NCS came under threat of closure and so the Percy Hedley Foundation stepped in, making it their second specialist school. Mandy Davison, 50-year-old higher-level teaching assistant in the deaf department at NCS explained: “I do feel that they saved us in the end. A lot of deaf children coming through now do have additional needs, so because of the training that we get offered from Percy Hedley, we can provide a very specialist provision to our deaf children and recognise the additional needs that the children have.”

Due to her history with the school, Davison couldn’t have been more relieved.

In 1939, her father Joseph Davison became a resident at NCS aged just two. Then in 1950, after being deafened by meningitis aged seven, her mother Mary Morris, was enrolled: “In those days, there was no way a deaf child would fit into any mainstream school. They were looked down upon,” she explained. “Without this here, I don’t know what my grandparents would have done.”

“I’m very passionate about the school. I’m very protective over it. It makes me proud that we’re still able to have it here and that […] it’s still a valuable resource for the deaf and for the families.”

Callum Fox’s time at the NCS was a little different, as he attended for just two years between 1995 and 1997.

“I didn’t really speak, I was signing. That was my first language,” he said. Prior to his admission he’d just received his cochlear implant. “After two years, […] they judged me to be able to speak [and] moved me on to an oral school that was focused towards developing my speech.”

Had he not told me, I never would have known there was a time when he couldn’t speak fluently, but this made me reconsider my method of communication. Did I need to slow down, be clearer? However, it wasn’t necessary. His answers were assured and conversation fluid, as he swelled with pride over his time in deaf education.

After the life changing aid given to him by a teacher during his deaf education, he returned to the NCS, hoping to share his experiences and repay the support he received: “We’ve developed a community here where everybody in the department, interacts with each other, signs to each other. I think the fact that […] we all fit together […] really works,” he said.

Staff at Percy Hedley at Northern Counties School working with the children, creating a community of support for them and their families. (Photo by: Percy Hedley at Norther Counties School, with permission)

Brett Hanratty, 47-year-old teacher and support in BSL for children at NCS, also attended the school while communicating predominantly through BSL. His parents had recognised he wasn’t going to get access to mainstream education, enrolling him as a resident at the NCS aged three, in 1983.

“I stayed residential because my parents didn’t really communicate in sign language, all the communication was here,” he said. There were roughly 300 students at the school during this period, all of whom communicated by signing. “I developed massively and they [his parents] could see a difference in terms of my development.”

BSL is set to become a GCSE by September 2025, creating an opportunity for communication with those who rely on sign language, like Hanratty, who brought an interpreter for to our interview for my benefit.

I’d never been in an interview where I couldn’t communicate orally before. Everyone else knew when silence would be filled by the interpreter and didn’t wrongly interject as I felt awkwardly compelled to.

Hanratty signed as the interpreter explained: “I love to see the children develop. They’re looking at me as a deaf person with BSL and thinking you can learn, you can do this, and you can get an education here. I think that’s so important for them and their communication.”

However, the Percy Hedley at NCS is falling victim to the issues of capacity versus demand currently plaguing the special education facilities across the country. Horsefield explained demand has increased due to increased awareness resulting in more diagnoses.

Alongside the issues of oversubscription is the inevitable lack of funding to support these children: “We’re not geared up as a society to think about providing facilities that would be accessible for everybody so that unfortunately means that [for] people with disabilities it’s more expensive,” said Horsefield.

“It’s a real testament to parent power, the fact that [the foundation] didn’t exist and 70 years later, it’s still here and supporting a lot of people every week.”

“Deaf people don’t consider deafness to be a disability. They can’t help the fact that society speaks English,” Fox was banging the table, voice becoming strained.

“As far as I understand it, we’re the only school in the north east really, who has a dedicated department for deaf children. Having this here is really important because deaf children aren’t going to disappear.”