I'm a Teacher of the Deaf and hearing impaired myself, AMA.

[ToD101]

Along with one of my secondary colleagues, I thought I might try and balance some of the toxicity on recent education threads by offering an alternative teacher view. We're not all class-based and some of us specialise in SEN teaching.

I am a Teacher of the Deaf, employed by my local council. I work partly in a Hearing Resource Base, using space in a primary academy, and partly as a peripatetic advisory teacher.

I'm happy to answer questions on either deaf education, my role specifically, aspects of hearing impairment and what it's like to work with a hearing impairment.

I've name-changed so I can be as open as I can. Ask away!

[Megmargs]

What qualifications/experience do you need to become a specialist teacher?

[Marellaspirit]

I'm hearing impaired and I really wish there had been a teacher like you when I was at school. Some of your pointers about teachers repeating answers that others have given to the class would have made the world of difference to me in class and probably would have meant I could have contributed more without the fear of repeating someone and looking silly. I used to sit at the front anyway out of choice thigh I reckon most of my teachers had absolutely no idea I had a problem! The only concession I had was during my French listening GCSE, they let me sit in a room on my own with the cassette player so I could have it as loud as I wanted... What would have been better would have been to have someone reading the transcript to me so I could lipread.

My question is how are the children you work with coping with mask wearing around school and social distancing in the classrooms? Are exceptions being made to help them?

[JanewaysBun]

Thank you for all you do. DS' hearing teacher has been life changing.