Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to allow students to study British Sign Language at school.

The Government is committed to supporting the education of all children and young people with special educational needs or a disability, including those with a hearing impairment.

Schools may choose to offer British Sign Language (BSL) in their individual school curriculum or include it as part of their extra-curricular activities programme. There are existing accredited BSL qualifications at Levels 1,2,3,4 and 6, for which schools may enter pupils at any point in their school careers.

The Department and Ofqual (the independent qualifications regulator) have received a proposal for a BSL GCSE from the exam board Signature. All GCSEs need to meet certain subject content and assessment requirements to ensure that they are of the standard expected of GCSEs. The Department is now developing draft BSL GCSE subject content, which will be considered against the subject content criteria requirements that apply to all GCSEs. If these expectations are met and a BSL GCSE is ready to be introduced, the Department will then consider whether to make an exception to our general rule that there should be no new GCSEs in this Parliament.