Deaf Awareness in Year 1 and 2

This week is Deaf Awareness Week. To learn more about this we have had a wonderful visit from 2 former St George’s pupils Nathan and Aaron Young.

They have both have such a positive attitude and have not let their deafness hold them back. In fact, we found out how it can be a super power because they can lip read and don’t need to hear voices to know what people are saying.

Aaron currently plays football for the England Deaf Team. What an inspiration! He got his hearing aids when he was 8. He started out playing football for Greenleas, a team many of us know, and joined England Deaf Team when he was 17. He has had the opportunity to play for them in America.

We asked Aaron “What is the difference between normal football and deaf football?”

We discovered that the referee has a flag not a whistle and you use your eyes a lot more because you can’t shout to team players, you always have to look.

Nathan, who was also our learning hero for positivity, is a world class swimmer. He even holds GB records. He was diagnosed with profound deafness at the age of 4. He now wears cochlear implants to help him to hear but he can’t hear anything when he is in the pool.

Nathan is busy training for 20 hours a week. His favourite stroke is butterfly. Nathan has travelled all over the world competing for the GB Deaf swimming team. He hopes to go to Argentina in August to complete in the World Deaf Championships 2023 and we are currently thinking about how we could support him, as deaf athletes, despite representing our country, are excluded from government funding.

Nathan explained that deaf swimmers can’t hear the whistle at the start of races so they have a special light instead. You can follow Nathan’s story on twitter @NYDeafSwimmer