'A sign bilingual education gives deaf children equal access and entitlement to the language, culture and heritage of deaf and hearing communities. Deaf pupils are potentially members of both the hearing society and the deaf community, and are expected to achieve the same levels of educational attainment, social responsibility, employment and citizenship as their hearing counterparts.'

Who we are

We are highly motivated and outward looking deaf educationalists- teachers and LA service managers who are professionally committed to facilitating deaf children's access to sign language and English throughout their education.

Here we are working together on our new website! 

From left to right.  Karen Simpson, Frank Barnes School; Babs Day, Longwill School and Ruth Swanwick, Leeds University.

 If you would like to know more about what we do, then we have provided information about our educational approach on the FAQ Page.

The Steering group has an Annual general meeting in London, Birmingham or Leeds/Wakefield to discuss  and plan training, information, research events.  We run a range of different sorts of activities such as training to disseminate new teaching materials, action research seminars, regional policy and practice development groups and conferences with international speakers. We organise local, regional and national events according to current needs and priorities in deaf education to keep the consortium members at the front of new developments and thinking.

See the Training page to keep up with the latest events and training days near to you.

For example 2010-11 was the SiBI 'Year of Reading'.  This involved regional workshops and a national conference with speakers from the US and research institutions.

See What's New on our Training Page.