Introduction 
As stated by the RNID (Royal National Institute for Deaf People), over 18 million people in the UK are either deaf or hard of hearing. I am one of them. There aren’t nearly as many things being done in schools to help children and young people who are hard of hearing/deaf. Think about them feeling left out and confused every day at school, not being able to hear and/or understand what the teacher’s saying because they’re not speaking loudly or clearly enough.  Another difficulty is if the teacher is facing away from them, especially if you heavily rely on lip reading, like I do. There are never any BSL interpreters on the screen whilst watching videos in lessons and the subtitles aren’t always accurate. 
 Personal experience 
I was born deaf and for the first few years of my life I couldn’t hear anything at all. Then I got some of my hearing back but still relied on hearing aids in both my ears until I was around 9 or 10. My hearing recently became much worse, however, and I got a hearing aid in my right ear towards the end of 2023 (when I was 17). Since reception I have often struggled to participate even when I could lip read, especially in bigger size classes and in places like the sports hall where I spend a lot of time at college. The acoustics of some spaces make it very hard to hear. Inside and out of education, people have always made comments about me being hard of hearing or laughing at me for either not being able to hear or mishearing something. It’s especially upsetting to me when someone knows my hearing problems and why I’ve got these hearing problems, yet they still make comments and laugh about it as if it’s nothing. 
The importance of teaching BSL 
If you were to teach BSL in schools across the country, there would be many long-term benefits, such as more people knowing how to sign and communicate with other hearing-impaired people, making their lives easier. There would also be more awareness of the impact of hearing impairment on day-to-day life. This would help a large number of people and, for example, reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation including older people who lose their hearing in later life. 
COVID struggles 
Because I rely on lip reading so much, I struggled a lot during the COVID times, as everyone was wearing masks, making it even more difficult for me to understand people. One of my teachers, for example, was wearing a mask and a face shield, so I couldn’t lip-read or hear what they were saying, and I was told off for ‘not listening’ to what they were saying, when in reality, I couldn’t hear them and was unable to lip-read. The teacher took no accountability either, I said that I couldn’t hear her or lip-read, then they just said I should’ve listened. This made me angry because of how ignorant they were being towards me and the fact that I was hard of hearing. It’s just like telling a blind person to look at something, then tell them off for not being able to see.  
Think about deaf people 
Now put yourself in the position of a deaf person. They can’t hear anything whatsoever. They rely on a BSL interpreter and lip reading. If the interpreter’s not there for whatever reason, you would have to rely solely on lip reading. Say you’re trying to read their lips, but they’re mumbling and not moving their lips properly, what are you supposed to do? If you had to live like that for your whole life, you would want to do something about it as well and make a difference to make sure the generations to come don’t have to put up with the same struggle. Knowing you even could make a difference would be incredibly powerful and inspiring, and you would be leading by example.  
Hearing struggles in sports 
Say someone wants to play sports, but they can’t join in due to their hearing impairment. That wouldn’t be fair. Imagine if the coaches and other staff had basic knowledge of BSL, as well as the other people participating in that sport. What a different experience that would be.  
BSL around the country 
I was shocked when I found this out, but around 1.5 million people in the UK can actually speak BSL (That’s not even 20% of London!), and as stated by the RNID (Royal National Institute for Deaf People), only around 25000 people rely on BSL as their main language. People say to me that they wouldn’t want to learn BSL because it’s hard to learn, but so are Spanish and French, which are taught in schools. The difference between BSL and Spanish/French is that with Spanish and French, you can use Google Translate to understand what someone’s saying in that language, but you can’t translate BSL on Google Translate. That's one of the main reasons I think BSL should be mandatory, ahead of Spanish and French. 
 Inclusivity at concerts 
I think a lot of people can learn from Chris Martin, the lead singer of the band Coldplay. During their live shows in the Music Of The Spheres world tour, instead of singing the first verse of ‘Something Just Like This’, he signs the lyrics to the song. I think to have that level of dedication to learn a whole verse in BSL just for their fans who rely on BSL to communicate, it’s just inspiring to me.  
Hearing loss with age 
As people get older, they may start to lose their hearing, so it may be helpful to learn BSL. If they learn BSL just to find out that most people can’t communicate in BSL, it will make them feel stuck and unsure what to do. Just imagine if that was your mum, dad, grandmother or grandfather. Would you not want to do everything in your power to change how they feel? As I was writing this, Rose Ayling-Ellis, a deaf actor on the BBC show EastEnders, has put out a documentary on BBC iPlayer, where she goes into an older community trying to get them to learn BSL. When she spoke to some of the people in there, they didn’t like loud gatherings because it would be too much for them, they’d feel overwhelmed and just leave, and that’s why they signed up to learn the language. By week 3, most of the people there had learnt a lot more sign language, and towards the end, could even sign to songs! This just shows that anyone can learn BSL. This just adds to my point about why BSL should be taught in schools. 
I’m not saying or expecting that it should be taught in schools by 2026 because that would be unrealistic, but I do think BSL should be taught in schools as soon as possible because the language will die out if there’s no investment made in its future. If future generations have access to BSL what a different, more inclusive world that could be at all stages of life.