Challenges related to inclusion, special educational needs and disabilities: Supporting hard-of-hearing pupils in a mainstream specifically resourced provision in their physical education lessons

According to the Consortium for Research in Deaf Education, there are over 45,000 children and young people in England who are deaf or hard of hearing (HoH). Of these, the majority are in mainstream schools, a few of which have an attached specifically resourced provision (SRP) for pupils who are deaf or HoH. In this chapter, the term HoH is used as it covers a wide range of hearing loss and currently is the term recommended by the government when discussing people with hearing loss. This chapter presents a case study from a mainstream academy in England for pupils aged 11–18 years, with an SRP for pupils who are HoH. However, physical education lessons had not been adapted specifically to support pupils with limited hearing. Feedback from some of the pupils who were HoH reported that they struggled to understand. Further, teachers were concerned that pupils who were HoH may be missing out on high-quality physical education. The chapter then considers a series of interventions which the physical education teachers could focus on – specifically, communication and relationship building, deaf identify and empowerment. The chapter finishes by looking at how these were integrated into the teaching of physical education and their impact on pupils’ learning in the case study school.