This blog is part of our Quality Times series, inviting professionals working with young people with SEND / ALN in further education to speak about their work developing quality provision.
It is written by Sylvan Dewing, Principal at the Deaf Academy, Exmouth, and provides a personal account of his leadership journey in supporting the development of the specialist school and college.
The Deaf Academy (previously Exeter Royal Academy of Deaf Education) was founded in 1826 and for almost two hundred years has supported Deaf young people in the South West of England. As an organisation we have been on a challenging and ultimately rewarding journey over the last seven years and I thought I would share some of my insights as the principal over this period.
Firstly, a bit about Deaf education and SEND. In the UK, approximately one in 1,000 children are born with a permanent hearing loss and there are around 45,000 Deaf children with a permanent hearing loss in the UK (Consortium for Research into Deaf Education (CRIDE), 2022); half of whom are born deaf and half of whom have acquired their deafness during childhood. Between 30-40% of Deaf children have additional needs, with the prevalence of severe multiple disabilities being at least 20%. Therefore, there are a significant number of Deaf young people in the UK with additional or complex needs. This group has often been under-represented, falling between Deaf and SEN discourses. They are a highly diverse group, varying widely as individuals in terms of their degree of deafness, additional / complex needs or language use (spoken, signed or both), cultural identity (whether in terms of being Deaf or their family heritage), use of technologies to hear, and the ways in which the impact of deafness is filtered through responses of familial, educational and social environments.
The Deaf Academy operates a Non-Maintained Special School, College and Adult pathway with residential care. We also operate a Children’s Home for Deaf children. We provide education and residential care for Deaf young people from the ages of 9 to 25 years. The Academy currently has 77 students and approximately half of our students reside in our residential accommodation for 38 weeks of the year. All our young people are Deaf with additional needs. These include social emotional & mental health (SEMH) (53%), learning difficulties (42%), autism (32%) and multi-sensory impairment (23%), including deaf blind. In addition, many of our students have complex medical profiles including CHARGE syndrome, diabetes, and epilepsy.
We specialise in supporting Deaf children and young people who also have multiple or complex additional needs. We provide a full range of therapies on the Academy premises including physiotherapy, occupational therapies, speech and language therapy, and audiology. Each student receives tailored support, ensuring they are able to meet their educational and personal goals, growing in confidence and working towards independence each day. We are a charity, registered under the name the Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education.
Prior to working in specialist education, I had worked primarily in General Further Education in London as a Senior leader. I had a good grounding in inclusive education leadership within a further education and skills setting but limited experience of BSL, Deaf Education and SEND.
My Further Education experience was mainly in Hackney and Tottenham, so I had a good grounding in working within a diverse workforce. However, when I joined the Deaf Academy, there was some real learning for me to lead a hearing / Deaf bimodal / bi-cultural workforce. In particular, as a hearing person leading a Deaf organisation there was a lot to learn around best practice in working with Deaf staff and ensuring that we remain true to the cultural and linguistic identity of Deaf people. I was lucky to have some inspirational Deaf staff who supported me and educated me along the way.
When I joined the Deaf Academy in 2017 it is fair to say that we had significant challenges. The whole organisation (School, College, Residential Care and Children Home) was graded Ofsted inadequate in 2016 and we were in Special Measures. In addition, we had falling student numbers that had resulted in financial challenges. It became clear early on that the root cause of us being is Special Measures was a systemic issue of not having properly embraced the shift in student profile from Deaf to Deaf / SEND and the adjustments required in leadership, culture, practice and environment. What was required was an approach which was both tactical and strategic to navigate the immediate threats and ultimately steer the organisation through a transformation to a be a new type of setting.
After initially being appointed as Head of Safeguarding I was asked to take on a Co-Principal role becoming Principal 2020. It was a journey of rapid change, and our strapline was “passion, purpose and pace”. We needed to shift things quickly and the areas requiring the greatest attention were safeguarding and behaviour. Through incredible effort from all staff, we made lots of changes and came out of special measures in January 2019.
We then started the wider and more developmental work of reviewing our curriculum and looking at wider systemic issues for the organisation. In 2020 we were then all hit by COVID, that completely changed everything for two years. This was also really bad timing for us as we were relocating our campus, which led to delays in our new build as the site had to be closed then further delays in acquiring materials to finish the build. Luckily, we were very kindly hosted by the In Focus charity in Exeter for a period of three months when we were effectively homeless.
“Do not judge me by my success judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again,” Nelson Mandela.
The above quote was something I had on my wall in my office which was handy for the “set back” moments. The difficult inspection, the unforced errors, those frustrating moments as a leader in education when despite your passion and best efforts what you are achieving is simply not good enough and you know it!
After many ups and downs, including over 20 Ofsted inspections, I am very pleased to say we are now a thriving, successful organisation that has been graded Good in all areas and picked up various national awards. This has been as result of everyone’s efforts, incredibly talented staff, resilient and supportive Governors and Trustees, patient parents and carers, amazing inspirational students and faith that we would get there in the end!
In writing this article, I was thinking what have I really learnt as a leader reflecting on the whole experience? Firstly, for all of us who led over the height of the COVID pandemic (2020-22/23) it was an extraordinary time; exhausting, stressful, confusing and frankly traumatic. On top of that leading an organisation into a new era felt certainly logistically harder (remember we weren’t allowed to meet for a while in groups!). So these were some of the areas that came to mind that were important to me during this period.
Just connect!
I think the most important ingredient of leadership is the ability to connect with others. Be it difficult times, big moments, small moments, highs or lows, we are human and the ability to connect with each other is at the heart of our lived experience. Sometimes this can be forgotten, particularly when the wind is in your sails and things are going well. However, it is important to remain humble, authentic and always remember to just connect!
Staying true to your standards
(even when you don’t know how to fix the problem or even what it is!).
As leaders we don’t always know how to fix the problem or even what it is sometimes, but it is important to know when something is simply not good enough. I remember a manager I learnt a lot from once told me “never drop your standards even if you don’t know what the problem is”. It’s true, what we do as educators is simply too important, we have the power to transform people’s lives when we get it right and it’s important not to lose sight of that. Working in such a complex organisation as the Deaf Academy there were many times I didn’t know how to fix the problem, but I did know that the standard was not good enough and needed to be raised for the benefit of our students. I also have another phrase that I used a lot over this period that sort of means the same thing – “Your loyalty has to be to the work”; that’s the most important thing and should never be lost sight of.
Courage and resilience
Leading change takes courage in making those difficult decisions and resilience when things do not go to plan. It takes courage to do difficult things knowing that your decisions or actions will have impact on others that may be upsetting. It also requires a thick skin and the ability to keep going when you have setbacks. Over time I have learnt that it is about how we respond to the setbacks that’s important and not to dwell too much on them, even if they were often very frustrating!
Building the team
It’s all about the team. Building a strong team where there is trust and support is absolutely essential. This is not easy, particularly when you are at a phase of change where you are as much a disrupter as stabiliser! But this is the ultimate goal that will bring the organisation to a more stable and sustainable place. I feel very lucky to now have an incredible team of talented people to work with and learn from everyday, but it takes time to get there, you have to be patient!
Not being afraid to ask for support
Something I perhaps learnt late on in this journey is not being afraid to ask for support. SEND is very complex and nobody knows everything! We need lots of external support to help us along the way. It can also be hard to ask for support after a “bad Ofsted” as you take it personally when your name is on the report, but actually that is the time when you need it the most. The most successful organisations have sophisticated external support infrastructures, so they know they’re getting the best “eyes” on their challenges to support their development. We have benefited greatly from external school Improvement Partners, Natspec Quality reviews and being part of the Challenge Partners programme. All these external reviews have helped us better understand our challenges and how to overcome them.
“Set your course by the stars, not the lights of the passing ships” Omar N. Bradley.
In summary, as illustrated by this quote, there are many passing ships and important that we navigate by our values. I have always felt very privileged to be a leader in education and it has been great to play a small part in helping an organisation achieve it’s potential. The true credit of course are the talented and inspirational leaders and teams that we help build and believe in their potential so that they can provide the best possible experiences to students.
So what next for the Deaf Academy?
The Academy is continuing on a positive trajectory, buoyed by a clear five-year Strategic Plan (2023-2028), with key milestones, priorities and targets identified. Its student numbers are gradually increasing, at a manageable rate to ensure the support is in place to meet each students’ needs. A new Post 19 specialist learning and residential centre, Fearnside House, was opened in 2023, equipped with 10 bedrooms and classroom spaces. The first of its kind in the UK, Fearnside House is for our 19 to 25-year-old Deaf students.
As well as providing high quality education and care, the charity is working towards becoming a hub for research and development and for raising Deaf Awareness nationally. In 2025 we shall host teachers of the deaf for the British Association of Teachers of Deaf Children and Young People’s (BATOD’s) annual conference and we shall embrace opportunities during our 2026 Bicentenary year to continue championing for the key issues and challenges facing the Deaf community.
In the words of our Chair of Trustees Dame Angela Pedder OBE, “Our buildings underpin our objectives to develop students’ confidence, show them their value in the world and help them believe they can achieve anything.”
You can learn more about the many initiatives happening at the Deaf Academy by visiting the ‘News’ page on its website and via LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
