Welcome back, I hope you had a lovely Christmas, spent with those that are important to you. We hope you feel recharged, refreshed, and ready for the New Year.
We have learnt over the last 22 months it’s essential to focus on what is important to each of us and here at Signature we are no different. I want to share with you some of our plans for our priorities for the next year.
We are actively looking to increase the number of learners that take our qualifications, as well as centres working with us, and teachers that share their knowledge so expertly. We will do this by delivering qualifications that people want to study, providing outstanding support and creating engaging content,
We will begin the process of reviewing and developing a communication professionals’ qualification, that not only provides people with the relevant skills but is also fit for purpose to make sure we create outstanding communication professionals.
We will use the consultation for the GCSE in BSL in the first half of 2022, to begin planning for how we offer, assess, and deliver this in schools in the future.
We will update the Signature Learning Hub, creating a more user-friendly experience, as well as creating new content. This includes refreshing BSLHomework3 and developing support materials for BSL4 and 6.
We will continue support the BSL bill and all of the work that underpins it to try to recognise British Sign Language (BSL) an official language of the United Kingdom.
We will work with even more organisations to build strong partnerships that helps us all make meaningful difference towards achieving our charitable objectives.
It’s going to be an exciting 12 months!
Today is a special day for Signature… on this week 40 years ago – the skills project that was created by 12 founding member organisations became CACDP, an independent registered charity.
I would like to thank everyone that has contributed over the last 40 years, without you Signature would not be the organisation it is today. You have shaped the way we do things, what we focus on and everything we have achieved.
Which, over the last 40 years is quite a lot:
- We supported over 460,000 people to take a Signature BSL qualification.
- We developed the first qualifications in lip speaking, deafblind interpreting, and qualifications for communication professionals as well as several others.
- We launched the first directory of Sign Language interpreters, which ultimately allowed us to create NRCPD, another independent charity.
- We have hosted 10 Signature Annual Award events, celebrating everyone and everything that is brilliant about the sector.
- We piloted a qualification in Secondary education – which paved the way for the Department for Education and Ofqual to begin looking at a GCSE in BSL.
- We won ‘Awarding Organisation of the year’ at the FAB awards in 2019.
And, too many other things to mention, but we are extremely proud of what we have achieved, and we look forward to achieving even more with your support over the next 40 years.
Over the next few days, we will be sharing some of our highlights over the last 40 years with you all, so keep an eye our social channels . We’ll also have an extremely exciting announcement on Friday to share with you.