Deaf Education: Crafting Connections

When booking your ticket please make sure you select your workshops at the same time, by clicking 'Tickets' then scroll down to choose your (free) add on tickets . Choose one morning workshop and one afternoon workshop.

Keynote Speaker: Imy Harris

Vogue Model, Deaf Advocate and Contestant on The Great Pottery Throw Down 2025

Imy was born deaf and growing up relied on hearing aids and lip reading for communication. In 2023, she had cochlear implant surgery and, as well as now being able to hear better than before, she can enjoy music clearly for the first time. When she left school, she travelled solo to Australisa, Thailand and Bali, which was challenging due to her disability and the language barriers. After returning home, she took a pottery class and became hooked. She loves to take her hearing aids out and get lost in the clay.

With her recent feature in the iconic British Vogue and time on the popular Great Pottery Throw Down, we are keen to find out where this all started for Imy and her plans going forward. Join us as Imy shares her experiences growing up deaf in a hearing world, the excitment and challenges of cochlear implants, and her desire to challenge perceptions around disability, deafness, and beauty standards.

Imy welcomes questions from the deaf children and young people we work with. During the keynote will record and collate Imy’s responses to these questions, to be distributed back to our students. Please send any questions, written or recorded to batodnorth@batod.org.uk before 3rd October 2025.

This one day event includes workshop presentations with a specific focus on deaf education including:

Morning Workshops 11:15 - 12:15:

1. Making Sense of Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder (ANSD) in Infants - Dr Kai Uus
2. National Deaf Children's Society - Keeping it REAL
3. Deafness & Dyslexia - Jane Angus
4. Manchester Alumni:

• Andrea Varey: From Cant to Can: Empowering Deaf Traveller Children and Young People.
• Natasha Carlton: How to Facilitate a caregiver coaching model at a deaf playgroup.
• Emily Parke: How to create a sustainable pen pal programme which supports the development of deaf pupils' writing, whilst enabling them to connect with deaf peers.

Afternoon Workshops 14:15 - 15:15:

1. Making Sense of Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder (ANSD) in Infants- Dr Kai Uus
2. Destination Deaflympics
3. Multi-Sensory Impairment - Seashell Trust
4. Technology in everyday life - Grace Pinson-Bradley

Please note that Dr Kai Uus' presentation will be a repeat of the morning session.

Interpreters: Please feel free to bring your BSL interpreter to this work related event, you can use Access to Work for this, but note if they require lunch, a seperate lunch ticket will need to be purchased. BATOD North will also provide two interpreters. Please select an interpreter ticket on the Add-on page when selecting your workshops and contact BATOD North at the earliest convenient time, including the workshops you have booked on to. This allows us to allocate suitable rooms for the workshops chosen.

Dietary Requirements: Please highlight to BATOD North if you have a dietary requirement on the Add-On page when selecting your workshops.

Please note, due to non-payment in previous years, BATOD North will again require payment for tickets in advance and reserves the right to withhold tickets from those authorities that have not yet paid their invoice. BATOD North is run entirely by volunteers and chasing up non-payments is extremely time consuming.

The organisers reserve the right to alter the programme at any time.

For the CANCELLATION POLICY Please refer to the BATOD Website https://www.batod.org.uk/about-us/batods-cancellation-policy/

Disclaimer: Photographs will be taken throughout the day for our social media page and the BATOD newsletter. If you do not wish to have your photo taken and published please see a member of BATOD North during morning registration.

Thank you to our sponsors, who without we would not be able to host a study day at a low cost.

Diamond Sponsors: to be confirmed.

Sapphire Sponsors: to be confirmed.