The "heartbreaking" decision on the stalled sign language GCSE

15th January 2026

bbc.co.uk/accessall

Access All – Ep 194

Presented by Emma Tracey

EMMA- Hello. I’m Emma Tracey and this is Access All. And coming up on the show:

SIMON- You can learn French, you can learn German in schools, and not British Sign Language, so it means the absolute world I think to first language sign language users that they would have the opportunity to get a GCSE in their own legally recognised language.

EMMA- More of that interview later when we’ll be talking about the British Sign Language GCSE and what’s happening with that now. Alex is with me today for chats.

ALEX- Hi there, hello. I’m back again.

EMMA- Yeah. I’ve been thinking a lot over Christmas and New Year about cooking and diet and food and stuff, and how I’m so much slower at cooking than anyone else. I mean, I can do it, but just all the chopping and planning and organising and finding everything and timing everything, when someone who can see just sort of bashes around the kitchen not worrying too much about what they’re doing and they can do it in a reasonable amount of time, as they’d say on those disability benefits forms [laughter]. And it got me thinking about whether I actually eat what I want to, or whether being blind changes my food choices. And I do think it does, I think the time involved for me. I mean my husband’s actually a great cook, he’s visually impaired, but he can cook in a reasonable amount of time. And I know loads of blind people are going to come on, Alex, aren’t they, and go I can cook brilliantly within…I can do Jamie’s 30 meals in 30 minutes or whatever it is. I don’t think that’s what it’s called.

ALEX- [Laughs] no.

EMMA- But I was just wondering, you’re a wheelchair user, you’ve got cerebral palsy, do you think you eat what you want or do you think your impairments and how you live your life kind of dictates that?

ALEX- Yeah, so I have a carer who has to cook for me because I can’t access everything in the kitchen. And if I had to cut stuff up it could take hours, a long time. And so every night I have to look at obviously actually what’s easiest in my life. And that’s what helps is if I have a carer who actually does that. But in terms of health and what I eat and how much I have to be honest, look if it’s unhealthy I kind of like it, so that’s my main curse that I don’t like actually what’s good for me almost. So, I have to be careful about how much I eat.

EMMA- So, you eat bad stuff in small portions?

ALEX- Yes, which is not healthy.

EMMA- Why do you have to be careful? I mean, we all think about what we eat in terms of our health and stuff, but why do you particularly eat small amounts?

ALEX- Well, it’s largely about how I can’t work it off as easily.

EMMA- Disability correspondent, Nikki Fox, was on Celebrity Christmas MasterChef during the festive period with her PA, Libby.

ALEX- Oh really?

EMMA- Aha. Nikki was directing Libby on how to make what she wanted to make. Do you, be honest Alex, do you stay there all the time they’re cooking and direct each step, or do you go and scroll on your phone?

ALEX- I have a list of what I ordered them to get, so from Waitrose we have a list of stuff which I ask for. I mix it up. It’s healthy stuff too. I’m not that bad, I don’t just eat badly the whole time.

EMMA- No, but as in while they’re cooking are you saying, right now chop the onion and put it in the pan?

ALEX- No, I have no idea how to do it so I let them do it, which is quite bad.

EMMA- I think you might need a robot.

ALEX- I think I might need a robot. That would be very helpful in my life. I could talk to it and not have any stress. It wouldn’t be hurt by my inadequacies.

EMMA- Not your inadequacies. It wouldn’t be hurt by your critiques.

ALEX- Also that. But also maybe that’s not what I wanted.

EMMA- Yeah. Well, you know what, you are a lucky, lucky boy because later we’re going to be talking about robots and how they could potentially help disabled people in the future.

ALEX- Wow. Well, I would like one if I could please as soon as it comes online – is that what we’re saying?

EMMA- I suppose. But then what if the Wi-Fi goes down?

ALEX- Exactly. Then I’d be stuck. I’d have to order in a pizza.

EMMA- Oh no!

ALEX- What a shame that is.

MUSIC- Theme music.

EMMA- Hello. Yes, I am Emma Tracey and this is Access All. Later in the programme the much talked about British Sign Language GCSE has hit a major stumbling block because all the exam boards have chosen not to develop it. What’s next for that we’ll be finding out. Get in touch. I love to hear from you. Email [email protected]. And please do subscribe to us, in the UK it’s on BBC Sounds, and outside the UK it’s wherever you get your podcasts from. Alex Taylor, BBC journalist is still with me. Hello.

ALEX- Hello, hi. I’m still here.

EMMA- You are. And listen, last time we had you on you talked about a new relationship, how’s that going?

ALEX- It’s going well, it’s going well.

EMMA- We talked about the fact that you’ve got carers in the beginning of this episode. What kinds of things do you need them to do and how does that work when you want to have a bit of, you know, time with your partner?

ALEX- If I have to move anywhere, out of my chair or into bed or have to get ready, like I need help with that. And so I have what I would call a roller at home which helps me, so I would get up on that.

EMMA- What’s a roller?

ALEX- It’s like if you have a box and you have to hold it up and push it along the floor. I have to hold on and then it moves me on this thing, so it moves me kind of along.

EMMA- So, you need help to get up off your chair?

ALEX- I can do that.

EMMA- Oh, you can do that?

ALEX- Yes.

EMMA- And then they place the roller in front of you?

ALEX- Yes, and I hold onto it, I get moved.

EMMA- So, you stand against it and they move it and you come with it?

ALEX- Yes, hopefully.

EMMA- Ideally.

ALEX- That’s the plan.

EMMA- Have you had some roller incidents?

ALEX- I haven’t yet, but I’m always nervous I’ll let go, especially if I’ve had some booze.

EMMA- That is a new bit of disability tech, low tech to be fair, that I’ve never heard of.

ALEX- It’s really, yet, not high tech at all. It’s like ‘80s style. They haven’t updated it for years.

EMMA- Take me through a romantic evening and when you need help, what you did before, and now what’s changed with this new person and how you feel.

ALEX- Okay. So, obviously I have the charm, and I’m great fun, and I make her laugh loads. And then she’s like, wow Alex, you’re so cool. And then after an hour or so we might watch a film maybe as a couple, you know, just normal stuff. Nothing else, you know, there was nothing more than that. And so after about a month or two she said, look I can help you if you want. And I was like, oh but I’ve got my carer here, he can do it. And she’s like yes, I know, but I can also help you too, then you wouldn’t have to call him and we could do it on our own terms. And I was like, well yes, you could, but I feel about that because it’s you having to do this extra work – not extra work, but in my head it was. And she just was honest and said, yeah but I’m happy to, I don’t look at it as extra work, I would rather help us have our own evening really. And so what really helped me actually understand her more in that regard and what she was after was not about helping me, but actually ensuring that as adults we could have our own moments and not have to always have this hovering extra person next door. And we asked him if he could maybe actually have a night out and he could leave us happily if he wanted to. I know that I’m an adult, obviously I’m in my 30s now, but actually having that moment where you’re in the apartment and it’s you two, only you two, makes a big difference.

EMMA- Yeah.

ALEX- I know that sounds mad, but it really does.

EMMA- But also, just to be really basic about it, she might want to have her top off already before you go from the sofa to the bed. Or there might be something that you don’t want your carer to see that’s happened between the time you go from the sofa at the end of the movie to bed.

ALEX- Yeah, and we do have to juggle that. I mean, that might be the wrong word to say [laughter], but you do have to be careful of a situation, right. So, I always have to be aware of what I’m wearing or what I’m not wearing, how that might go. So, I do have to think about it. And actually not having that meant that we didn’t have to think like that, and I’ve never had that opportunity.

EMMA- And how did it feel the first time that she helped you up to the roller and then helped you down into bed from there?

ALEX- It was really nice because I felt like it was just us two. Then I obviously had to get undressed; I can do aspects of that but obviously I need help with other bits I can’t get off. And she just was like, well I can help you with that, you don’t have to worry about it. And obviously I’ve had other partners who have helped me in that way, but here it felt more like that was one long journey and not just the thing which was in compartments, if that makes sense.

EMMA- Yeah. I’m so honoured to have this conversation because you’ve had people unromantically dress and undress you all of your life.

ALEX- Yes.

EMMA- And this is so different.

ALEX- I had a chat with her a few weeks ago about how I’ve had past incidents where I’ve had a partner who was happy to help, and then at the end of our time was like, look I can’t cope with helping you, it’s a lot for me, I can’t handle it. And I said well, I have told you that I have help, which I will always need, I’ve been open about that, and it’s either I have a carer or it’s you. And she said, well I can’t have either of those. And I was like, well then this can’t work. I mentioned this to my partner now, and of course I hadn’t actually told her all that, so when I did it actually really helped us because it helped her understand why I had been so apprehensive and where that had actually built up out of, if that makes sense.

EMMA- Uh-huh.

ALEX- And so yeah, it got really emotional actually and I ended up in tears with her about it, which I didn’t expect to. But that was really helpful because I realised I had to talk about it. And obviously being herself that was great because she made me understand what real love and care is and that I don’t have to look at it as, like, either or and it was really helpful.

EMMA- Stop it, Alex, [voice breaking with emotion] I can’t cope; it’s too cute and too lovely. I feel like we need – I can’t go on to the news stories straight after this – I feel like we need a little Sting, a little bit of music. You’re listening to Access All with Emma Tracey, and I’m with Alex Taylor. And I might just have a little happy weep and then we’ll go on to the news stories. How about that?

ALEX- Yeah, okay, that sounds good [laughs].

EMMA- Alex Taylor, apart from cooking and personal care, what would you use a robot for in your house?

ALEX- To wash up, laundry, things like that.

EMMA- Everything. Well, listen, cyber correspondent, Joe Tidy, has been in California visiting some humanoid robots, I believe they call them. He’s here to think through with us how these robots could help disabled people in the future. Hi, Joe.

JOE- Hi, thanks for having me.

EMMA- Thanks for being here. Joe, what happened on your little robot tour?

JOE- Basically we went on a tour of some of the most advanced domestic robots out there. We went out there, it all started actually because I was talking to my boss about five months ago and she said to me, how have we got AI that can write Shakespeare, but we haven’t got AI that can fold my clothes or do my laundry. And I thought that’s a really, really good question. So, we set out to answer that question. And it turns out that there are lots of companies in this really fierce race to bring about a fully useful and cost-effective domestic robot. We visited five different companies, but we saw a really quite mixture of impressive and also kind of laughable and disappointing capabilities.

EMMA- Okay.

JOE- We are a long way away from these bots being fully useful in terms of doing absolutely everything in the home. But it varies in the scale. So, there’s one bot that I went to visit called Neo, and it’s kind of about five and a half foot tall, it’s very cute, it’s got these little button eyes and it’s covered in knitwear. So, it’s the kind of bot that you want to cuddle. And that’s the whole point, they want it to be friendly and useful and non-threatening in a home. It plods around on its padded feet. But it can do everything, so if you ask it to do something it can load your washing machine, it can do your washing up, it can empty your dishwasher. But then I went and visited another one, called Memo, which is made by a company called Sunday AI, and it was equally adorable in a different way. It didn’t have legs or feet; it had a kind of base with wheels that it moved around very smoothly and slowly on. And it was a big torso that was telescopic so it can go up and down, and these long arms.

EMMA- What does it do?

JOE- It made a coffee using a coffee machine, completely autonomously without any intervention. It went over and cleared a table away. Not only that, it has these kind of mitten glove hands and it picked up two wine glasses with one hand and carried that over to the dishwasher. Which would sound simple but that’s quite a difficult thing, and I would imagine for some people with disabilities, particularly dexterity…

ALEX- Well, yeah, that would really help me. I mean, this stuff could really change my life.

EMMA- Particularly the wine glasses [laughter].

ALEX- Exactly.

JOE- I will say though, it dropped one. There was kind of a bad fluke.

EMMA- Did it clean it up?

JOE- Ah, no, good point. It could have done though.

EMMA- Because actually cleaning up broken glass is the bane of mine and my husband, whose visually impaired, it’s the bane of our lives. We actually have children now who we can bring into the room and say, can you see a tiny bit of glass. But that is something, if my husband had one thing he would need an assistant for it would be cleaning up broken glass, and the robot can’t do that.

JOE- Well, I think it can actually.

EMMA- Okay.

JOE- We didn’t see it do that. What else did it do? Oh, it folded laundry and…

EMMA- Can it pair socks?

JOE- It can pair socks. I saw it pairing socks.

EMMA- Oh, so many blind people in my phone said pairing socks, please get one that can. And I totally agree with that. I have a massive box of socks that I can’t pair and my children refuse to pair. So, unfortunately children are like robots, they don’t do everything you ask them. Tell me, tell me, tell me, how much will they be? How long is it until Alex can have a wine glass picking up robot?

JOE- [Laughs] well, this is the thing that’s quite amazing is they are pushing so hard and so fast that we will see these things hit the market this year and next. Whether or not they will be fully capable depends. But Neo, which is the one I described with knitwear all over its body, that one is going out this year the company reckons. And it will be $20,000 one-off payment, or $500 per month.

EMMA- So, kind of like getting a car?

JOE- That’s exactly how the CEO looks at it. But I’m not an advert for these companies, when Neo ships there will be many cases, in fact quite a lot of the time there will be a human looking through cleaning up your home essentially using Neo as a kind of proxy.

EMMA- Yeah, but I don’t know if that would matter as much to a disabled person because we’ve got people in our houses doing boring stuff for us a lot.

ALEX- Yeah.

EMMA- And actually just not having – I mean, I love people and I love talking – but just maybe having to talk to it or manage it.

ALEX- Emotionally, yeah.

EMMA- Not emotionally manage it. And actually I wonder would you ever get that in your personal budget, Alex? Would you be able to say to social care, you know…

ALEX- Go to PIP and ask PIP if I could have a budget for my robot [laughs].

EMMA- Ask for a robot, yeah.

ALEX- They might be happier about that, it wouldn’t be as much.

EMMA- Yeah, it wouldn’t cost as much.

ALEX- The charging aspect of it, how much is it able to actually cope with in one go?

EMMA- Well, they move very slowly so they would take a lot longer to do things than we would. But Neo for example would go for four hours before walking over, waddling over and charging itself. So, you might say that’s a limitation, but actually I don’t think it is.

ALEX- No, if you’re careful about what you do with it, what it’s used for that would work well.

EMMA- It’s like my mother with her electric car – she’ll kill me, she’ll kill me – she manages her life around when she can charge her car and how far she can go. Is that what you would be like with your robot, Alex?

ALEX- Yes.

EMMA- You’d be like I need to move the wine glass from the kitchen to the living room at this time before it runs out of battery, and I need to go to bed at this time before it runs out of battery.

ALEX- Yes. I have to admit to you but I have lots of arguments about when I have to go to bed, because obviously I could have a party I have to go to or I could have a deadline I have to meet, and I could be up until 1am if it’s going badly, let’s say. I think you all know about this if you have a deadline to meet, and sometimes it’s not perfectly aligned with your life. And I have had a carer or other carers who have been like, I need to go to bed now and you’re still up. And I’m like, yeah, but I still have my life. And it would be really helpful if I could have a robot who hadn’t got that need.

JOE- Yes.

ALEX- I mean, in those hours I could ask if it could help me in those hours, and I could manage it that way. And that would be really helpful in those hours where maybe a normal person might not want to be working, understandably. But I have to live my life, and that’s where it would be really useful.

EMMA- Well, Joe, thank you so much for telling us all about your robot tour and the robots you met.

JOE- Thank you.

EMMA- And I’m sure we’ll talk to you again about this because we didn’t even get time to talk to you about robots in Japan that can help look after their ageing population and all the idea of robot hands being able to turn somebody in bed successfully and all that. So, I’d love it if you could come back some day and talk to us again about it.

JOE- I’d love to.

EMMA- Alex Taylor, thank you for being with me. It’s been a joy.

ALEX- Yes, it has been. I’ve loved it. Thank you for hearing me and listening to me ramble on.

EMMA- It’s a pleasure and an honour. Thank you.

ALEX- Bye.

MUSIC- We’re not just a podcast. Find Access All on social media and read our articles on the BBC News website.

EMMA- In late November the deaf community celebrated a major milestone in the decade long campaign for a GCSE in British Sign Language, after the exam regulator, Ofqual, released its framework for the qualification, bringing it one step closer. But this excitement was short-lived after all four exam boards accredited to offer GCSEs chose not to develop the exam, presenting a major setback. I’m joined now by BBC journalist, Kateryna Pavlyuk, who’s been following the story closely. Now, Kateryna, there was such excitement around this, so what’s happened?

KATERYNA- You’re absolutely right. Back in November the exam regulator, Ofqual, published its long-awaited assessment rules on what it called a groundbreaking new GCSE in BSL. This is essentially the framework for the qualification which outlines what it should assess and how. But it’s important to say that this was a real watershed moment that followed years of delays after COVID, and was really widely celebrated in the deaf community as the end of a long regulatory process. So, this marked the end of Ofqual’s role. It would then be up to individual exam boards to decide if they would offer the GCSE and start building their own syllabus. There are four exam boards accredited to offer GCSEs in England, AQA, OCR, Eduqas, and Edexcel who operate under a company called Pearson. And in December all four of them said they wouldn’t be developing the qualification.

I should mention that what we’re talking about here is quite specifically the BSL GCSE in England. Wales was separately developing a BSL GCSE until 2024 when the Welsh exam regulator announced they’d be suspending their plans to introduce the GCSE. And at the time Qualifications Wales said that exam boards in Wales could apply to offer England’s GCSE when that was up and running. So, essentially if the GCSE falls in England it falls in Wales too.

EMMA- Okay. So, why have the exam boards chosen not to move forward with the GCSE in England?

KATERYNA- A great question, and we contacted all four exam boards to ask this. They told us that the GCSE wasn’t currently in their development plan or something that they’re currently in a position to feasibly offer. They did say that they understand people’s disappointment and the challenges that deaf students face, and that they’re supportive of inclusive education and ensuring that deaf students can access existing qualifications. We also reached out to the Department for Education, but at the time of recording we haven’t heard back from them yet.

EMMA- Kateryna what has the response been to the setback?

KATERYNA- I think it’s fair to say there’s a huge sense of disappointment. On social media people have called the decision appalling, shocking, disgraceful. And I think to understand why there’s this strength of feeling it’s important to give a bit of context on quite what a long and hard journey it’s been to get to this point. So, the initial idea for a GCSE first came from the BSL body, Signature, in 2010. But the campaign really got into motion in 2015 when Signature started drafting content for the qualification and run a pilot of the GCSE in six schools. And then the campaign really kicks off in earnest in 2018 when the deaf campaigner, Daniel Jillings, then aged just 12 years old, launched a crowdfunded legal challenge against the government, arguing that the lack of a BSL GCSE may be discriminatory and unlawful. So, Daniel’s case famously forced the Conservative government’s hand and they agreed to work on developing the qualification, which Daniel hoped would be available by the time he sat his GCSEs. Daniel has been at the forefront of this campaign since he was 12. This is a clip of him. And he’s signing in the video so the voice you hear is his mum interpreting for him:

[Clip]

INTERVIEWER- If you could get a GCSE in sign language what difference would that make to you?

DANIEL- It would help me have a better future really. It would give me good opportunities, a better future because my BSL is my first language and it’s part of my culture, you know. I know that there’s lots of languages like English, but English is my second language. And I don’t think it’s right that I can only do English. Why can’t I do sign language, because that’s my first language? If I did that it would give me a better feeling, better opportunities. I could become a teacher of the deaf. I could be the first deaf Prime Minister.

INTERVIEWER- [Laughs]

[End of clip]

EMMA- That clip was taken from BBC Look East. Now, what is next? This feels like a big stumbling block.

KATERYNA- The only real option now is for an awarding organisation outside of those four main exam boards to develop the GCSE. So, Signature, as I mentioned, they’re the leading awarding body for BSL qualifications in the UK, they’re exploring if and how they could do this. And obviously they’re well versed in teaching BSL so they have a great head-start on that front. But they’re currently only approved to offer vocational qualifications, so there would be a long road ahead of first getting approval to offer GCSEs, and quite uniquely just one GCSE. And they’re in, as I say, the very early stages of scoping how feasible that is. But they’ve said from the outset that this is going to be complicated, expensive and challenging.

EMMA- We’re joined on the line by Simon Wont from the National Deaf Children’s Society. Simon is the charity’s head of policy and influencing for England, and he’s deaf himself. Simon, what has the charity’s reaction been to these latest developments?

SIMON- It’s really heartbreaking after all the work that’s been undertaken to date. We know that the government are really committed to this. Only recently the Minister for State for Education, Georgia Gould, said about we encourage exam boards to really take advantage of this amazing opportunity. And it’s just hugely disappointing that that’s not been the case.

EMMA- And how did it get to this point without it being realised that none of the exam boards would take it on when they were involved in all the discussions?

SIMON- Well, it’s been as big a surprise to us and sector partners I think as anyone. We’re not giving up with this though, so in terms of what those next steps are really for us we’ve written to these exam boards and requested to meet them so that we can understand their reasons for not wanting to develop this GCSE. And in the background we also know that Signature, who are the leading awarding body for sign language qualifications, are undertaking a feasibility study to find out whether they could uptake the accreditation process to develop a GCSE on their own. So, we’re really keenly paying attention to that as it progresses. We’re really keen to work with the government, to work with these exam boards to do what we can to move things forward.

EMMA- What have deaf children and young people told you about what the GCSE would mean for them, what it would do for them and why it’s so important to them?

SIMON- You can learn French, you can learn German in schools, and not British Sign Language, so it means the absolute world I think to first language sign language users that they would have the opportunity to get a GCSE in there own legally recognised language. But more than that as well, because it’s about what that would mean for hearing people being able to take the course, or people like myself. So, I’m not a first language sign language user. I am deaf and have been since I was born. And to have the opportunity to learn British Sign Language to really embrace the language, the culture it would really make so much difference to breaking down those barriers.

EMMA- And it’s not just learning the language, is it, Simon, it’s an all-rounder, isn’t it?

SIMON- Yeah, absolutely. And there’s an element of this course which is fantastic about the history of British Sign Language. It’s a culture, it’s an identity for deaf people.

EMMA- Learning about the Capital D, Simon.

SIMON- Absolutely. Capital D, deaf culture, and what that means to people. It really does mean a lot. People who would actually be able to learn sign language and do this course, to genuinely be able to get out there and to meet those Capital D deaf people and have those genuine flowing conversations and discussions and understand the culture, understand the identity, it’s a really, really important course, it’s a really, really important thing.

EMMA- And are you hopeful, Simon, that there will be a BSL GCSE in England?

SIMON- Absolutely, yeah, definitely. There’s no way that this is something that’s not going to happen. There’s been so much work that’s got to this point. We’ve got a government that are committed to it, we’ve got over a decade worth of campaigning just to get to this point, we’ve got draft content, we’ve got assessment frameworks from Ofqual. So, absolutely no doubt that this is just another hurdle to overcome.

EMMA- Simon Wont from the National Deaf Children’s Society, thank you for joining us on Access All.

SIMON- Thank you for having me.

EMMA- We’ll keep an eye on that situation, and thank you for bringing the story to us, Kateryna Pavlyuk.

KATERYNA- Thank you very much.

EMMA- That is it for this episode of Access All. Thank you to Alex Taylor, to Joe Tidy, to Kateryna Pavlyuk for joining me on this show. And what an interesting one we’ve had, we’ve been talking about robots and relationships, some of my absolute favourite things.

Now, I did mention before Christmas that there would be some changes to the show. We are now moving to monthly podcasts, and our next episode is on 4th February. But you will be able to catch me popping up in the meantime, reporting on disabled people and mental health across the BBC. Catch you soon. Bye.