OBE for Deaf Education Tutor Karen Simpson

Karen Riley (Simpson) who works on the MA in Deaf Education has been awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

The masters is a Department for Education qualification for teachers of the deaf and Karen is a regional tutor on this distance learning programme based in the School of Education. She has been awarded the OBE in recognition of her significant contribution to the development of sign bilingual provision for deaf children in the UK.

Karen was head teacher at Frank Barnes School for the Deaf in London for 18 years where she worked assiduously to improve educational outcomes for deaf children, during which time this bilingual school had 4 ‘outstanding’ OFSTED inspections.

She is chair of the national Sign Bilingual Consortium and has worked consistently with Leeds with both Professor Ruth Swanwick as research collaborator and co-author and Dr Jackie Salter as programme leader to develop quality training for  teachers of the deaf since she stepped down from being head teacher three years ago.