Free Sign Language Resources for Primary Schools

The School of Signs offers a complete set of lessons for primary schools looking to introduce British Sign Language to their classrooms. Whether teachers have prior experience with BSL or are starting from scratch, they can find resources to support their school for free.

The School of Signs was created by Signature, a national charity, with the goal of breaking down educational barriers and allowing BSL to be taught in all schools across the UK. It is a charitable project, and will always be free to anyone who finds the lessons useful.

The BSL Sign for 'School'

What topics are covered, and what resources are available?

Our initial 20 lessons are the perfect place to start for primary schools, covering key vocabulary from how to introduce yourself to numbers and the alphabet. These are video lessons, delivered in BSL with subtitles and voice over to keep them accessible to all. The topics of these lessons are:

  • What is BSL?
  • Deaf Awareness
  • Fingerspelling
  • Days of the Week
  • Family & Friends
  • Greetings
  • Numbers
  • Feelings
  • School
  • Food
  • Animals
  • Weather
  • Sports & Hobbies
  • Transport
  • Jobs
  • Clothing
  • Drinks
  • Colours
  • Months & Seasons
  • Seasonal
A primary school class using the School of Signs

And each of these lessons come with:

  1. Detailed lesson plans, which explain each activity and guide the teacher
  2. Homework quizzes, which can be adjusted to suit each learners’ ability level
  3. Printout activities, resources and posters for the classroom
  4. An accompanying episode of CodeBreakers, a fictional web series that puts the BSL they are learning into action
  5. A video dictionary of all the signs covered, with illustrations
  6. Interactive games and flashcards

How can I support pupils to develop further?

After you have completed these basic topics, you may want to move onto our more advanced set of lessons. These explore Being Around a topic, and focus on expanding from vocabulary into conversations, with an emphasis on learning questions and phrases.

These lessons follow a similar format, and come with all the same resources, but allow your pupils to progress through the next steps in learning BSL and build confidence.

These topics include:

  • Being Around Adventures
  • Being Around Work
  • Being Around Everyday Life
  • Being Around The Home
  • Being Around Events
  • Being Around Activities
  • Being Around Your Local Area
  • Being Around People
  • Being Around Transport
  • Being Around Creativity
A primary school student fingerspelling

How do I access these Sign Language lessons?

The lessons are delivered through The School of Signs platform and are completely free for schools and home educators to access.

If your school hasn’t signed up already, you just need to sign up using the button below. This will give you access to all 30 lessons on the platform. Multiple teachers and classes can be set up at the same school account, so if another teacher has already set up your school, you will be able to request to join the same school account.

If you are already signed up, just log in here, where you will find all the new lessons in their own category in the Lessons Tab.

Check out our FAQs page which should answer most queries! On the same page, you can also watch a video showing how teachers are currently using The School of Signs, and hear from some of the pupils being taught BSL themselves.