little hurrahs
Little Hurrahs has been teaching BSL-based Baby and Toddler sign for over 5
years, working with families, carers, Pre-school and Nursery Setting and many
other groups and organisations. Little Hurrahs is the Brain Child of Jo
Emmerson. Now a mum of two, I have worked in all kinds of roles, from PR
Director to Housing Manager, from Weight Loss Consultant to Quality Control in a
Chocolate Factory, and more recently as both student and teacher of British Sign
Language. My love of BSL started five years ago when we started taking BSL-based
baby signing with our 6-month-old son. I utterly fell in love with how
transformative it was. The gift of being able to communicate meaningfully with
this small shouty human was mindblowing. It completely changed my experience of
parenting, gave me the tools and techniques to begin to bond with the little
squish, and start to trust my instincts. Fast forward a few years and my son was
diagnosed with bilateral middle ear effusion (or 'Glue Ear' as it's commonly
known) and he has significant hearing loss in both ears. Without his
bone-conduction hearing aid, his hearing is similar to putting your fingers in
your ears and putting your head underwater. Thankfully, we've been signing with
him for years now. This diagnosis prompted me to move my BSL forward, completing
Level 2 during Lockdowns in 2021 and completing my Level 3 in 2022, with a plan
to start my training to become an n interpreter and gain my Level 6
qualification from 2023. It has also changed the focus of my work, moving me
away from solely working with babies and toddlers to working with nurseries,
schools, and colleges as well as parents with D/deaf and Hearing Impaired
children. I am also pretty active in my local D/deaf community, volunteering and
socializing - I'm proud of my signing son, and I want him to grow up feeling
proud to be part of the BSL community. I now work directly with parents and
carers, teachers, school staff, and children, delivering a range of courses,
from self-led 90-day courses for parents, carers and EYFS settings, to
School-year based 'train the trainer' online courses for Key Stage 1 and Key
Stage 2. These courses are primarily delivered online and are designed to ensure
that my students get real, impactful results that can be measured informally,
either through improved communication and understanding in the home or through
in-class monitoring to ensure children meet formal education goals and
expectations. I am also working with a Primary School to develop a new course,
enabling staff and pupils to meet the Progression Steps for BSL as an
International Language under the new Curriculum for Wales. I LOVE my job, and I
will happily talk about it until the cows come home, so if you're interested in
what I do, or would like to know if I can help you, your family, or your
organisation in some way, then get in touch.
