HEARING people can learn to sign by taking part in a free course.

The course is being run at Orpington College for those who need to communicate with deaf people on a daily basis.

It will lead to a British sign language level one qualification.

Orpington College has teamed up with deaf charity RNID and disabled access company Hands on Access to run the one-day courses which run until December.

RNID employment, training and skills service director Cheryl Cullen said: "This is a great initiative designed to make sure deaf and hard of hearing people are not excluded from society.

"Through receiving this training businesses can make sure they are not inadvertently closing the door to the nine million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK, which represents a huge consumer population."