Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education's perform in a fancy dress pageant.

Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education (ERADE) formerly the Royal West of England School for the Deaf holds a fancy dress pageant. Charlotte Hippisley-Tuckfield of Little Fulford travelled to Paris to study the teachings of Abbe Sicard at the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris (INJS) after gaining interest in the education of deaf children. She went on to found a school in Alphington Road in 1828, the precursor to the Royal West of England School for the Deaf.

Hippisley-Tuckfield's experiences were published in a book entitled Education for the People. From 1947 hearing units were established in mainstream schools and from 1951 ERADE offered nursery places for children as young as two and from 1974 pupils were able to board. Deaf education may be treated as bilingual and bicultural with British Sign Language (BSL) seen as a first language and English written or spoken as a second language. Deaf children learn visually so classes are conducted in a visual language. The first school for teaching the deaf to speak and read was opened in the 1760s by Thomas Braidwood in Edinburgh and used an early form of sign language or BSL.