On Wednesday 22nd January, The Makaton Charity helped The One Show surprise a young Makaton supporter.
Isabella is 14 and has a younger brother, Lucus, who uses Makaton. In the last two years Isabella has used social media platforms to help raise awareness of Makaton, by sharing videos of her signing along to popular songs.
The One Show saw Isabella's videos and asked The Makaton Charity to help celebrate all of her hard work with a special surprise to say thank you.
Director of The Makaton Language Programme Zanna Finnerty attended a filming session at Redriff Primary School along with Dave Benson Phillips, patron of the Makaton Charity, to help film the surprise for Isabella.
Zanna said "I love my job - I am so pleased that we managed to pull it off. After being involved in lots of work and secret codes with only 2 days notice, we filmed the surprise for our young Makaton supporter Isabella. Isabella came along to a session where we were having fun with Makaton in a primary school.
"Whilst watching the iconic Dave Benson Phillips clip of Goldilocks, he walked in and sat next to Isabella. It took a while for her to realise what was going on but she was thrilled to hear that she was getting an opportunity to talk about how Makaton changed her family’s life on BBC The One Show. She did not have a clue what we were up to, and she was in total awe and overwhelmed when she met her idol Louis Tomlinson.
Isabella was not the only one to get to meet her hero. This was my first time meeting Dave Benson Phillips. Anyone in the Makaton world will know how cool that is.
"Well done Isabella - you did really well and I am sorry for talking Makaton all day, in between filming. I hope it’s all helped you understand the Makaton Language Programme and how to use it. It was a pleasure to finally meet you and your beautiful mum and family. Always think The Core Vocabulary first and Keep Signing"
Read more about Isabella's Makaton journey .