Vision Support Team
Support for Pupils
To remove barriers and minimise the impact of a child or young person’s vision impairment on their learning, the Vision Support Team work closely with pupils and provide a range of specialist assessment, teaching and skills development programmes to enable them to become increasingly independent in accessing their curriculum learning, confident in using a range of assistive technologies, able to navigate their environments with confidence, be socially resilient and have good knowledge, skills and understanding to be independent and empowered in making life choices.
Touch Typing
The Vision Support Team deliver a range of skills development programmes to support pupils in using assistive technologies. Skills development programmes include Touch Typing/Key Strokes – a programme which supports pupils to access using a desktop computer laptop or tablet through non-visual methods.
Tactile Curriculum
- Tactile Discrimination Skills
- Pre-Braille Skills -Fantastic Fingers
Assistive Technology
Assistive Technology refers to low vision aides, adapted equipment technologies and specialist software applications which support pupils with a vision impairment to be increasingly independent in accessing their learning and to be included in class and wider school activities.
With developments in technology, many pupils can now access their work with mainstream equipment such as iPads/tablets or laptops. Accessibility features are being increasingly built in as standard specification.
Pupils require a programme of skills development to ensure they have the skills to use assistive technologies to maximise their inclusion in classroom learning.
The Vision Support Team provide a range of support to pupils, skills and families to ensure assistive technologies are used to provide maximum impact including:
- Providing an assessment of pupil assistive technology needs
- Advising schools in the purchase of technologies to support pupil’s access
- Advising families on the purchase of technologies to support pupil’s access to learning in the home environment – including grants and equipment from charities
- Delivering specialist teaching programmes to support pupil skills development in using assistive technology
- Providing specialist technical support to schools in linking technologies to school networks
Click the following link to the Assistive Technology information from RNIB Bookshare to find out more information on the assistive technologies available to support pupil’s access.
Print Modification
RNIB Bookshare allows you to access books that require further modification to create large print paper copies. You can do this yourself, and guidelines are provided by RNIB Bookshare regarding modification, and if the book you require is not available in the collection, or requires further modification that you are unable to do yourself, you can make a request to the Vision Support Team to do the additional modifications for you. Please do this via your QTVI who will make the request on your behalf.
We look forward to working with you to support your pupils to access their reading material with the use of the technology at their finger-tips.