The Primary Specialist Provision for Visual Impairment
Intent
At Dalton Primary Additionally Resourced Provision for Children with a Visual Impairment, our intent is to ensure that children (0-11 years) with visual impairment in Kirklees are supported at home as well as mainstream, nursery and school settings in order to have equal access to all aspects of education and development, and to make progress commensurate with their peers.
Thus, wherever possible we engage parents and other professionals as partners in order to ensure the development of the whole child with visual impairment. Our intent is focused on developing children’s aspiration through independence and giving them purposeful opportunities to engage their pupil voice. Everything we do is progressive and built on closing the developmental gaps between the visually impaired child and their sighted peers. As a result, we work beyond the curriculum to enhance skills for independence, enabling children with visual impairment to succeed within the curriculum, for example: learning tactile skills to enable a visually impaired child to access maps or graphs. We also strive to ensure that children are given opportunities to address any gaps within their personal development, and offer support to our families on issues caused by their child’s visual impairment beyond school.
Through this intent, we also strive to ensure children with visual impairment become confident young people who can contribute to society and lead full and active lives.
With the intention described above, the provision is designed to promote equality and engage an ownership and love of learning so that at the end of their primary years children have an acceptance and understanding of their eye condition, but also have a full awareness of how to maximise their strengths.
Oak
The provision base is called Oak and it is here where the children on fixed places receive daily tuition from 8.25 to 8.55 am. They learn extra skills as part of their ‘Additional Curriculum’ which follows the eleven areas of The Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (CFVI Parents' Guide RNIB). These include: habilitation (mobility) and independent living skills such as food preparation, dressing and shopping skills; Braille, pre-Braille. tactile and other key sensory development; bespoke assistive technology skills including iPad, touch typing and use of talking equipment; social and emotional development including knowledge of own eye condition; VIP(E) (visually impaired physical education) sports and individually tailored coaching sessions; as well as additional exam preparation to ensure equitable access to all assessments.
The children are taught in class with their peers and staff encourage them to be as independent as possible. Resources are provided to meet individual needs from large print materials to specialist computer speech software. There is a positive approach to the inclusion of all pupils and children have access to all extra-curricular activities. Parents are kept informed via a home-school book and are encouraged to attend meetings and school events.
From little acorns, mighty oaks will grow
