Does Your School Or Early Years Setting Have a Child Who Is Blind Or Partially Sighted?

Does Your School Or Early Years Setting Have a Child Who Is Blind Or Partially Sighted?

Does your school or early years setting have a child who is blind or partially sighted?

About this guide

This guide looks at the processes around ensuring that a child with special educational needs gets all the support that they need.

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Where the school or setting can get advice and support

3. Extra support - Early Years Action Plus and School Action Plus

4. The importance of effective support to allow access to the curriculum

5. What should be in place on an Individual Education Plan (IEP)?

6. What should be covered in the annual review?

7. Transition for 14 – 19

8. Further guides

9. For further information

1. Introduction

Visual impairment is a low incidence disability and therefore your school or setting may not have previously had a blind or partially sighted child with a visual impairment. In addition, individual needs vary: there is a wide range of visual difficulties and the requirement for one child will not be the same for another. Any child or young person with a recognised visual condition will need to be on Early Years/School Action Plus or have a Statement of Special Educational Need

This Statement will describe all a child’s special educational needs (SEN) and the special help the child should receive. The local authority will usually make a Statement if they decide that all the special help a child needs cannot be provided from within the school’s resources. These resources could include money, staff time and special equipment. A Statement of SEN is set out in six parts.

For more information about these parts, please visit the Department for Education's website:

Note: The Department for Education is currently consulting on major changes to the SEN Framework.

2. Where the school or setting can get advice and support

Each local authority has a specialist service for visual impairment to assess, give advice and support schools, early years' settings and parents. This might be called Inclusion Team (VI), Sensory Service or VI service.

This service will be able to:

  • support and train staff to understand the visual condition and its effects
  • support effective planning to ensure a child can access the curriculum including Individual Education Plans and the use of support staff
  • advise on appropriate equipment and Information and communications technology (ICT) solutions to enable a child to be fully engaged in classroom teaching
  • advise on how to get large print / braille materials and guidelines for the enlargement of materials into the correct size for a specific child’s eye condition
  • support parents at home in the early years to provide information about developmental stages, play and early education settings

For more information about VI standards please visit our 'Quality standards' webpage at this address:

3. Extra support - Early Years ActionPlus and School Action Plus

If the support a child is receiving is not helping him or her to progress adequately, the teacher or the setting or school's Special Educational Need Co-ordinator (SENCO) should consult the child's parents about additional support. This could be from a Qualified Teacher of the Visually Impaired (QTVI) or an educational psychologist, for example. Help like this in early years' settings is referred to as "Early Years Action Plus", and when at school, "School Action Plus".

There should also be an Area SENCO employed by the local authority who is responsible for supporting non-maintained settings, such as playgroups or day nurseries, within their area. The Area SENCO's role is to support the work of the setting-based SENCO, although in many areas they also support children's move into schools.

4. The importance of effective support to allow access to the curriculum

Whether a child or young person is on Early Years or School Action Plus or has a Statement of Special Educational Need, the correct support is crucial in ensuring they have access to the full curriculum. Materials may need to be enlarged or put into braille. Enlargement software on a computer or lap top may be necessary, as well as the use of magnifiers and other resources. Additional teaching or learning support may need to be put into place.

Careful planning between the VI service (Qualified Teacher in Visually Impairment or QTVI), Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO), subject teachers and learning support needs to be put in place. Class work (and homework) will need to be prepared in advance to ensure it is presented to a child in the correct format. A child has the right to have the materials at the same time as other class members, which makes planning key.

Practical lessons such as science and PE need to be discussed with the VI service to ensure any issues relating to a child’s visual difficulties are taken into account. Moving around the school and playground environment safely will need to be discussed and the VI service may recommend a Mobility Officer to teach the child how best to manage in a new environment. If necessary/ appropriate they will teach cane use and/or routes to and from school.

You may also be interested in our 'Partners in learning' course which you can find more information about by visiting the following link:

5. What should be in place on an Individual Education Plan?

The SENCO in the school or early years setting has responsibility to ensure there is an Individual Education Plan (IEP) in place for a child with SEN to set short term targets. The IEP for a child with visual impairment is most likely to focus on their access to the curriculum, unless there are additional learning or other difficulties. The ‘success criteria’ will therefore need to consider targets that are ‘additional to or different from’ the curriculum that is followed by all the children within the class.

This means that the IEP should clearly be about what needs to be put in place to ensure a child can have full access to what is happening within the class. It needs to consider:

  • How a child can access material from the board.
  • The modifications necessary to ensure worksheets and text books are in the correct size, font, colour, spacing, or if needed, in braille or electronic format.
  • Where support staff time needs to be allocated with clear identification of role. Planning time with class teacher(s) identified and when resource preparation is to take place.
  • What teaching strategies are most effective to achieve access for a child.
  • What specialist equipment is needed to ensure access in different curriculum areas, including who will ensure it is in place.
  • What ICT / specialist equipment training for the child needs to be put in place (e.g. keyboard skills, use of specialist software).
  • Broader inclusion into the school – are support strategies needed to support social inclusion, independence or playtime activities?

The IEP should clearly state who is responsible for each point and this may be the SENCO, external VI service, learning support, class teacher or the pupil.

The child’s parent or carer should be invited to attend an IEP meeting and receive a copy of the programme of support.

6. What should be covered in the annual review?

The annual review process for any child with a Statement of Special Educational Need is set out by legislation and local authority policies. The Qualified Teacher of the Visually Impaired from the local authority sensory service can support with the annual targets through submitting a report or attending.

The process will involve reviewing the needs of the child or young person as set out in the Statement document. For a child with a visual impairment, the key areas for consideration are most likely to be:

  • Identification and acknowledgement of the need for all materials to be provided in a defined format and the resources and staffing needed to achieve this.
  • Identification of staff support necessary to ensure health and safety and access to class / school activity.
  • The need for a regular ICT / equipment assessment, subsequent monitoring, training and evaluation of effective use.
  • Review of need for mobility training to develop independence and broader life skills that are specific to the difficulties due to vision impairment.

If a child has additional difficulties these will be detailed within the Statement. Issues arising from visual impairment should be integrated as part of all the support requirements.

7. Transition for 14 – 19 year olds

If a child has a Statement of Special Educational Needs or additional support needs, the first annual review meeting after their 14th birthday will be a "Transition Review". At this stage, it will be time to start drawing up a Transition Plan.

Local authorities (LAs) may maintain Statements about young people until they are 19, provided they are at school. (In practice, young people staying on until 19 normally leave their school at the end of the academic year in which their 19th birthday falls.)

Leaving school at 16

A young person should avoid leaving school at 16 without another school placement being named on their Statement, or a college place agreed. The Statement will cease to apply if the young person:

  • leaves one school at 16 and the LA has not named another one on their Statement prior to them leaving
  • leaves school and goes into Further Education. The Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) takes responsibility for them at that point. The support they receive after that may turn out not to be as comprehensive as that provided in school. Please visit for more information.

For more information on student support (for 16 - 19 year olds) please visit the Department for Education pages at:

8. Further guides

You may also be interested in the following series of guides, all of which are relevant to children, young people and families:

  • Supporting Early Years Education series
  • Removing barriers to learning series
  • Teaching National Curriculum Subjects series
  • Complex needs series
  • Further and Higher education series

We also produce a number of stand-alone factsheets, on a range of topics, which may be of interest, please contact us to find out what we have available.

All these guides can be found in electronic form at For print, braille, large print or audio, please contact the RNIB Children, Young people and Families (CYPF)Team at or call on 0121 665 4235.

For further information about RNIB

Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), and its associate charity Action for Blind People, provide a range of services to support children with visual impairment, their families and the professionals who work with them.

RNIB Helpline can refer you to specialists for further advice and guidance relating to your situation. RNIB Helpline can also help you by providing information and advice on a range of topics, such as eye health, the latest products, leisure opportunities, benefits advice and emotional support.

Call the Helpline team on 0303 123 9999 or email

If you would like regular information to help your work with children who have sight problems, why not subscribe to "Insight", RNIB's magazine for all who live or work with children and young people with sight problems.

Information Disclaimer

Effective Practice Guides provide general information and ideas for consideration when working with children who have a visual impairment (and complex needs). All information provided is from the personal perspective of the author of each guide and as such, RNIB will not accept liability for any loss or damage or inconvenience arising as a consequence of the use of or the inability to use any information within this guide. Readers who use this guide and rely on any information do so at their own risk. All activities should be done with the full knowledge of the medical condition of the child and with guidance from the QTVI and other professionals involved with the child. RNIB does not represent or warrant that the information accessible via the website, including Effective Practice Guidance are accurate, complete or up to date.

Guide updated: July 2011

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