The Department

Trinity is resourced to support students who have varying degrees of visual impairment. There is one specialist teacher based here full-time, plus other staff from the Inclusion Service for the Visually Impaired who give students support in specific areas including mobility skills.

Department Staff:

• Ms V Price
• Mrs J Fallows
• Mr M Flynn
• Mrs G Darbyshire
• Ms J Grant

Resources

Materials required by the students are prepared in the Resource Base. These include Braille, large-print and modified copies of books and worksheets, tactile diagrams and work recorded on cassette.

Specialist equipment is available both in the Resource Base and around school. A scanner, closed-circuit televisions and other low vision aids are used, but increasing emphasis is placed on computers. Blind students use a laptop with speech in class (with head phones); in this way they can take notes or do assignments which can subsequently be printed out for the teacher and brailled out for themselves. Other visually impaired students have their own personalised settings which enables them to see the computer screen wherever they are working in school.

Using electronic equipment, text can be scanned onto a computer and then produced in large print using a suitable word processing package, or Brailled using a Braille embosser. In this way the mainstream curriculum can be modified to make it accessible to the visually impaired student. Most of the students take part in 100% of the curriculum, but will use the Resource Base at lunchtime and before school for instruction and help with life skills, including keyboarding skills. All students are encouraged to work with the mobility officer in order to encourage independent travel and see the careers officer with responsibility for students with special needs.

Help and Support

Students and staff are aware that visually impaired students need special consideration such as being allowed extra time to complete work, while at the same time being treated as any other member of the school.

Support is provided in the classroom where needed. Often this is in a practical subject or in examination coursework with older students. Support and advice are also offered to mainstream staff without whose help and co-operation the successful inclusion of these students could not take place.

Much additional and incidental work is carried out to improve our visually impaired students independence such as trips and visits that take place throughout the year. (Details of these are listed below)

Mobility

The students have individual mobility lessons which cover the use of public transport (Buses, Trams and Trains).

The aim of these sessions is to assist the student in independent travel.  Many of the students have been able to travel by public transport to and from school by the end of Year 9. The students have used Assisted Travel from Manchester Piccadilly station to Birmingham New Street station. They were escorted on to the train by rail staff and then met at the end of the journey by rail staff.
To reinforce the travel training the students booked a trip to Blackpool by train.  This enabled them to experience the whole process of timetables, cost and booking the tickets.

ICC 2007 Trip to Helsinki, Finland

International Computer and Communications Camp
Four students from Year 11 attended a Computer and Communication Camp for Visually Impaired young people in Helsinki. Everyday they attended a variety of different workshops including the following; Goldwave (software program), Soft cell Braille, craft workshops and social group activities.
This was a wonderful experience in which they met other young people from different countries e.g. Russia, Italy and Austria.

View Gallery

Lobby Parliament - ‘Right To Read’

In March 2007 we were invited to the Houses of Parliament to Lobby our MP's for the ‘Right To Read’ for blind and partially sighted people. This was a national event organised by the ‘Royal National Institute for the Blind’ (RNIB).

MP John Leech, the MP for Withington, was present and noted our concerns and passed them onto the publishers.

Independence Development Service (IDS)

This is a service which offers students the opportunity to improve their independence skills e.g. cooking a meal, travel training and cleaning their room. Students complete a four week, four nights per week residential. This helps them to develop personal, social and emotional independence through practical experience.

ASDAN

A quote from one of the VI students...

...“The ASDAN course is a Life skills course. It helps to develop our independence and confidence too. In the past we have done topics such as smoking, personal hygiene, community, etc.  Recently, we have started cooking every Thursday to help build our confidence and independence in the kitchen”.

The students recently set up the Waste Paper Recycling scheme. This will enable the school as a whole to recycle waste paper and help the environment.

VI Bowling Trip

Every year, at Christmas we organised a bowling trip as a VI service. We do this as a fun night out, and everyone is invited to come bowling with us.