Pupils: Visual Impairment
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of requiring educational settings to work with relevant specialists when developing Individual Support Plans for children and young people with vision impairment.
Answered by Department for Education
Individual Support Plans (ISPs) will provide every child and young person with special educational needs (SEN) a clear and consistent record of their needs and the help they receive, so that the support they receive, including from specialists, is joined up and timely and helps them thrive.
Our reforms are designed to strengthen the capability of mainstream education settings by improving access to key services and health and specialist education practitioners. We are investing £1.8 billion in the Experts at Hand model over the next three years. For children and young people with vision impairment, the specialist workforce available through Experts at Hand includes Qualified Teachers of children and young people with Vision Impairment and Habilitation specialists, alongside other professionals such as occupational therapists, educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, where relevant to the child or young person’s needs and the development of their ISP.
We are developing National Inclusion Standards that set out evidence-based tools, strategies and approaches to draw on to identify and support children and young people with additional needs. We are focused on providing schools and settings with the expert advice and guidance they need to help them identify and meet a range of SEN, including those of children and young people with visual impairments.
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