English at KS3 and visual impairment

The National Curriculum for English is statutory in all maintained, mainstream schools up to and including key stage 4. An appropriate version of the curriculum is used in maintained special schools. Key Stage 3 (KS3) covers years 7-9, children aged 12-14 years.

A pupil with some sight will need to draw on memory to answer questions on texts. Plan lessons ahead, emailing texts to be studied, so they can be enlarged electronically, for example on an iPad set with a large font. Give large print hard-copies or enlarge text on an interactive whiteboard. Follow the advice of teachers of visually impaired children.

You can:

• Provide aural support as much as possible through recording instructions and enabling the pupil to access this, individually through headphones if necessary.
• Make sure key facts are accessible – either through recording so the pupil can play these back – using a digital recorder and saving work to the computer with separately stored files for different areas of input can be helpful as these can be permanently stored.
• With any computer use voice output software for the pupil with very poor sight, or a magnifying screen for the pupil with some functional sight. Simply using a large screen can be helpful, as the size of the document displayed can easily be enlarged.
• Allow extra time for the VI pupil to access whatever tools they need, and longer to look at resources that are handed out – try giving them their hand-out or resource first so they can have more time to familiarise themselves with it.