Positive Eye writes and publishes practical products to support you to enable the child with visual impairment in your class. Positive Eye is run by Gwyn McCormack. I am a qualified teacher of VI and run Positive Eye a company which delivers training and products nationally in the UK and internationally. We are the only independent training provider in the UK
Positive Eye writes and publishes practical products to support you to enable the child with visual impairment in your class. Positive Eye is run by Gwyn McCormack. I am a qualified teacher of VI and run Positive Eye a company which delivers training and products nationally in the UK and internationally. We are the only independent training provider in the UK
Who its for: class teacher
What's included: tips on supporting crucial organisational skills for a student with visual impairments
Learning objectives: Student can reach outcomes if access is enabled following these tips
Differentiation: reasonable adjustments means equality of access for student with visual impairment
Who its for: class teacher
What's included: tips on measuring tasks for a student with visual impairments
Learning objectives: Student can reach outcomes if access is enabled following these tips
Differentiation: reasonable adjustments means equality of access for student with visual impairment
Promote recognition of facial expressions and emotions to improve the child’s competency in social situations. A set of 12 simple black and white facial expression cards which include a description of each expression on the reverse.
Why use?
Help children to:
Recognise facial expressions
Understand emotions conveyed
Develop competency in social
situations
Benefits:
Useful for social skill group activities
Use to set individual social skills targets
Build a profile of the child’s technologyrequirements and make sure appropriate choices are made which meet their access needs.
Why use?
Provides comprehensive assessment of child’s access
Assessments are related to a range of curriculum activities
Includes additional skills required to use the technology
Benefits:
The assessments can be amended, added to, or used in part, according to the requirements of the assessment situation
Identifies the most appropriate type of technology to fulfil the child’s needs
Enables you to complete a final profile of need
Consult with the child about their curriculum access using this set of 15 bright coloured
picture cards which illustrate the main curriculum tasks that may be carried out on a
daily basis in the classroom.
Why use?
A useful tool for:
Consulting with the child during assessment and review
Reflecting on tasks that are easy and those the child would like to find easier
Target setting to develop independent access
Benefits:
Builds self esteem and confidence about tasks that can be done independently
Develops a positive ‘On my own I can... approach’
Involves the child in measuring their own progress and success
A bright colourful display portfolio for the child to record their involvement in their Education Health and Care Plan. The portfolio belongs to the child, and offers a place for them to record their views, wishes, feelings, aspirations, progress and successes.
It includes sections on: Social and Emotional Well Being, Curriculum Access, Mobility Skills,
Independent Living Skills, About Me, Understanding and managing my vision,
Transition (Mapped to ‘Better Assessments, Better Plans, Better Outcomes
NATSIP 2012).
Why use?
Enables the child to share their progress
Evidences child’s involvement in the plan and review of their support
Display wallet style enables pages to be changed each year
Benefits:
Child is an active part of their planning cycle
Child can look back and view progress
Child can personalise the portfolio
A practical tool to support a collaborative approach to ensure the school setting and classrooms are vision friendly, roles and responsibilities are clearly understood and an action plan is in place to ensure reasonable adjustments are made in line with the Equality
Act 2010.
• Reasonable Adjustments Charter
• Vision Friendly Classrooms Charter
• Roles and Responsibilities activity
• Provision plan
• Action plan
• Quality first teaching audit and self reflection resources
Why use?
Supports a collaborative approach to planning provision
Helps schools to understand what reasonable adjustments for a child
with vision impairment look like
Enables the school to demonstrate their commitment to creating an
inclusive setting
Benefits:
Guides a supportive approach when working with schools
Helps to promote understanding of the depth of the child’s needs in being
included
Provides a strategic approach to ensure reasonable adjustments are in
place
Plan the detailed provision required by the
child with vision impairment using this simple
tool. The plan includes:
• Section 1: School – Service support
agreement
• Section 2: Overview of provision
• Section 3: General provision by the
service
• Sections 4 – 8 refer to the areas of
specific access, Curriculum, Social
Inclusion, Specialist Equipment,
Physical environment, Daily Living Skills
Why use?
The plan demonstrates the joint and equal responsibility that is held
between school and service, to ensure that the needs of the child are met
to enable successful inclusion
It sets out in sections, roles and responsibilities and the provision that
needs to be made by both school and service
The plan can be amended to reflect the particular needs of the child
Aspects of provision can be added/removed
Fully adaptable to fit the child’s needs
Benefits:
Gives detailed provision points for each area of specific access
Clearly identifies each professional's responsibility
Makes it easy to record progress
Mapped to the Quality Standards for Children and Young People with Visual Impairment (2002)
Consult with the child about their curriculum access using this set of 15 bright coloured picture cards which illustrate the main curriculum tasks that may be carried out on a daily basis in the classroom.
Why use?
A useful tool for:
Consulting with the child during assessment and review
Reflecting on tasks that are easy and those the child would like to find easier
Target setting to develop independent
access
Benefits:
Builds self esteem and confidence about tasks that can be done independently
Develops a positive ‘On my own I can... approach’
Involves the child in measuring their own progress and success
Use the practical ideas and suggestions to deliver a programme to support the development of tactile skills towards a goal of understanding symbolic representation. A hierarchy of tactile skills for graphics is given with goals, resource suggestions, activities and observation points for each area. The skills are
divided into two sets and are integral to each other.
Skill set 1
• Understanding real life concepts
• Handling real objects
• Handling models
• Two dimensional representation
• Symbolic representations
Skill set 2
• Tactile discrimination skills
• Fine motor skills
Why use?
Programme of practical activities which can be embedded in the child’s
daily curriculum
Ready-made session plans for each skill area, provided in Word to enable
further plans to be created
Benefits:
Adaptable to child’s need
Enables assessment of child’s tactile skills and specific target setting
Observation points inform the practitioner of what to look for and enables specific evaluation of child’s progress
Support the understanding of voice tone,body language and facial expression with this set of 11 interactive activities and promote the development of positive social interactions in young people of upper primary/secondary school age.
Why use?
Provides a readymade, yet flexible programme fully adaptable to need
Sessions have a light hearted, fun approach, using role play to support learning
Can be used with a group or tailored for an individual child
Benefits:
Builds the skills needed for positive social experiences
Seeks to improve the child’s social interactions
Puts the child at the centre of planning a personalised social skill
programme
The pack outlines a range of fun activities which can be delivered to small groups using a ‘Circle of Friends' approach. Throughout the interactive sessions young people are encouraged to explore how they can understand other people’s body language, facial expressions and tone of voice during
conversations and to review how they present themselves in social situations.
The activities begin with a simple exercise in self-reflection where the young people are encouraged to think about different social situations they find easy and which ones they feel they would like to find easier. The next ten activities can then be delivered in a flexible way to suit the needs of the group. By using this product, practitioners can help children with SEND/VI to reflect on how they perceive their own level of social skills and put practical strategies in place to improve them.
Testimonial:
“The resource cards are excellent, providing a wide range of methods to
explore human emotions and behaviours. The possible interventions
suggested are limitless and make you stand back to consider all the
possible opportunities to develop these vital skills.”
Wendy Whitwell, Team Leader for VI, NW - UK
Develop awareness of specific social behaviours using these simple cards, each depicting a different social situations. The set comprises 14 high contrasting black/white/yellow picture cards each depicting a different social situation or skill. A description of the skill is given on the back of the card.
The cards depict typical social situations and appropriate behaviours, e.g. greeting, posture, avoiding rocking and hand flapping during conversations, maintaining the conversation, knowing
when it is your turn to talk.
Why use?
Set targets for the development of social skills
Raise awareness of acceptable social behaviour
Benefits:
Encourages discussion around social situations that the child/young
person would like to find easier
Help the child to develop social interaction skills, using this nine week programme which includes lesson objectives, activities, goals and targets, plus a simple monitoring and recording system and graphs to record the child's progress.
Why use?
Programme can be taught in a focussed way to a small group
Develops the main social skills of:
• Looking towards the person
• Turn taking in conversation
• Speaking during conversation
• Listening skills – active and attentive listening
• Giving and receiving instructions
Benefits:
Monitoring checklists can be printed for each session
Programme is fully adaptable to meet child’s needs
Progress can be recorded on the simple graph system
Promote the child’s independence and help your staff team plan their role using astructured and practical set of training and self reflection tools.
Why use?
How to help a child with SEND/VI to gain
a greater level of independence
The effectiveness of current interventions
The roles of all professional in maximising
independence
Benefits?
Approaches are embedded as part of the professional’s ongoing continuing professional development
Addresses the core purpose of the supporting practitioner
Enables a consistent whole school or specialist service approach
Targets strategies to maximise the child’s independence
Product resources are fully adaptable
Who’s in the Driving Seat contains the resources required to enable the school or specialist service to follow a simple strategic structured approach.
A training plan enables the initial concept to be presented to staff with the opportunity to self reflect and plan the way in which to support the child towards being independent.
Further resources and activities help the professional determine the correct level of intervention, and how to work with the child to define the support he or she requires to move towards independence in school.
A set of tools are provided to help the professional communicate this knowledge to class teachers, lunchtime supervisors and classroom assistants, making sure interventions are properly considered and appropriately targeted.
Who its for: class teacher
What's included: tips on measuring angles for a student with visual impairments
Learning objectives: Student can reach outcomes if access is enabled following these tips
Differentiation: reasonable adjustments means equality of access for student with visual impairment
Who its for: Class teachers
What's included: how to enable access to print media for students with vision impairments
Why its useful: helps the class teacher to understand reasonable adjustments for a student with vision impairments
Learning objectives; means the student can reach their outcomes as access is enabled appropriately
Differentiation: means the curriculum is accessible to the student
How to use: apply approaches in the classroom to equal include student
Who it's for: Class teachers
What's included: useful tips to support child's access to handwriing
Why it's useful: gives class teachers the reasonable adjustments to enable access
Learning objectives; these are more likely to be reached if the tips are followed and the child is enabled to read and edit their handwriting, or have an alternative means of communication
Who it's for: Class teachers
What's included: useful tips to enable tactile access to graphics
Why it's useful: explains the how of tactile access to support the class teacher to include the young person with VI
Learning objectives: advice given if followed will enable the young person to show their potential and to be equally included
Differentiation: enable the curriculum to be differentiated and made accessible for a student accessing by tactile methods
Who its for: class teacher
What's included: tips on describing images to a student with visual impairments
Learning objectives: Student can reach outcomes if access is enabled following these tips
Differentiation: reasonable adjustments means equality of access for student with visual impairment
Who it's for: Class teachers
Why its useful: provides advice on how to include a child with VI in your class
Learning objective: Following the advice means the child is enabled to reach their outcomes
Differentiation opportunities: this describes how to adjust the classroom setting and differentiate access
Tips on use: Include classroom management tips in the delivery of the curriculum to the child to enable access