South Australian School and Services for Vision Impaired leads nation in support for students in schools across state

South Australian School for Vision Impaired was a specialist school for legally-blind children with less than 6/60 vision or severe field restriction. Its services extended state-wide with advisory teachers supporting schools having students with less than 6/18 vision in their better eye corrected.
Images courtesy South Australian School and Services for Vision Impaired

South Australian School and Services for Vision Impaired became based at a specialist primary school for the legally blind at Park Home in Adelaide – the only state government-funded school of its kind in Australia.

In 1970, the South Australian government took over running Townsend House Schools for Deaf and Blind Children at the seaside suburb of Brighton, where residential care was also provided for the children. When the government’s South Australian Schools for Deaf and Blind Children were created, the residential remained as Townsend House for Deaf and Blind Children.

The government education departments South Australian School for Vision Impaired shared the campus at Park Holme from 2004 with Ascot Park Primary School and  Kilparrin Teaching and Assessment School and Service for children up to five years of age who had sight, hearing and added disabilities.

South Australian School for Vision Impaired was a specialist school for legally-blind children with less than 6/60 vision or severe field restriction, who needed to access the expanded core curriculum for students with vision impairment. Its name was changed in 2022 to South Australian School and Services for Vision Impaired, reflecting its wider state-wide role with advisory teachers supporting students with less than 6/18 vision in their better eye corrected in other government and non-government mainstream schools.

Among those schools was Reception-to-Year 12 Charles Campbell Collegem in Adelaide northeast suburbs, with Australia’s only vision-support programme of its type for high school students with vision impairment. The services for vision impaired included accessible format production unit for braille and accessible resources and specialist resources including software, hardware and technology.

The range of activities South Australian School and Services for Vision Impaired included:

* In the Nest collaboration with Kilparrin Learning and Assessment School, a musical story commissioned by Connecting the Dots in Music to provide inspiring thematic material for young people to create their own artistic responses and performances.
*  Star Stories: A celebration of choreography, dance and music with First Nations dance and teaching artist Adrianne Semmens and funded by the City of Marion.
*  Students across South Australia attended a three-day course learning braille music.
•  High school students across South Australia attended the three-day camp for specialist blind sports and meet and hear from elite blind sporting athletes.
•  Access Technology and Orientation and Mobility camp.
 • Early Intervention group developed some best practice for supporting children and families developing education strategies, culminating in a tactile Teddies day.