Ask your QTVI or habilitation officer to do a whole school premises check including the playground, to ensure ACCESSIBILITY AND SAFETY for a vision impaired child
For example:
- Outline step edges in yellow
- Highlight pillars and other vertical hazards and ensure all highlighting is near eye level
- Provide handrails on both sides of stairs
- Provide controllable lighting and blinds at windows to minimise glare
Other physical environment considerations
- Give the child time to get to know and become familiar with the physical environment.
- If appropriate give the child an individual tour of the school environment and show where resources are kept.
- Don’t change the room around too often.
- Does the classroom for a young vision impaired child need to be upstairs or can classes be swapped so class is on ground floor?
- Give vision impaired child a 5 minute pass to enable him or her to go up and down stairs before or after the crowd or to access the cloakroom without a crowd.
- Make wall displays accessible height-wise. Show them to the child 1:1.
- Choose a locker at eye height.
- Be mindful of trip hazards – computer cables, bag straps poking out from desks.
- Lights should not be turned off in areas of only occasional use.
- Put coat peg at end of row.
- Use a bright colour to differentiate the child’s sports and boom bag from other bags of the same colour.
- Secondary school – 2 school lockers may be needed for enlarged work files. Make sure lockers are accessible and not in a classroom as child may need to use locker more often than others.
- Use a brightly coloured padlock for locker.
- Plan and practise 1:1 procedure for fire alarm practice.