A curriculum framework designed to be used by educational professionals, families and young people is transforming vision impairment education.
The framework enables children and young people with vision impairment to access the curriculum and the wider world as independently as possible.
Article by Adam Green, freelance journalist.
Globally, an estimated 312 million people under the age of 19 have a vision impairment. In the UK, inequity in education and support for children and young people with vision impairment (CYPVI) means many are not gaining the skills they need to successfully transition through education, into adulthood and the workplace. Employment rates are significantly lower for people with difficulty seeing (42%) compared to the non-disabled population (82%) and other disability groups (54%). The lack of opportunities and specialist support are compounded by the ‘postcode lottery’ with some geographical areas providing more special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support than others.
“Vision impairment in childhood is recognised as a low incidence yet high needs disability,” explains Associate Professor Rachel Hewett, Head of the Department of Disability Inclusion and Special Needs and co-director of the Vision Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research (VICTAR) at the University of Birmingham. “The support needs of this group are vast. Those able to follow a national curriculum do quite well academically in comparison to other SEND groups, but when they get to the employment stage, the stats are actually worse, and this statistic flips around.”
A successful transition into work requires many skills and competencies beyond a national curriculum including mobility and orientation, specialist technology, and independent living. “Things which are taken for granted, like knowing which clothes to wear in different contexts, are often learnt through observation. If you're blind, you don't have that opportunity [and] it needs to be explained.” An estimated 80% of learning occurs via sight in a child’s first twelve years. Without the right support, the development of these holistic skills are limited. This explains why CYPVI are at significant risk of becoming ‘NEET’, which refers to not being in employment, education or training.
Typical first jobs that teenagers do while studying, like paper rounds or working in a shop, are often sight dependent. “Schools can be reluctant to support young people with vision impairment doing work experience, pointing to health and safety risks, and therefore tell the students to focus on their academics,” Hewett notes. “But that sends a message to the child and their parents that can make them think ‘I'm not meant to work’”. This is worrying at a time when over one million young people are classified as NEET in the UK.
The problem is partly caused by the lack of standardisation in specialist support and a limited understanding of this low incidence disability by non-specialist educators. For instance, in sports, “we’ve consistently heard about schools saying, ‘we don't know how to make a sports activity inclusive for a child with vision impairment’ and, because specialist services are stretched and aren’t always able to arrange an alternative, the child then sits out,” notes Hewett.
The right support ensures children and young people with vision impairment can access an appropriate and equitable education.
Without an agreed national specialist curriculum or framework, approaches tend to splinter. Existing frameworks focus predominately on the responsibilities of specialists. This can make communication between specialists and non-specialists difficult when talking about what should be taught, when, and by whom, as well as the responsibilities of schools. For non-specialists this can lead to over-emphasis on supporting access to learning, with limited focus on helping the child to develop skills and strategies to become more independent in their learning – those very skills which are imperative for them later in life. Research shows that if children with vision impairment do receive the right support, this can have a positive impact on how they get on once they leave school.
The University of Birmingham has been undertaking research into the education of CYPVI and training specialist teachers for over 50 years. The Vision Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research (VICTAR) at the University of Birmingham, launched in autumn 2001, is promoting a collaborative approach to building skills in education. Alongside sector leading partners including the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), Vision Impairment Education Workforce (VIEW), and the Thomas Pocklington Trust (TPT), they worked with professionals, parents and young people across the sector to develop the Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (CFVI) between 2020 and 2022. A second edition, based on research feedback, was published in September 2025.
We wanted to put together a framework that explains all the important things that children with vision impairments should be able to access through education, and to make sure that they're not just doing well academically, they're doing well for life.
“VIEW, a charity which represents professionals working with CYPVI, put together a position paper which argued why a framework like the CFVI was needed to improve the available support. VIEW subsequently approached VICTAR to find out if we would be interested in partnering in this project as much of our previous research underpinned the arguments they were making, including a proposal to draw on the 'Access to Learning-Learning to Access' model. This conceptual model, developed by academics in VICTAR, argues that education has a dual role in both ensuring fair and optimised access to education, while also supporting the development of independence,” says Hewett.
“We wanted to put together a framework that explains all the important things that children with vision impairments should be able to access through education, and to make sure that they're not just doing well academically, they're doing well for life. We also wanted to ensure that it represented all children with vision impairment, including those with additional learning or physical needs.” By providing a structured, evidence-based approach, the framework could foster consistency across services and narrow the postcode lottery.
Whilst other frameworks solely focus on the development of specialist skills, the CFVI outlines strategies for supporting the educational and social inclusion of CYPVI in addition to developing the broad range of skills needed to learn alongside their peers and live as independently as possible in adulthood.
Offering a shared vocabulary for professionals, CYPVI and their families for the first time, it is designed to be used by everyone involved in the support of CYPVI, including the child or young person themselves. It facilitates discussions and understanding of how and when certain skills should be taught by specialists and reinforced by non-specialists. This supports collaboration, consistency of provision, continuity at transition points and a shared idea of what vision impairment education should be; a focus on long-term outcomes rather than short-term strategies that foster dependency or merely save money.
While specialists are central to this, the objective of the CFVI is that everyone should be involved in implementation.
“While specialists are central to this, the objective of the CFVI is that everyone should be involved in implementation. If we think of a simple example of a child in a mainstream school, it is likely that they need to be taught touch typing skills to be able to most effectively access their learning. It is the specialist’s role to identify this need and to teach those skills. But then it is the school’s responsibility to help embed those skills in their day-to-day learning and provide the necessary infrastructure, so that over time the child will be able to independently complete their work on a computer.” says Hewett.
'Access to Learning' is reflected under Area 1 of the CFVI which ensures an inclusive learning experience for children and young people with vision impairment.
The CFVI was built on multi-stage research and three rounds of consultative processes with 48 representatives including young people, parents and educational professionals. It is based on the two pillars of the dual access model: 'Access to Learning, and Learning to Access'.
'Access to Learning' is reflected under Area 1 of the CFVI which focusses on inclusion and inclusive practice to ensure physical and social environments are accessible for CYPVI. 'Learning to Access' is captured under Areas 2-11 which highlight the particular skills that CYPVI require to enable them to participate in education with increasing independence, learn how to carry out everyday activities, move around by themselves to whatever extent is possible, and to feel fully included in their education setting.
“It's about building those broad skill sets that any child needs, but for children with vision impairment, this needs to be more purposeful. For example, when using technology, some might also need to be taught to use a screen reader or magnification software. They might be learning to access literacy through braille, and they might need to learn things like how to get around independently, how to use trains, how to use buses,” says Hewett.
'Learning to Access' is captured under Areas 2-11 of the CFVI which support children and young people with vision impairment to develop independence.
The implementation of the CFVI has involved training events delivered by RNIB for specialist professionals, the development of guides for non-specialists, and a Resource Hub to support the delivery of the specialist skill areas.
To ensure the CFVI catalyses change, the VICTAR team closely tracks implementation. Following its creation in 2022, they conducted a three year study, undertaking surveys with service providers across the UK and producing case studies. “We saw that use of the framework actually increased over time. Often you will see initial interest that decreases over time, so this was really encouraging,” says Hewett. At the time of the first survey in 2023, 66% of respondents reported that they were using the CFVI. By 2025, this had increased to 92%.
The CFVI is having a material impact on the design and delivery of specialist services and on provision in specialist settings. “Professionals are using it to structure the services that they run,” Hewett notes. Some have also restructured their previous models. “Before, people didn’t have a nationally recognised framework or a point of reference. But now they do, and it has increased levels of credibility and built shared understanding with other professionals,” says Hewett.
“Our partnerships with third-sector organisations have been key to the CFVI’s implementation as they’re the ones who can get it out to specialist and non-specialist educators. Their support has meant the research and framework have gained significant traction,” says Hewett.
In 2025, the team commenced a longitudinal study, running until 2028, tracking how the CFVI is being best utilised by educators in day-to-day education, exploring it particularly from the perspective of low-income families who often face particular barriers in accessing SEND services, and investigating how specialist educational approaches can best support inclusive education.
Download the CFVI to support children and young people with vision impairment access an appropriate and equitable education.
The UK government’s newly-launched SEND reforms, which include a £3.4 billion drive to support schools and educators, is an opportunity to reimagine education for the 34,500 children and young people in England who are visually impaired.
Dr Rachel Hewett joins RNIB roundtable with sector leading partners, young people and UK Minister for School Standards Georgia Gould to discuss improving education and support for children and young people with vision impairment. Credit: Rahil Ahmad
Policy reform is vital to ensure skills and education support is comprehensive. Hewett and her team, alongside partners, are working to secure the CFVI’s official incorporation into SEND policy. Their recently released policy recommendations advocate for the CFVI to be recognised and referenced in UK-wide SEND policies and embedded in local authority service commissioning and delivery frameworks. This is to ensure that the core areas are recognised as essential, not optional skills that children and young people with vision impairment must be taught in order to thrive, supporting the need for specialist provision.
While UK-focused, the initiative’s impact is already far-reaching, given the similar challenges facing young people everywhere, with early signs of adoption from a specialist school in Pakistan to interest from a vision impairment charity in Canada.
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Associate Professor
Dr Rachel Hewett, is working on a number of projects in connection with visual impairment and is a member of VICTAR.
