Jane Bell (Chief Executive Officer) looks to the future of education at InFocus College.
Our charity’s vision is a world where young people with visual impairment and complex needs are able to take their place in society, where they are valued for their contribution, and where their rights and independence are supported.
In one way or another we have been working to bring that vision to life for over 180 years. There have been changes of names above the door (from the “West of England Institution for the Instruction and Education of the Blind” to “WESC Foundation”, and now InFocus Charity). The services we offer have changed over the years as well, with the development of the school as a fully integrated provision for pupils with “little or no sight” in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the move to our current site on the Topsham Road in the 60’s, the introduction of our specialist further education College in the second part of the twentieth century, and more recently the development of services for adults with vision impairment and complex needs including residential care, supported living and day support. Alongside those changes, our unique expertise around the neuroscience of vision impairment has developed, along with our ability to support a wide range of complex and additional needs.
The times they are a-changin’
In more recent times we have seen a change in the desire to have younger children being educated at residential special schools a long distance from home. Many parents are preferring to keep their children closer to home, even if it means losing the access to the specialist education, equipment, and facilities that somewhere like InFocus uniquely offers. The increased policy focus of integrating children with visual impairment into mainstream schools and a reluctance of local authorities to use their limited high needs funding on what they perceive to be more expensive independent options has also impacted on school numbers
In response to this, in May 2021 we stopped accepting referrals for students under 16, and in July 2022 the five pupils remaining in our school will move to InFocus College or other suitable provision in the area. Commissioners and parents still see a vital role for our college provision focussing on helping young people take their next steps towards adulthood. In the last few years most of our new education enquiries and referrals have been for this age group, and in 2021/2022 we saw a noticeable increase in new college students.
During the past 12 months our Interim Principal and wider staff team have been working to drive improvement across our College. We weathered Covid with much resilience and praise for our support of our young people on site and at home. More recently, the Ofsted inspection of the Residential school provision graded it as “Good” (a huge step from the “Inadequate” judgement of the 2019 inspection). We know that there is still work to do to adapt our curriculum and styles of teaching from those of a “school and college” to a specialist further education college for young people preparing for adulthood. Much of that work to develop our college curriculum is in hand, and I will be sharing it in my next blog.
Investing in a unique resource in the region, if not the UK
This academic year we are investing over £400,000 of our charitable funds in our accommodation, our facilities, and our site, so that we can continue to offer the absolute best support for young people with vision impairment and other complex needs. There are plans to re-develop and expand our student accommodation within the College making it fully accessible and adapted to meet our student’s needs, and enabling us to support more students in the College
Funding is already in place to open an additional residential home for adults with vision impairment and complex needs as a sister provision to the CQC-Outstanding St David’s House. Expansion of our Jigsaw day service has already happened, and we plan to expand our specialist supported living in the next year or two.
We have also recently recruited a new permanent Principal and new Head of College Residential Care to build on the good work of the last 18 months, as well as making key appointments of vision impairment specialists within our Vision Impairment Advisory Team. In addition, we are carrying out a feasibility study about our proposed Vision Impairment Skills Centre, to see how we can widen access to our specialist services to other people living in the area who have vision impairment
We believe that this, combined with the expertise, knowledge, and experience of our staff, leaves us placed as a unique resource in the region, if not the UK. Our students come to us from all parts of the country, and we offer specialist assessments to support young people with vision impairment wherever they may live or study. Our charity has quietly evolved and developed to ensure it continues to meet the needs of young people and adults with vision impairment and complex needs in today’s world. As Socrates said, “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new”. We are most definitely “building the new”, both in terms of buildings and new services, whilst retaining the ethos and specialism rooted right back in our early days in Exeter 180 years ago.
If you want to know more about what InFocus is doing today, come and find out!