Specialist teachers will provide blind and vision impaired students from western Victoria with better access to trained professionals in the classroom.
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Bacchus Marsh Grammar has joined with the Insight Education Centre to provide a specialist satellite unit at the school’s Maddingley campus.
The satellite unit will be accessible to all vision impaired students from the western region, while also allowing them to maintain their attendance at their current schools.
Based in Melbourne’s outer-east at Berwick, the education centre is the state’s only dedicated provider of specialist teachers for blind and vision impaired students.
Insight Education Centre principal Timothy Hemphill said the new satellite units will provide blind and vision impaired students with access to Insight’s specialist teachers.
“Who will deliver the expanded core and Victorian curriculum,” he said.
“In addition, the students will be able to access essential life skills and advocacy programs.”
“This affords the vision impaired students the best of both worlds for their education – specialist intervention within a mainstream setting.”
Insight Education Centre founder Dr Alan Lachman has been on a mission to provide access to the highest possible standard of education across the state for students who are blind and vision impaired since the centre’s opening in 2014.
His daughter Francesca is blind and was the inspiration behind the establishment of Insight.
The state was in the process of closing specialist schools for the blind when Mr Lachman returned from Italy with his family in 2007.
Mr Lachman wanted to build a school that specifically catered for young students with vision impairments.
This was to prepare them for mainstream school success and for independence as adults.
The partnership with Bacchus Marsh Grammar is the first step in the process of providing access for the state’s students who are blind and vision impaired.
A number of satellite units are planned for more schools across regional and metropolitan areas in the state.
Prospective students and their parents can attend an open day and information session for the Forward Thinking program at Bacchus Marsh Grammar.
The information session will start from 3.45pm on Friday, April 28 at the school.
An open day will run from 10am on Saturday, April 29.
