My son is 12 now, when he was 8 it was discovered he had bi lateral cataracts, these were operated on and we thought all was well. Despite missing all his school milestones (failing yr 2 SATS etc), the local primary school never noticed (to be fair neither did we) that he hadn't been able to see.
Shortly after his operation we noticed problems with his reading, missing words out/reading the wrong lines. He was given tints in glasses as this was put down to visual stress. Because the school hadn't noticed his poor vision I decided to move him to an independent school with small class sizes, which has meant me working full time again to pay for it. He has been there two years (albeit much of the time in lockdown), he loves it there, but until parents evening we hadn't realised how much he'd been struggling. We got his eyes tested again he's now at 6/36, which could be classed as visually impaired. At the moment there is no medical reason for this, the best the consultant can come up with is stress (he's really not stressed, leads quite a charmed life, albeit with teenage hormones kicking in) The school say they don't have the resources to help him in class on an ongoing basis, despite being a delightful child (clearly they've not seem him at mealtimes or if he doesn't get his own way!). Sometimes work is read out to him, but more often he is left to enlarge stuff on his lap top, which given his visual stress makes keeping up with lessons near on impossible. Unless he gets an EHCP Assessment and this results in a lot of extra assistance, the school don't have the resources to support his needs. I should find out in a couple of weeks if he gets the assessment, I doubt he will, we've been told our evidence is weak, the school haven't been doing the assess/plan/do/review reports regularly enough and have blamed Covid, I had to submit the application as the school thought as it was an independent school we'd stand a better chance if I wrote it. I'm also not sure that because he's not quite blind enough (?), and has visual stress, not dyxlexia, that he won't qualify for the assessment either.
In hindsight the SENCO is inexperienced and out of her depth. The local authority visual impairment team will only work with State Schools, our local state school is rated Good, he will know quite a lot of kids there, but I worry about the large class sizes and the potential for him to be easily led astray (He probably has adhd and sensory issues, but that's a whole other thread!) There's another independent that's non selective (he'd never get in anywhere where he had to pass an exam), but it's small and I've heard mixed reports, it's also a long bus ride, it could be a case of out of the frying pan into the fire. If he's changing schools I don't want to find that we're back in this position in a year's time. Does anyone have any tips for dealing with educating a visually impaired child and how they've managed in either state or private school and the sort of support that has been made available to them and whether it has assisted their child?
I did think if I sent him to the local school may be I could find a tutor for him, but having googled etc wouldn't know where to start to find one. Any tips gratefully received! Thank you for reading.