Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (CFVI)

Defining specialist skills development and best practice support to promote equity, inclusion and personal agency. Download the CFVI from RNIB’s website and Visit the RNIB Bookshare CFVI Resource Hub.

CFVI guides for non-VI specialists

• Download short guides to support the understanding of the vital impact of joint working between specialists and non-specialists in the education of children and young people with vision impairment.
• There are guides for teachers, for support staff working with students with VI and for those in schools responsible for monitoring provision and planning around statutory and non-statutory documentation that reflect the needs of children and young people with VI.

Participant feedback from themed CPD events

• Getting started with the Curriculum Framework for children and young people with Vision Impairment (CFVI) – Sharing Practice and Experiences (PDF) This document provides a summary of participants’ responses in CPD undertaken during the academic year 2023-24. These CPD sessions focused on ‘Getting started with the Curriculum Framework for children and young people with Vision Impairment (CFVI) – Sharing Practice and Experiences. This summative document draws together shared experience and practices, organising participants’ responses into ways of working with the CFVI and brings together widely available resources that participants use in their work.

Download CFVI PowerPoint resources and training manual

• Working with partners across the sector and the UK, we have developed a suite of PowerPoint resources focusing on the different key areas of the CFVI. These resources can be used by specialists working with Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (CYPVI) in the field of VI education to support training to key stakeholders and to encourage and support the embedding of the CFVI within all settings.
• The CFVI Training Manual and CFVI Training Manual (Welsh) that accompanies the PowerPoints provides an overview of their content, including the key messages of each resource. The manual focuses on two of the PowerPoints in detail providing annotations to highlight similarities across the design of slides for Areas 2-11 as well providing an annotation of the Area 1 resource, where the content is organised slightly differently. Finally, the manual explores how the resources might be customised by a presenter.
• Visit: Specialist Training, Resources and Sensory Support Service Documents on RNIB’s website to access these resources

Watch the VIEW Conference 2023 – CFVI presentation

• Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (CFVI) One Year on
  Caireen Sutherland, Head of Education, RNIB – redacted version of the VIEW Conference presentation

Read the Policy Statements working to embed the CFVI into UK policy

• Since the successful launch of the Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (CFVI), we are working on how we can see it embedded into policy across the UK. We are now delighted to share a policy position statement for each of the nations, that sets out what the CFVI is, why it is important and what we would like to see happen in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. To access the policy statements, please visit: CFVI Policy Position statements

Download the CFVI and access the resource hub

This eagerly anticipated framework has been co-produced by the sector, for the sector to support specialists working with children and young people with a vision impairment by defining the specialist skills development and best practice support needed to promote equity, inclusion and personal agency. Download the CFVI and Read the FAQs on the framework

The framework presents outcomes within 11 teaching areas:

• Facilitating an Inclusive World
• Sensory Development
• Communication
• Literacy
• Habilitation: Orientation and Mobility
• Habilitation: Independent Living Skills
• Accessing information
• Technology
• Health: Social, Emotional, Mental and Physical Wellbeing
• Social, Sports and Leisure
• Preparing for Adulthood.

It provides a shared vocabulary to be used by children and young people, their families and professionals in the UK who work with them. A shared vocabulary supports both better communication and purpose.

At the heart of the Framework is a set of three fundamental aims:

• To help clarify and define the elements of specialist skill development, interventions and best practice support that are considered to be essential for children and young people with vision impairment;
• To assist qualified specialist practitioners in raising the awareness amongst other professionals and parents of the need for children and young people with vision impairment to be taught skills that enable them to access the curriculum and the wider world with as much independence as possible; 
• To aid discussions and understanding amongst all involved in a child/young person’s education of how and when these skills should be taught by suitably qualified specialists and reinforced by non-specialists.

You can download the CFVI from the RNIB website.

CFVI Resource Hub – RNIB Bookshare

To accompany the framework, we have developed an online resource hub which is available to all professionals working with children and young people with a vision impairment, free of charge through RNIB Bookshare.

The hub hosts and signposts to resources that have been developed and submitted by individuals, organisations and services from across the sector in relation to delivering the specialist skill areas defined by the new framework.

Visit the RNIB Bookshare CFVI Resource Hub.

The VI Curriculum Framework Project Team:

• The professional association for the Vision Impairment Education Workforce (VIEW)
• Vision Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research (VICTAR) at University of Birmingham
• Thomas Pocklington Trust (TPT)
• Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB).

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