Word transcript of transitions video – Siraj’s story
S: Siraj
S:
My name is Siraj. I'm sixteen years old and I've got cone rod
dystrophy which is a visual impairment that affects my central
vision. I'm in my first year of college in my AS Level. And having a
visual impairment meant that I needed a lot more support for the
transition between school and college. But I was helped quite a lot
with the college and with the school to get into where I am now.
I got support with coming into college, navigation around the
college and in the classroom I get a learning support assistant who
will copy what the teacher is doing in the lesson. So if the
teacher's writing on the board, the learning support assistant will
either write in my book or on to a smaller whiteboard so I can see it
a lot easier.
I'm doing four courses at college. I'm doing maths, biology,
business studies and computing. So they're all very different. The
level of support does range between subjects. So I have the most
support in maths and the least in computing because certain areas
of maths like diagrams and graphs can be quite difficult to see
because there's a lot of information in one place.
In the classroom I use a laptop for my work. So if the teacher's got
something on their computer I can see it on my laptop and magnify
it to whatever level I need it. In general the support is fairly similar
to what I was getting in school. However there is a lot more…a lot
more focus on independence at college. So I try to be as
independent as possible from the support assistant.
For getting to and from college I have had support from the
Birmingham LEA who have provided a taxi to get to and from
college so it's a lot easier than worrying about buses and trains.
In school it was quite easy to socialise because you're all in the
same class together for all subjects. Whereas at college you're
with different people in different subjects and they're all at different
times. And being sat with a LSA does make it a lot more difficult to
socialise but I've been lucky here in the sense that there's lots of
good people around so I've made…I made friends quite quickly.
For a person with visual impairment coming to college, the most
important thing to know is that it's completely different to school in
terms of the asking for support. You need to have that confidence
to be able to say, I need help in this situation whereas in school it
would be given to you anyway. You definitely need to ask for it in
college.
For information about Transitions, visit rnib.org.uk/young-people.
[Music].
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