21 April 2016

St Vincent’s School Awarded Freedom of the City of Liverpool

St Vincent’s School, one of ten CISC Special Schools, has been awarded the Freedom of the City of Liverpool.

Principal, Dr John Patterson, is thrilled at this wonderful honour.

“This is a recognition our founders, the Daughters of Charity as well as the staff, and pupils, past present and future can be proud of. As a school it offers us a wonderful platform to thank those who support us and to highlight where, as a community of learners, we need more help.”

The school vision is to maximise employment opportunities for its visually impaired pupils through the promotion of project based creative work and give them opportunities to develop their individual strengths. This requires us to offer wide and varied experiences to enhance employable skills linked to the equally wide and varied strengths of our pupils. We need to challenge people’s expectations of Visually Impaired (VI) pupils using an outcomes focused vocational strategy. To deliver this we have engaged deeply with ‘social capital’ theory, which focuses on collaboration with a wide network of supportive projects.

Education and Enterprise Village and The Sightbox

“Our vision is to share best practice with the VI worldwide. We achieve this via our ‘Education and Enterprise Village ‘(EEV). The EEV aims to generate work for both our children and those from overseas. We are now working with Rotary (District 1180) to develop a ‘Sightbox’. This will be sent to our VI partner schools across the globe. The Sightbox will contain a range of access and supportive technologies which will allow VI children to engage with sports and education. We have researched a number of items and developed them in school. This has enabled us to support a number of Small Medium Sized Enterprises (SMES) as well as providing assistance to some of our pupils to engage with research and development. Joining Liverpool’s Social Enterprise Network has enhanced these opportunities. The engagement of experts ‘Juvo Designs’ is helping us bring our creative ideas to reality.”

The Million I’s Project

With Local Authority cuts, this is a tough time for our excellent Special Schools and there is a need to be resourceful. “We are launching the ‘Million I’s’ project at this event. The proposal is to bring overseas children and teachers to St Vincent’s to learn best practice and to research and develop the ‘Sightbox’. We would like you to engage your own networks. In this way you will contribute towards the scheme becoming viral. The aim is to encourage at least one million people to support St Vincent’s vision. Given this, you would help us challenge unemployment and generate new access technology with and for the VI.”

How you can help

All we are asking is for you to donate just £1 via your mobile and to spread the word throughout your own networks. TO DONATE please text MILI00 £1 to 70070 using your mobile. Alternatively, you can donate via our JustGiving page below (please note that as per JustGiving terms and conditions the minimum online donation is £2):