The Royal National College for the Blind is a co-educational specialist residential college of further education based in the English city of Hereford. Students who attend the college are aged over 16 and blind or partially sighted. RNC hosts the UK’s first VI Sports Academy, having begun as the home of the first football academy for visually impaired players. RNC operates a leisure facility, thePoint4, which is open to the public, and conferencing and hotel accommodation under the name Gardner Hall.
About Royal National College for the Blind in brief
The Royal National College for the Blind is a co-educational specialist residential college of further education based in the English city of Hereford. Students who attend the college are aged over 16 and blind or partially sighted. RNC hosts the UK’s first VI Sports Academy, having begun as the home of the first football academy for visually impaired players and the England blind football team. RNC operates a leisure facility, thePoint4, which is open to the public, and conferencing and hotel accommodation under the name Gardner Hall. The college is a registered charity, and its Patron is Charles, Prince of Wales. There are several high-profile supporters, including Dave Clarke, former captain of the England and Great Britain blind football teams. RNC is actively involved in the development of assistive technology, including student participation in the Tech Novice Cafe, run for members of the public who are not confident in computer use. Two notable devices were developed at RNC; the Mountbatten Brailler, an electronic braille writer, and the T3, a talking tactile device that helped with the reading of maps and diagrams. RNC has a number of notable people among its alumni, including former Home Secretary David Blunkett. It was established in 1871 by the English philanthropist Thomas Rhodes Armitage and the American anti-slavery campaigner Francis Joseph Campbell, who lost his sight as a young boy. At the time, English schools for the blind did not provide their students with the skills to become independent and, dissatisfied with this situation, Armitgate dreamed of establishing a school whose emphasis was on music.
With donations of £3,000, the college enrolled its first two students on 1 March 1872. It has been a pioneer in the education of visually impaired people in Britain since the Victorian era, and, as of 2010, is the only college for blind students in the United Kingdom to have been awarded Beacon Status in recognition of its outstanding teaching and learning. The College offers training in mobility, independent living and personal development. It is home to RNC’s teaching, residential and leisure facilities, and its campus is located on Venns Lane, Hereford, with accommodation available for students in halls of residence. RNC was the subject of a 2007 film for the Channel 4 Cutting Edge documentary strand, which followed three students through their first term of study. The film won a 2008 Royal Television Society Award for its portrayal of the college’s students as independent and self-confident in their own right. It also hosted the 2010 World Blind Football Championship and also served as a training facility for participants in the 2012 Paralympic Games. Originally located in two small buildings near London’s Crystal Palace, it later moved to larger accommodation at Westow Street, Upper Norwood – where the name now commemorates its grounds are Westow Park. By the end of the 19th century the college was considered very progressive and experimental in its approach to education. In its early days, the College was placed on physical activities such as swimming, cycling and roller-skating.
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This page is based on the article Royal National College for the Blind published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
