The VI Forum

rniblogo

The VI Forum is moderated by Nina Philipps of the RNIB.

What is the VI Forum?
The VI Forum is an e-mail discussion list for education professionals:  Qualified Teachers of Vision Impairment (QTVIs), Habilitation specialists and other associated professionals working with children and young people with vision impairment to share good practice and seek solutions to the challenges of the profession. 

The purpose is to enable those who work with children and young people to ask questions and discuss issues of current interest. The conversations are also open to other VI professionals – anyone who may have pertinent questions and comments to share, e.g. access to examinations, curriculum issues and modification into Braille.. 

The value of the forum is:

  • It is free to join
  • It provides instant access to colleagues with similar concerns
  • It provides an opportunity to exchange professional views and opinions
  • It gives access to expertise
  • It can reduce professional isolation
  • Members can signpost others to useful resources

Posting on the VI Forum

Messages posted to the forum, via email, are automatically sent to all members. Members of the forum therefore need to be aware of the public nature of exchanges and ensure that they are not compromising their organisations when they reply to messages, as replies are sent to the forum list (not the indivdual who sent the original message) by default.

Advertising on the VI Forum

We will advertise CPD opportunities, news and resources for education professionals, information and activities for children, young people and families and job vacancies in a weekly VI Forum Digest every Friday.

If you have any announcements, information about courses, details of conferences, job vacancies etc. that you would like included in future notices, please send a paragraph (approx 100 words) with links to websites for further details. Please email this to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 16:00 on Thursday for inclusion in that week’s update.

Courtesy to other VI Forum users

We operate the usual basic courtesy rules and ask members of the forum to respect the no promotional advertising during the week rule. 

This applies in particular to job adverts. Job adverts can be also advertised on the VIEW website.

Who can join the VI forum?
Membership of the forum is open to QTVIs, TOVIs, associated professionals, support staff – any VI education professional who may have pertinent questions and comments to share within the wide field of vision impairment and education.  Membership applications are reviewed by one of the moderators before forum access is granted.

How to join the forum:

Complete the online form you can find here.

How to leave the forum

There is an Unsubscribe link at the bottom of all email messages.  Click on this link on the most recent email you have receieved.

About the SI Forums

The SI Community Forums were originally provided by BECTA, and then hosted by the DfE, until July 2019, when the DfE finally withdrew their servers.

NatSIP provided an interim solution during extended DfE server downtime during 2018-19 for the HoSS Forum, to keep communication flowing to Heads of SI Services.  In October 2019 NatSIP offered a permanent solution to the wider SI community, with four forums live on the new platform in November 2019, initially supported by DfE through Whole School SEND/nasen.

There are now five forums in the family, with the addition of the Lead QToD (Resource Provisions) Forum in February 2022.

Subscription to any of the five SI Community Forums is free. Colleagues, who meet the eligibility criteria, are encouraged to subscribe to more than one of the five forums.

The SI Community Forums project was founded, created and is powered by NatSIP, which has taken on the running and technical management of the SI Forums Platform.