Andrew Gwynne, MP for Denton and Reddish, has backed LEGO’s and RNIB’s ‘Braille Bricks’ scheme, and joined calls from the charity to end the postcode lottery of provision for children with visual impairment.
Pictured: Gwynne at the ‘Braille Bricks’ event in Parliament last week.
The scheme comes alongside a new report from the RNIB which calls on the Government to tackle the postcode lottery of specialist visual impairment Provision and ensure that there are enough specialists to provide the support children with visual impairment need. The ‘Still left for Learning’ report found that 39 per cent of local authorities in England have seen their vision impairment (VI) education service budgets cut or frozen over the last year.
The LEGO Braille Bricks concept is a play-based methodology that teaches braille to children who are blind or have a visual impairment. Each brick in the Braille Bricks toolkit retains its iconic form, but unlike a regular LEGO brick, the studs are arranged to correspond to numbers and letters in the Braille alphabet.
Over the last 18 months, RNIB has delivered training to almost 800 teaching professionals and distributed over 2,000 sets of the bricks.
Gwynne attended a Braille Bricks event in Parliament last week, where he was introduced to teachers and RNIB campaigners, and got to try out the innovative Braille Bricks.
Commenting, Andrew Gwynne said:
“It was so great to learn more about LEGO Braille Bricks, and the incredible work that the RNIB and LEGO are doing to help children with Visual Impairment.
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of LEGO, so it was fantastic to see the bricks used in such an educational and engaging way.
For too many children with visual impairments, there is a postcode lottery on access to support and specialised learning. The Government must do more to ensure that no child with visual impairment is left behind.”
To find out more about LEGO Braille Bricks, click here.
Pictured: Gwynne with Braille Bricks spelling out Denton and Reddish