New head of learning takes over at the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh

Lucy Chetty began her role this week and comes to Sight Scotland after serving as head teacher at Scottish Autism’s New Struan School.

The Royal Blind School is run by Sight Scotland and provides specialist education, care and learning to children and young people with visual impairment, including those with additional complex needs.

She will also head Sight Scotland’s education outreach service that provides support to children and young people with visual impairment in East Lothian, Midlothian and the Orkney Islands.

Sight Scotland, formerly known as Royal Blind, launched its new name and brand in October this year alongside the charity’s new vision to reach even more people with sight loss and their families in Scotland.

Lucy Chetty said: “I am delighted to be leading the Royal Blind School and to be part of developing bespoke education services with Sight Scotland, and I’m very much looking forward to getting to know the young people Sight Scotland supports, as well as their families.

“I’m excited to be joining a charity that has such a long history of supporting people with sight loss in Scotland.

“Helping young people with additional support needs to thrive and flourish has always been where my passion in education lies. I feel excited about the opportunities to develop meaningful and trusting relationships and partnerships.”

Hawys Kilday, director of services, Sight Scotland, said: “I am delighted to welcome Lucy Chetty to Sight Scotland and to have her on board as we continue to provide leading specialist education to our pupils at the Royal Blind School.

“The number of people who are blind or partially sighted in Scotland is set to increase by 30,000 in the next decade to over 200,000.1 We are dedicated to reaching out to even more people with visual impairment, with our specialist education services providing the best learning and life skills learning for even more pupils with visual impairment in mainstream schools, as well as in our specialist school, the Royal Blind School.”

A message from the Editor:Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.