An SSP-VI works one-to-one with you on the academic impact of a vision impairment: getting course material into a format you can actually use, and building strategies for reading, research and assessment.
Higher education assumes fast visual scanning: skim a reading list, glance at a graph, take in a slide while listening. An SSP-VI helps you build alternative strategies that achieve the same academic outcome — structured listening, tactile and audio description of visual data, efficient screen reader workflows for journals and databases.
Sessions are academic support, not remedial teaching. The subject expertise stays with your tutors; the SSP works on how you access, organise and produce the work.
Much of the practical work is turning inaccessible material into usable material: badly scanned PDFs, image-only diagrams, spreadsheets built for sighted scanning, lecture slides with unlabelled figures.
Your SSP will also help you get real value from the assistive technology in your DSA award — magnification, screen readers, braille displays and note capture — so the equipment supports your workflow instead of sitting unused.
Where material needs to be produced accessibly at source, we help you make that case to your department and disability service, with clear evidence of what is not working and what would fix it.
SSP-VI is a DfE Band 3 role and can be delivered in person or remotely.
A sighted guide supports safe movement around campus. An SSP-VI works on your academic study — access to materials, study strategy and assessment preparation.
They can help you prepare and evidence what you need, though the arrangements themselves are agreed with your university.