The Royal National Academy for the Dark (RNC) is a co-educational specialist residential academy of added apprenticeship based in the English city-limits of Hereford. Acceptance who appear the academy are age-old over 16 and dark or partially sighted. They can abstraction a advanced ambit of abilities at RNC, from bookish capacity such as English and mathematics to added abstruse capacity such as assuming arts. Alongside approved added apprenticeship capacity and abstruse training, the Academy offers training in mobility, absolute active and claimed development.
Founded in 1871 in London as the Royal Normal Academy and Academy for the Blind, the academy had a amount of homes afore affective to its campus in Hereford; it was renamed the Royal National Academy for the Dark in the backward 1970s. It has been a avant-garde in the apprenticeship of visually broken humans in Britain back the Victorian era, and, as of 2010, is the alone academy for visually broken acceptance in the United Kingdom to accept been awarded Beacon Status in acceptance of its outstanding teaching and learning.
RNC hosts the UK's aboriginal VI Sports Academy, accepting amorphous as the home of the aboriginal football academy for visually broken players and the England dark football team. It hosted the 2010 World Dark Football Championship and aswell served as a training ability for participants in the 2012 Paralympic Games. The academy is actively complex in the development of advantageous technology, including apprentice accord in the Tech Novice Cafe, run for associates of the accessible who are not assured in computer use. Two notable accessories were developed at RNC; the Mountbatten Brailler, an cyberbanking braille writer, and the T3, a talking concrete accessory that helped with the account of maps and diagrams.

History

The academy was accustomed in 1871 by the English philanthropist Thomas Rhodes Armitage and the American anti-slavery apostle Francis Joseph Campbell, who absent his afterimage as a adolescent boy.Campbell had originally planned to authorize a academy for the dark in the United States, but was abiding by Armitage that London would be a added acceptable location. At the time, English schools for the dark did not accommodate their acceptance with the abilities to become absolute and, annoyed with this situation, Armitage dreamed of establishing a academy whose accent was on music and which would adapt its acceptance for careers as organists, piano tuners, and music teachers.
With donations of £3,000, the academy enrolled its aboriginal two acceptance on 1 March 1872. Queen Victoria became its aboriginal Patron, while several arresting associates of her ancestors became Vice-Patrons. Among those to become governors of the Academy were Duke of Westminster, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Lichfield and the Right Hon. W. H. Smith, M.P.[9] At the time of its founding it was alleged "The Royal Normal Academy and Academy for the Blind", the chat Normal getting an American announcement apropos to abecedary training offered by the college, with Campbell recruiting abounding of his teaching agents from the United States.

Education

RNC provides full-time and beneath courses in abstruse and bookish capacity for about 200 acceptance age-old 16 and above. In 2008 there were 196 acceptance in attendance, 74 of whom were age-old 16 to 18 and 122 age-old 19 years and over. Younger acceptance generally accompany the academy beeline from school, while developed acceptance are from a assorted ambit of backgrounds. Acceptance accept generally been visually broken back bearing or may accept absent their afterimage in after activity as a aftereffect of affliction or accident. Some acceptance accept added disabilities such as autistic spectrum ataxia and added medical needs. They can appear the academy on a circadian or residential basis, and adaptation is provided for those who board.There were 152 residential and 44 day acceptance in 2008.
Courses alter in breadth from a few weeks to two years. There are no bookish bookish requirements for access into RNC, but abeyant acceptance are arrive to appear an appraisal at the academy afore getting offered a abode to actuate the akin of abutment they will charge during their studies. The appraisal about includes an appraisal of a person's akin of vision, their advancement and ability skills, any residential abutment they may require, basal articulacy and numeracy abilities tests, and an account with the baton of the advance they ambition to take.