Royal Institute For Deaf and Blind Children

Royal Institute For Deaf And Blind Children

Coordinates: 33°46′00″S 151°01′42″E / 33.766804°S 151.028302°E / -33.766804; 151.028302

The Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) in Sydney provides a range of educational services for students with vision and/or hearing impairment, including specialist schools for signing deaf students, oral deaf students, and students with sensory and intellectual disabilities.

RIDBC offers additional services such as therapy and braille text production, a children's audiology centre, and also conducts research and professional development through its RIDBC Renwick Centre. Historically it is an important centre of deaf culture in Australia.

RIDBC was opened on the 22 October 1860 by deaf Scottish immigrant Thomas Pattison, who was the school's first teacher. Located at 152 Liverpool St Sydney, the school was originally named the "Deaf and Dumb Institution of New South Wales". From its early days it was open to all deaf children, though many were turned away for lack of resources. Sydney was still a young city at the time, with only 80,000 inhabitants; the University of Sydney had been established a mere ten years prior and public education was in its infancy. The school began to take in blind students in 1869, and added the word "blind" to its name. It was predominantly a boarding school, and moved many times within central Sydney to accommodate more students as the school grew, including stints in Paddington and Newtown, before finding its present home in North Rocks in 1962. It currently operates several educational centres around New South Wales and offers some national services.

David Hunter, a former student of the school who had been blind from age 6, was elected as member of the NSW parliament (for Ashfield) when he was 35 and served there for 35 years (1940–1976). He was responsible for the passing of an Act in 1944 to make the education of blind and deaf children compulsory. Another well-known student was Alice Betteridge, the first Australian deafblind child to receive an education. She enrolled in 1908 at the age of seven where she learned to read and write, graduating as dux in 1920.