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A 13-year-old boy paints a picture of insensitivity at school to his vision problems.

I am 13 years old and this article is about a life-changing experience I am going through. I want to explain how teachers have treated me. So here I go.

I’ve had three major operations on my right eye. This is because my retina detached. At my age this, I was told, is rarer than winning the lottery. I’d already lost 98 per cent vision in my left eye when I was 10, also from a retinal detachment. I managed to keep positive as I still had my right vision. However, four years later a shadow appeared. I told my mum and she told me she thought it was a retinal detachment. Later, at Moorfield’s eye hospital, they confirmed my worst fear: I could go blind.

My first operation involved putting a buckle around my eye. I wasn’t able to go out for six weeks. It was a nightmare. Then I got another tear on my retina. I had to have yet another op to remove the buckle and this time they used silicone oil to push the retina in place. I had to stay in one position, keep my head facing the floor and sleep with a headrest for 14 days.

When I went back to school after the summer there were awkward questions. Before the summer, most kids at school didn’t even know I had vision issues. I did loads of sport, I didn’t have trouble with seeing the board in class, it was as if I could see the same as most other kids. But after I came back things were different. The response of the teachers was very important since I wanted my situation kept as low key as possible. However, most of them either forgot about it and needed constant reminding or they made it really obvious that I was disadvantaged. It got to the point where everyone in the class knew about it. It made me feel so exposed when I really wanted to blend in.

I don’t feel the teachers empathised with me. The special education team told my mother (they hardly spoke to me) what equipment was available, but didn’t ask what I needed as a person. They didn’t think about how to help me avoid isolation, or realised that I was mainly worrying about how I would handle upset feelings, and how I would deal with the fear of going blind.