RNIB's new President, Dame Gail Ronson, our young people and staff were delighted to welcome Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal as she officially opened RNIB Pears Centre for Specialist Learning in Coventry on Thursday 13 September 2012.
The Princess toured the facilities with RNIB's Chief Executive Lesley-Anne Alexander, meeting the young people and enjoying a short performance they had prepared.
Guests at the celebration also included legendary Beatles producer Sir George Martin and other key supporters. They were thanked for their vital role in helping to provide new state-of-the-art education, care and therapy facilities for our young people with complex needs who are blind or partially sighted.
The children's home was recently awarded an Ofsted 'Outstanding' grade and the school attained specialist status in Special Educational Needs (SEN) for cognition and learning in 2010.
Lesley-Anne Alexander CBE, RNIB Chief Executive, said:
"It is a tremendous honour for RNIB to have The Princess Royal officially open RNIB Pears Centre. We are very proud of the centre and delighted that The Princess Royal will be able to see the work that we're doing here and meet our young people.
"We wanted to create the best learning and living environment for the students to ensure that each young person realises his or her full potential and the awards so far achieved are testament to this."