NextSense
NextSense, formerly the Royal Institute for Deaf & Blind Children, 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. NextSense 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. NextSense 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