How Virtual Learning College Uses Helperbird
Most schools think about accessibility as something you add to a classroom. Virtual Learning College (opens in a new tab) does not have a classroom. Every lesson they teach happens in a browser tab.
That changes where accessibility has to live. If a learner needs text read aloud, a cleaner page, or a different font, no amount of classroom adjustment reaches them. It has to happen in the browser, on whatever page the lesson is on, at the moment they need it.
We have gifted Virtual Learning College Helperbird licenses for their learners. Here is what they do, and why a browser extension turned out to be the right shape of tool for it.
Who Virtual Learning College is
Virtual Learning College is a registered charity based in Birmingham, UK (charity number 1213091 (opens in a new tab), registered April 2025). They are registered as a CIO, and their charitable objects are direct about who they exist for:
"The advancement of education through the provision of online education for secondary school aged students... who are unable to attend mainstream school by way of behavioural challenges, special educational needs, mental and or physical ill health needs."
In practice that means live online lessons leading to GCSEs in English, Maths and Science, plus Functional Skills and Entry Level qualifications. They are a Pearson Approved Exam Centre, and they work alongside schools, local authorities, hospitals and care providers.
Their learners include neurodivergent students, young people with SEND, students experiencing EBSA and anxiety, young people in care, learners with medical needs, and teenage parents. These are students for whom the mainstream route has not worked, for a wide range of reasons.
The challenge
An online school inherits a problem that a physical school does not have.
In a classroom, a teaching assistant can sit beside a student. A worksheet can be printed on cream paper at 18pt. A reading pen can be handed across a desk. The adjustment is physical, and someone can make it on the spot.
Online, every one of those adjustments has to be something the learner can do themselves, on their own device, in the moment. And it has to work everywhere — not only inside the school's own platform, but on the exam board's site, on a research page, on a PDF, on whatever the lesson happens to point at that day.
That is a hard problem to solve with a platform feature. A platform can only change its own pages.
Why a browser extension fits
This is the specific reason a browser extension suits alternative provision better than most software.
Helperbird is not a place learners go. It is a layer that travels with them across every tab. The same reading ruler works on the lesson, the past paper and the Wikipedia article. The same voice reads all three. A learner sets it up once and it follows them.
For a school whose entire delivery is online, that coverage is the whole point. There is no "our platform" versus "the rest of the web" — it is all one web, and it all needs to work.
In their own words
Virtual Learning College described the fit like this:
"At Virtual Learning College, many of our learners are neurodivergent, including students with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and other additional learning needs. By using the Helperbird Chrome extension, we can provide students with a range of accessibility tools that help remove barriers to learning and support greater independence.
Features such as text-to-speech, reading support, translation, dictation, and customisation options enable learners to access content in ways that suit their individual needs.
As an online education provider, we are always looking for innovative solutions that improve accessibility, engagement, and achievement, and Helperbird is helping us create a more inclusive learning environment where every student has the opportunity to succeed."
The phrase worth pulling out is greater independence. Not "we can support them more" — "they can do more themselves." That is the difference between an adjustment someone makes for you and a tool you control.
The tools their learners use
Virtual Learning College named five things. Here is what each one does day to day.
Text to speech
Text to speech reads any page aloud in a natural voice, highlighting each word as it goes. For a learner with dyslexia, hearing and seeing the same sentence together is often the difference between decoding a passage and understanding it.
It works on the lesson, on a past paper, and on a PDF — not only inside one app.
Reading support
Several tools sit under this heading. Reading Mode strips a page back to its text, which matters enormously for a student with ADHD trying to work on a page surrounded by navigation and adverts. Immersive Reader adds line focus, syllable breaks and a picture dictionary. The reading ruler tracks the line you are on, and color overlays take the glare off the page for learners with visual stress.
Translation
Translation covers learners for whom English is an additional language, and it works on the page in front of them rather than requiring them to copy text into another tab.
Dictation
Voice typing lets a learner speak their answer instead of typing it. For students with dyspraxia, or anyone for whom the physical act of writing is the bottleneck rather than the thinking, this removes the barrier between having an idea and getting it down. Word prediction helps finish the rest.
Customization
Dyslexia-friendly fonts such as OpenDyslexic and Lexend, plus letter, word and line spacing controls. There is no single setting that works for every learner, which is exactly why it is adjustable rather than preset.
Why this matters for alternative provision
Alternative provision serves students who have already had an experience of education not working for them. Many arrive having been told, implicitly or explicitly, that the problem was them.
A tool that a learner controls themselves sends the opposite message. Turning on a dyslexia font is not a concession granted by an adult. It is a setting, like screen brightness. The student decides. That framing matters as much as the feature does.
It also scales in a way that one-to-one support cannot. A small charity cannot put a teaching assistant beside every learner in every lesson. It can give every learner a toolkit that travels with them.
Supporting the work
We have gifted Virtual Learning College their Helperbird licenses. They are a small registered charity doing work that is difficult, unglamorous and genuinely needed, for students the system has struggled to reach.
If you run a school, college or alternative provision setting, Helperbird for Education covers your whole organization under one price rather than per seat. Trainers and teachers can also get Helperbird Pro free.
Get started
The everyday tools — dyslexia fonts, color overlays, reading mode, text to speech — are free forever, with no account needed. Add Helperbird to your browser and they work on the next page you open.
If you are supporting learners who cannot attend mainstream school, that matters: there is nothing to procure and nothing to wait for before a student can try it.
See everything Helperbird does or talk to us about your setting.