She finds her way around the school with the help of a Braille stick, a textured map that she helped design and she says her other senses guide her.
"I use my senses more than my memory and sometimes my friends or teachers tell me if I'm heading the wrong way."
LITTLE WINNER: Natalie Johnston (centre) with Joe Smith, Genea Huijs and the school map.
PHOTOS/STUART MUNRO
Natalie's friends, Genea Huijs and Joe Smith, are happy to help her at school - although teacher aide Fran Dryden discourages them from helping too much.
"She can find her way around and where things are," said Mrs Dryden.
Natalie makes short work of climbing the playground slide on her own and scrambles over the swing bridges and down the twisting pipe only needing a little verbal guidance from Mrs Dryden to find her Braille stick at the bottom.
Although she only started learning Braille at the beginning of the year, Natalie has just won first place in the Young Braille Writers competition, a national competition for 5 to 8-year-olds.
Natalie dictated the story to Amanda Gough of Blind and Low Vision Education Network NZ (BLENZ) who read it back to her while she typed it on her Perkins Brailler machine.
Mum Clare Johnston said the operation her daughter had last year was a procedure she had been through before.
"We didn't expect there to be any problems but her eye pressure was high after the surgery which caused a detached retina and it was too late to re-attach it when it was discovered."
Natalie was born with septo-optic dysplasia - also known as De Morsier syndrome - which is characterised by a malformed optic disk and nerve, pituitary deficiencies and often the absence of the septum pellucidum which separates the ventricles of the brain.
"She has always been quite brave - and quite stroppy," laughs her mum.
"Natalie still has spatial awareness of where things are around the house and she walks and runs around confidently.
"It is only when something is left on the floor or a door is unexpectedly shut that she has crashes."
