One staff room for fourteen years of a child's life

Rihiveli School opened in 1981 and became an all through school in 2009 when grades eleven and twelve were added. The preschool joined the same building in 2016.

The decision that has shaped this school most was made in 2018, when the inclusive learning unit was set up. There were four children on this island of school age who were not in school at all, and two more who came for an hour a day and sat at the back of a class of thirty.

The choice was between a separate unit with its own room, its own teacher and its own timetable, or an arrangement where every child belongs to an ordinary class and is supported inside it. We chose the second and it is harder. A separate unit is far easier to staff, to timetable and to describe to visitors, and the children in it are not in the school in any way that matters.

So every child with a plan is registered in an ordinary class, goes to that class's assembly, sits with that class at lunch, and is taught in it for as much of the week as the plan says is right. The unit is two rooms and four support assistants who go where the children are, plus a quiet room open all day. The coordinator writes the plans with the families and reviews each one every term.

What it has cost. Four support assistants for eleven plans is not enough, and in any week when one is away a plan is not being delivered as written, which we record and tell the family rather than smoothing over. We have no speech therapist, no occupational therapist and nobody qualified to assess a specific learning difficulty, and none of those exists on this island. What we do is say so plainly, help families arrange an assessment in Male including the boat and the appointment, and work from whatever the assessment says.

The other thing this school is short of is space, and the reason is the sea. The story of the playing field is on the work page and it is the honest answer to why our sports programme is what it is.