Eleven reviews, one for each plan, held in the last fortnight of the term. Bring your copy and the things you disagree with.
Every individual plan is reviewed once a term with the family, and this term's reviews are in the last fortnight. Letters with a time have gone to all eleven families, and any time can be changed by a word at the office or on the Monday afternoon.
What happens in a review. We read the plan together, all of it, out loud. For each step we say what has actually happened rather than what was meant to happen. Then the next step is written, with who does what and when, and the date of the next review. It takes about forty minutes and the family leaves with the new copy in their hand.
What to bring. Your copy of the plan, marked up if you like. Anything your child has said at home about school, which is often the most useful information in the room. And the parts you disagree with, which we would much rather hear than not: four of the eleven plans were changed at the last review because a family said the arrangement was not working, and in two of those cases the school had not noticed.
What we will tell you, including when it is uncomfortable. Where a step in the plan has not been delivered as written, we will say so and say why. The commonest reason is an absent support assistant: there are four of them for eleven plans, and in any week when one is away a plan is not being fully delivered. We record those weeks and we will read you the record for your own child.
What the reviews are not. They are not an assessment and nobody in this school will offer your child a diagnosis or a label. There is no speech therapist, occupational therapist or assessor on this island. Where we think an assessment in Male would help, we will say so and help you arrange the boat and the appointment, as we have for four families in three years.
One thing worth saying to every family in the school rather than only to these eleven. A child does not need a plan to get help here. About forty children have lighter support arranged between their class teacher and the unit, fifteen minutes three times a week, mostly for reading, with no paperwork at all. If you think your child needs that, the Monday afternoon is the place to say so.