The unit is the part of this school that families ask about most and it is described here in full.
Who it is for. Children whose learning, movement, hearing, sight, speech or behaviour needs something more than a class of twenty six can give. Eleven children have a written individual plan this year. About forty more get lighter support arranged by their class teacher with the unit and have no plan.
How a child comes in. A family may ask, or a teacher may raise it, and either way the unit observes the child in class for a fortnight first. Then a meeting with the family, and a written plan if that is what is agreed. Nothing happens before the family has read and agreed it.
What a plan says. What the child can do now, what the next step is, who does what and when, what the class teacher changes in the classroom, how progress will be judged, and the date of the next review. It is reviewed every term with the family and the family holds a copy. It is one page and a half, in plain sentences, because a plan nobody reads is a plan nobody follows.
The principle. Every child with a plan is registered in an ordinary class, goes to its assembly, sits with it at lunch, and is taught in it for as much of the week as the plan says is right. Support comes into the room. Where a plan says a child works better out of the room for part of the day, they go to the unit rooms and come back.
What we do not have. No speech therapist, no occupational therapist and nobody qualified to diagnose a specific learning difficulty, none of which exists on this island. We say so, we help arrange an assessment in Male including the boat and the appointment, and we work from what it says. And four assistants for eleven plans means that in any week when one is away, a plan is not being delivered as written. We record that and tell the family.