In 2018 there were four children of school age on this island who were not in school, and two more who came for an hour a day and sat at the back of a class of thirty. Everybody knew, and nobody had a way to change it.
The school had a choice and it is worth setting out, because the easier option looks better on paper. A separate unit, with its own room, its own teacher and its own timetable, is simple to staff, simple to timetable and impressive to show a visitor. It is also a way of having children on the register who are not in the school in any sense that matters to them.
We chose the other way. Every child with a plan is registered in an ordinary class, is taught in it for as much of the week as their plan says is right, and support comes into the room rather than the child leaving it.
What that required. Two rooms rather than one classroom, four support assistants rather than one teacher, a coordinator who writes the plans with the families, a quiet room open all day that no child is ever sent to as a punishment, ramps and a rebuilt washroom, and the agreement of every class teacher in the school, which took a year and two staff meetings that were not comfortable.
Where it stands. Eleven children have a written plan. All six of the children from 2018 came to school and four of them are still here, one of them now in grade nine. Forty more children get lighter support with no plan at all.
What is still wrong. Four assistants for eleven plans means an absence is a plan not delivered, and we record that and tell the family rather than smoothing it over. And there is no therapist or assessor of any kind on this island, which is the single largest gap and not one the school can close by itself.