Submissions also emphasised the importance of school-based supports for many disabled people and their whānau. Yet, many of these have reduced or disappeared in the past few months or are inaccessible to disabled students who have had to stay at home to avoid the serious risks of COVID-19: “Some children have support at school but no support at home, so when they have to stay at home they have no support and neither do the families.” (Submission) Several examples were shared around schools not having contingency plans to ensure that support workers and teachers’ aides were available for disabled students and their whānau. Submissions also highlighted that, for some disabled students, returning to education settings after long periods isolating at home and with limited contact with the wider community was especially difficult and required additional support. This has not been part of planning and schools are generally not resourced to meet the new needs of disabled students caused by the pandemic and its restrictions: “For children with intellectual disability it is like anyone returning to something after a traumatic event, they will have experienced regression and need time to fill in the gaps before they can move forward. Teachers know this but are not being given the resources or time to meet the learning needs of this population group of students.” (Submission) “There have been no additional learning support resources or topping up of teacher aide hours to allow these students to re-engage with learning. Staff are overwhelmed.” (Submission) Appropriate forward planning by the Ministry of Education toward ensuring as many supports as possible for disabled children and young people, and their whānau could continue to be available was missing: “For disabled students the Omicron outbreak hit just as students who were already lagging way behind were starting to feel they might be able to move forward with their learning. This has compromised teachers ability to support and provide for their students. There are concerns that there has been no systemic approach to address these issues or sufficient forward planning on the part of the Ministry of Education. There appears to be no plan within the learning support model to address the gaps experienced by disabled students in their learning due to the COVID pandemic.” (Submission) 39