Maisie Barrett has accomplished much in her 65 years of life. She is an activist, an author, and a public speaker; a multiple degree holder in subjects such as Caribbean studies and creative writing; a mother to three children and an all-around force for change.

But when she was just six years old, young Maisie was sent to a school for children with severe mental and physical disabilities – a so-called school for the ‘educationally subnormal’ (ESN).

The term ESN was introduced in 1944 through the Education Act and required Local Education Authorities to provide special treatment for those marked ‘ESN’. But there was nothing “special” about the education – or lack thereof – that Maisie and her peers received.

A leaked 1967 report showed that Black children were four times as likely as white children to be wrongfully sent to an ESN school. This was likely in reaction to eleven local area authorities deciding that schools should limit the number of immigrant children to no more than 30% of their total student population. This expectation saw educators scrambling for reasons to exclude or disperse Black children to other schools, including ESN ones.