1. Our duty, plainly
Under the Equality Act 2010 we must make reasonable adjustments for disabled children, and that duty is anticipatory — we have to think about it in advance rather than wait for a child to struggle and then react. Autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, anxiety disorders, speech and language differences and sensory processing differences all count as disabilities under the Act when they have a substantial long-term effect.
The person who runs Arcadia is autistic and dyslexic. That is not a credential, but it does mean the design decisions below were not guesses.
2. What is already built in
| Barrier | What Arcadia does about it, by default |
|---|---|
| Speaking out loud is hard, or impossible on a bad day | Nobody ever has to talk. Every activity works in text. Voice is optional, always, at any age. No "just say hello", no register taken out loud. |
| Cameras are unbearable | There are no webcams in Arcadia at all. Not optional-but-encouraged — the feature is not used. |
| Reading a wall of text | Instructions are short, in steps, one thing at a time. Guides are reference pages you dip into, not documents to read through. Sans-serif type, generous line spacing, high contrast, no justified text. |
| Passwords that cannot be remembered | Logins are a colour-and-animal phrase, memorable and long, instead of symbol soup. One login works across all the tools. |
| Unpredictability and sudden change | Sessions run the same shape each time. Changes to worlds or tools are said in advance. Nothing is moved or renamed without warning. |
| Being rushed | No timers, no streaks, no countdowns, no leaderboards ranking members against each other. Projects can sit unfinished for months and nobody comments. |
| Sensory overload | No autoplaying sound, no flashing, no animation that cannot be stopped. The site honours "reduce motion" if it is set on the device. |
| Losing work, and the distress that causes | Everything is backed up nightly. Builds are protected by whitelists so other members cannot destroy them. |
| Social rules that are never explained | The Code of Conduct says what to do in concrete terms rather than "be appropriate". Sanctions are explained with a stated end point. |
| Special interests being treated as a problem | They are treated as the point. A member who wants to build the same kind of machine for a year is doing exactly what this club is for. |
| Being blamed for a meltdown or shutdown | The behaviour policy treats these as needs to support, not offences to punish. |
3. Adjustments we will make on request
Ask, and it happens. No evidence, no diagnosis and no explanation required.
- A one-to-one session or a private world instead of a shared one.
- Text-only membership — no voice channels at all.
- Instructions in writing, given before the session so they can be read in advance.
- A shorter session, or breaks at fixed points.
- A heads-up before anything changes.
- Turning off notifications, or a quieter chat with fewer channels.
- Not being asked direct questions in a group.
- A parent sitting in.
- Larger text, different colours, or a copy of a guide printed off.
- Time to finish something before the session ends, rather than stopping mid-build.
Email ErisTaylor@cognitocoding.com. Nothing here is treated as a special favour or a burden.
4. What we will not do
- We will not require a diagnosis, an EHCP or a letter to make an adjustment.
- We will not ask for, keep, or want copies of medical or SEND paperwork. See section 5.
- We will not tell other members why somebody's setup is different.
- We will not use a child's needs as a reason to exclude them from something — we change the activity instead.
- We will not lower what we expect a child can achieve. The work here is real coding and real engineering, and it stays that way.
5. What we record, and where
Information about disability is special category data under UK GDPR, so Arcadia holds as little of it as possible and keeps none of it on the club server.
- The club server holds nothing. No diagnosis, no EHCP, no accessibility fields on accounts.
- Practical adjustments are noted off the server, encrypted, readable only by Eris, and phrased as actions — "give instructions in writing", not "has a diagnosis of x".
- It is not shared with other members or their families.
- It is deleted when the child leaves the club.
Full detail is in the Privacy Notice, section 6.
6. The website and tools
These pages aim at WCAG 2.2 level AA. In practice that means: text resizes without breaking, everything works from the keyboard, headings are properly structured, images have descriptions, links say where they go, and colour is never the only way information is given.
Some of the tools inside Arcadia are third-party open-source software — Scratch, Blockbench, the chat client — and we do not control their accessibility. Where one of them blocks a member, tell us and we will find a way round it, including doing that part a different way.
If any page is hard to use, say so. That is a bug report, not a complaint, and it gets fixed.
7. Review
Reviewed annually, and whenever a member tells us something did not work for them.