Liam only gets one hour of schooling each day

A Cork mother says her family is at breaking point because her son’s primary school will only teach him for one hour a day.

Six-year-old Liam Cunneen from Upper Glanmire, Co Cork, has been receiving just an hour of schooling a day since April.

A pupil of St Columba’s National School in Douglas, Liam started back to school with all the other pupils last week, but was once again restricted to just one hour a day — a situation expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

His mother, Julie Anne, is unhappy with the situation and wants to see her son get a proper education.

“I’m just shocked by the lack of the support,” she said. “My son is being failed and his education is being restricted. By the time he gets to the school it’s almost time to take him home again.

“The department will tell you one thing and the school will tell you another. You’re being bounced from pillar to post and all you know is that your child is only getting one hour of education.”

Liam is profoundly deaf and also suffers from a sensory processing disorder. He was accepted into the deaf unit in St Columba’s two years ago and was receiving full school days.

Six months later, Liam received a cochlear implant — a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf. Over the last 18 months, Liam’s understanding of sounds gradually improved and his speech began to advance.

Liam’s parents were then called to the school and told that the deaf unit could no longer cater for his oral needs and he had to be moved to the mainstream part of the school.

Liam’s mother reluctantly agreed and the next day Liam was taken from his class of six and was put in with a bigger class of pupils with whom he had not mixed with previously.

He was also restricted to one hour of school a day — the maximum amount of time the school could allocate a special needs assistant (SNA).

It takes Julie Anne 45 minutes to drive Liam to school. She then has to wait for his one hour of schooling to be complete before driving home again.

Julie Anne said the situation is having a devastating impact: “I can’t go to work, I can’t go to meetings, I’m completely stuck at the school for five days a week.

“If I’m feeling this frustrated and this upset, what must my son be feeling? Liam knows it’s not normal. He knows he should be in school with all the other children. It’s really affecting him. He can’t understand it.”

Julie Anne has sent a solicitor’s letter to the school calling for her son to be educated for the full school day, and while the school has acknowledged receipt of the letter, it has yet to respond to it.

When contacted, school principal Michelle Cashman said: “I’m afraid I’m not able to give you a comment about that particular situation. The only thing I’m allowed to say is, on behalf of the board of management, that we’ve appealed our SNA allocation. I can’t say more than that.”

A spokesperson from the National Education Welfare Board said: “It does happen where a school might have to restrict the hours of a student. They’re within their rights to do so, but we wouldn’t see it as a long-term solution.”