‘We must target resources at children who need them most’
UNDER a system proposed by the National Council for Special Education on foot of a working group’s consultations with education groups over the past year, each school would be allocated most of their special education teachers on the basis of three criteria.
The main one would be the number of pupils with complex special educational needs, but the numbers who score well belowaverage on reading and maths tests, as well as the social context of a school, would also be taken into account.
While the existing 11,000 resource teachers would be redistributed on the basis of the data, which the Department of Education has already started compiling, every school would also be given a small baseline number of support teachers. This model would replace the system under which such staff are allocated in two ways.
Learning support teachers are allocated to each primary school, based mainly on its size but also on gender mix of pupils and disadvantage status. Around 4,700 such posts are currently provided to cater for children with low reading or maths scores, or with common learning difficulties like dyslexia, or mild speech and language difficulties.
While schools have freedom to use these staff according to the needs of their pupils, the system means schools of the same size may have to cater for very different numbers of children with special needs but with the same level of staffing.
The other existing system means children require a diagnosis of a certain category of disability to qualify for one-to-one work with a resource teacher. The number of hours available for pupils in each category is restricted to 85% of the time recommended when the current system was introduced in 2005, as there is a limit on their numbers, set at 6,200 after a recent increase secured by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn.
The NCSE says it will be fairer and more transparent if schools get extra teachers based on a system in which resources are targeted at those children who need them most. However, it acknowledges that there will be anxiety for parents, given the possibility that some pupils may end up with fewer weekly hours of special needs teaching than they currently receive.
While it will be left for each school to decide how its allocation is deployed, NCSE chairman Eamon Stack said principals will decide based on the input of teachers, scores on standardised tests, and other information.
“If we can’t get leaders of learning to allocate resources properly, we have a bigger problem,” he said.
In a booklet for parents to explain the proposed changes, it is made clear they can discuss concerns with teachers, principals and, if necessary, the school board. The NCSE report also recommends an independent appeal process be available where parents are not satisfied that a child is getting the right level of support.
The same process would allow schools appeal the basis on which their resources have been allocated.
Each school’s profile would be reviewed every two years to see if support teacher numbers need to be increased, or perhaps reduced, and the NCSE would monitor how well extra staff are being deployed by checking progress of pupils against targets in individual plans. It is also proposed to allow schools additional staff if there are big increases in a particular year in the numbers of pupils who need higher levels of support.
Mr Quinn said changes he was proposing to the 1998 Education Act should give greater power to parents to bring grievances about how schools treat their children, through a planned charter. He said the Government has given priority to the education of children with special needs, an area in which his department spends €1.2bn a year — the equivalent of the annual Garda budget.
Parents and education groups yesterday broadly welcomed plans for a new way to allocate extra teaching supports for children with special needs.
But they cautioned that schools would need proper resources and supports to make the new system work.
The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) says the system it has proposed to Education Minister Ruairi Quinn would ensure children were supported based on their learning needs rather than a label of one disability or another.
It would also end a system under which students have to wait for a diagnosis before getting one-to-one resource teaching, currently sanctioned by the NCSE.
Instead, schools would be given support teachers based on the number of children with complex special needs, and other detailed criteria, to cater for all pupils with varying levels of need.
Although parents, teachers and other stakeholders will have their views considered before any changes are implemented, Mr Quinn said he supported moving away from the current model which could reward advantage — by allowing children with disabilities whose parents can afford private assessments — to get additional one-to-one teaching before others.
But he said the results of a profiling exercise of all 4,000 schools — which he expects to be completed by autumn — would be awaited before the issue of resources is examined.
Mr Quinn was responding to questions about the possible need for more than the current 11,000-plus teachers who work specifically with children with special needs. While he would like to think the new system might be in place by September 2015, he said it would be better to get the system right than make changes in a set timeframe.
Áine Lynch, chief executive of the National Parents’ Council-Primary, said parents should not see this as a precursor to cuts in overall numbers.
While individual children or schools might see their special needs’ teaching hours reduced, she said it meant pupils would get support based on their learning needs instead of just a label.
“And their progress will be measured against targets in [a particular] plan,” said Ms Lynch, a member of the NCSE group that devised the proposals.
Special Needs Parents Association chair Lorraine Dempsey said that rather than being compared to existing services, the proposal should be seen as a blank canvas on which a new special education system could be modelled.
“Parents need to focus on the benefits of a system that would be centred on each child’s needs,” she said.
Irish National Teachers’ Organisation general secretary Sheila Nunan said the current system, while not perfect, ensured that children got access to resource teaching in a timely fashion and the union would oppose bureaucracy becoming a barrier to supports being provided.
“Inclusive schools need to be fully supported by government policy and the provision of resources,” she said.
“Additional paperwork and unnecessarily complicated application processes are not acceptable to teachers already struggling with some of the largest classes in the EU, and to principal teachers most of whom teach full time,” she saidThe Joint Managerial Body, which represents almost 400 secondary schools, welcomed the principle of the recommendations but said schools must be assured of appropriate levels of support teachers, special needs assistants and management support to implement the proposals.
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