Parents who are asked to accept a shorter school day for their children with special needs should refuse to do so, the lead author of a new report has suggested.

The trade union which represents special needs assistants has called for immediate consultation on Government plans to introduce changes in the funding and delivery of the service.

The Ombudsman for Children has said he will watch to ensure commitments made about the education of Syrian refugees in special reception centres around the country are met.

Hundreds of teachers are to be trained in programmes aimed at preventing suicide and helping teenagers cope with traumatic incidents.

School principals have identified online and peer pressure as causes of the sexualisation of primary school pupils.

School principals have identified online and peer pressure as causes of the sexualisation of primary school pupils.

The rate of self-harming among children and young people soared 22% over a 10-year period to the end of 2016.

The boy who was killed in the light airplane crash in Offaly on Sunday afternoon has been remembered as a “happy, smiling young boy” by the principal of his school.

Seventy children of school-going age died by suicide last year as mental health professionals begged for more staff.

Psychologists specialising in helping students through difficult ordeals were yesterday giving help to teachers at the school attended by 14-year-old Elisha Gault, whose body was found in the River Suir on Sunday night after an eight-day search.

Supports are to be allocated without the need for the assessment of pupils to guarantee extra help at school.

The Government has been urged to increase the number of educational psychologists across the country by 60% due to the volume of children needing psychological support.

The five family members who died in Monday’s murder-suicide will be laid out together tomorrow afternoon before being buried together on Saturday.

Bishop of Kilmore Leo O’Reilly says the community of Castlerahan will unite and support one another in the aftermath of Monday’s murder-suicide.

Gardaí are treating the death of a family of five at a house in Co Cavan as a murder- suicide.

She deprived her young son of sleep, dressed him in unfamiliar clothes and filled him full of liquids so that he struggled to control his bladder. And she did it out of love, writes Caroline O’Doherty

Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan will need extra funds by the year end to cater for more students qualifying for college grants and more special needs’ supports in schools.

A number of investigations are under way after 50 secondary school pupils had a “miracle” escape when their bus overturned in Co Cork yesterday morning.

There will be 4% more resource teachers in schools in September to help children with disabilities.

Teachers are being drafted in to fill staff shortages in the National Educational Psychological Service that are leaving pupils with disabilities unable to get access to extra help in schools.

Children will be asked for their views on school atmosphere and their teachers as part of a suggested process to help support pupils’ mental health.

The teenage daughter of a couple who died in an apparent murder-suicide wrote a poignant message on her Facebook page earlier this year urging people not to consider taking their own lives.

A man has been charged with the murder of his parents after appearing at a special sitting of Ballyshannon District Court in Co Donegal.

School friends and teachers of Thomas and Paddy O’Driscoll at Banogue National School were trying to come to terms with news of the tragedy yesterday.

It is just over two years, almost to the day, since the tragic death of a child devastated the north Cork town of Charleville.

Education and health experts are providing support for classmates of Brandon Skeffington.

An eight-year-old schoolboy had made his first confession only hours before sustaining fatal injuries in a quad bike accident.

Students are still waiting months for important assessments, despite all schools having access to the public educational psychological service, it was claimed.

Bodies representing children with disabilities have been left out of a working group devising changes to how resource teachers are allocated for them to schools.

Parents of children with disabilities are being forced to pay for private assessments to avoid long waits for extra school supports, a parents’ organisation has claimed.

IN JUNE, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn was given Cabinet approval for 500 additional teachers to be appointed to schools this month.

Parents gathered together in little huddles and went in and out of Ballinkillen NS yesterday, to hear how best they can tell their own children about what happened to Eoghan and Ruairí Chada, while just a few hundred metres away Kathleen Chada was attempting to take in the enormity of her loss.

AODHÁN O’Riordáin is a Labour TD for Dublin North central and Brian Collins is a Labour councillor in Co Meath.

A double murder investigation is expected to be launched in Killorglin, Co Kerry today, following the grim discovery of the bodies of a young mother and her daughter in a house in the town on Sunday night.

Little Enrika’s classmates and teachers at Scoil Mhuire in Killorglin were yesterday trying to come to terms with the tragic news of her death.

Concerns have been raised that students given supports to take account of learning difficulties in the Junior Certificate are not receiving the same allowances when they sit the Leaving Certificate.

Gardaí have not ruled out the possibility that a girl who took her life in Co Kildare at the weekend may have suffered cyberbullying.

Gardaí will today resume questioning a 43-year-old mother in connection with the death of her only child at a house in North Cork.

Pupils and staff at Anthony Ward’s school have been receiving help to cope with the tragic loss of their classmate and pupil.

Junior Certificate students whose classmate died suddenly on Monday night will be allowed to start this afternoon’s Irish exam late so they can attend his funeral.

THE state’s educational psychologist service for school-going children is “grossly under-funded” and its ratio of psychologists to pupils is much higher than the European average, with 5,000 pupils to each psychologist, instead of 3,000 to one.