Cut class sizes for infants, urge parents

INFANT class sizes should be reduced to identify and help children with learning difficulties as early as possible, according to the National Parents Council.

The Department of Education has turned down more than 600 applications for extra staff on behalf of 1,500 primary pupils with special needs after a review of procedures.

Their schools had applied to appoint resource teachers and special needs assistants for them, but the review found that 40% of cases did not satisfy the qualifying criteria.

The National Parents Council (Primary) said the criteria are very unclear and the department should create an overall strategy to give families and schools a clearer picture.

But NPC chief executive Fionnuala Kilfeather also said class sizes for younger children should be significantly reduced.

“If children get a good start in beginning of school, they are less likely to experience difficulties later on. But those who do have obvious needs could also be identified earlier in a smaller class,” she said.

She said resource teachers and special needs assistants should be an automatic right, but the department’s guidelines on how to qualify are unclear.

“It’s a matter of extreme urgency because week after week, more parents are utterly disappointed their children can’t get help. They are worried and frustrated that there’s no clear overall plan for all those things,” she said.

The review ordered by Education Minister Noel Dempsey followed the findings of a sample schools survey that one-in-eight Irish schoolchildren receives some form of special education, four times the EU average.

There are around 2,300 resource teachers and 4,700 special needs assistants working directly with pupils in the country’s 3,300 primary schools.

The Irish National Teachers Organisation supports the need for a major review of special needs provision at primary level, and said hundreds more appointments should be made.