Special behaviour units don’t work, say parents

PARENTS of children with severe discipline problems do not favour the kind of special behaviour units being set up by the Government in dozens of schools, it has emerged.

The views were expressed by the parents of pupils from Dublin’s north inner city whose regular trouble in previous schools is a factor in their enrolment in a youth encounter project school. The comments came to light in a Department of Education inspector’s report on school, St Laurence O’Toole’s in North Strand.

The parents told the inspector that school life was more manageable for their children because of fewer teachers, no homework and individual attention. But, in what the inspector described as a very significant point, parents also said they believed the school worked because it was an independent, stand-alone school.