‘No account taken of the impact reduced support will have on pupils’
St Louis Girls School in Monaghan town is one of just over 1,000 primary schools where the role of special needs assistants (SNAs) has been reviewed since last April.
The four girls, who get help from three SNAs, two full-time and one on a 20-hour week, all have physical care needs and two have additional special needs which have merited support for many years. But the review means the school’s SNA resources sanctioned by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) will drop by 14 hours a week from February 1, even though SNA provision in around two-thirds of the country’s 4,000 schools has yet to be assessed.
