Parents campaign for Katie to benefit from one-to-one resource teaching

Katie Connolly turned five in February, has Down’s syndrome, and will start school in September.

However, because Katie has a mild rather than a moderate learning disability, and has no other disability, she will not get the guaranteed resource teaching her parents, Jackie and Ray, believe she deserves. She will only be given extra support from within the school’s general allocation of resource and learning support, which mostly provides for literacy and numeracy, and she might not get the three hours a week tailored teaching her parents want.

The family say children with Down’s syndrome should be given automatic entitlement to one-to-one resource teaching, which used to be the case until Department of Education rules changed in 2005.