Fears for Down Syndrome pupils

Parents of children with Down syndrome due to start school this year remain unclear if they will have access to one-to-one special teaching.

Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan has been asked to rectify the situation for next September in which children with Down syndrome, who have a mild general learning disability, must depend on a portion of their school’s general allocation of learning support teaching hours.

This is different to most pupils with Down syndrome, who qualify for their own individual resource teaching allocation because they have a moderate general learning disability.