Use of special education teachers in mainstream classes harming those with 'greatest needs'

The report looks at the provision of education in mainstream schools for children with special educational needs, based on inspections in 17 primary schools and 12 post-primary schools conducted last year.

There needs to be a “whole of system response” to better meet the needs of children with special educational needs, as resources meant for them in some schools are being used to teach maths and English to mainstream classes.

Furthermore, a new report has said that mainstream schools should ensure that additional resources allocated to them to support children with special education needs are used “solely and in their entirety” for that specific purpose.

The report from the Department of Education Inspectorate, a division responsible for evaluating educational settings, found scope for improvement in a number of areas, it said.

It comes at the start of a new school year in which parents have reported being unable to secure a school place for their child with special educational needs. Figures provided to the Ombudsman for Children at the start of this month suggested there were still 126 children without a school place.

The department report delves into the provision of education in mainstream schools for children with special educational needs, based on inspections in 17 primary schools and 12 post-primary schools conducted last year.

While it did identify positive aspects in this regard, further improvements were needed.

In some primary schools, the report noted that some special education teachers were teaching significant elements of the maths and English curricula to mainstream classes.

“The deployment of special education teachers in this way impacted negatively on the support available for children with the greatest needs in these schools,” it said.

“In other schools, there was significant erosion of teaching time for children with special educational needs at particular times of the year.” 

In eight of the post-primary schools inspected, special education teaching resources were used to “form smaller mainstream class groups and smaller subject groups or to provide additional subject option blocks at senior cycle”.

It said: “While this approach led to reduced student-teacher ratios and the provision of additional subject options, it had an evident negative impact on the quality of teaching for those young people at the levels of support for some and support for a few.

“In another school, fewer than half of the available additional teaching hours were used to provide additional support to young people.” 

The report concluded that it is the responsibility of each individual school to use the additional special education teaching resources given to them solely for that purpose, and recommended a collaborative approach across agencies to address these issues.

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It also highlighted that issues regarding assessment must be addressed, as “beginning a learning programme or intervention without a plan informed by assessment information is extremely problematic”.

Minister of State for Special Education Hildegarde Naughton said there has been a detailed review of the last 18 months on the guidance material and other supports for schools in supporting children with special educational needs.

“As a result the Department will be issuing updated guidance to schools in the coming weeks which will greatly assist schools in addressing many of the recommendations in this report,” Ms Naughton said.