A round peg forced into a square system: The reality facing one Cork special school

Carrigaline Community Special School highlights the consequences of opening new schools without the therapy and resources students need

Education / News Marking: XX Carrigaline Community Special School. Picture Chani Anderson

There’s an analogy that parents who have spoken to the Irish Examiner about Carrigaline Community Special School (CCSS) often use when describing their concerns.

“It’s a special school. It has a round shape. They are trying to fit that round shape into a triangle or into a square. That’s not how it works,” one parent said last week.

CCSS is for students who have a dual diagnosis of autism and an intellectual disability. They have a mix of varied and complex needs, and experience dysregulation. They need support beyond that of a teacher or a special needs assistant (SNA).

Their school building is a repurposed former Gaelscoil, a retrofit, not originally built with their specific needs in mind. It has just one sensory room to share between each of its 47 students. In a similar vein, the approach has been to try to shoehorn their education as a retrofit add-on to the current system. 

This approach is continuing to fail them, their families, and the staff working to educate them. 

The circumstances in which this school opened require far more than tick-the-box solutions. They need urgency and accountability.

The school opened quickly in 2021 because the system had not planned for these students, among the most vulnerable in the country, and there was nowhere else for them to go. It opened off the back of covid school closures and the removal of therapists from schools under the HSE’s Progressing Disabilities Services, a move “that has not worked” according to the Taoiseach.

The Department of Education has sanctioned 16 new special schools since 2020, after having gone almost two decades prior without opening a single one. 

The vast majority of these are State-run, opening under the patronage of different Education and Training Boards around the country. It needs this model to work, and to work well. 

Many students at CCSS have gone years without regular, one‑to‑one access to essential services such as occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and speech and language therapy.

Under a pilot scheme, the whole school gets a maximum of 15 hours of occupational therapy and speech and language therapy a week. 

The National Council for Special Education also provides "behaviour adviser support" every two weeks, through a mix of in-person and virtual support, according to the Department of Education. 

However, training and advice does not replace the clear need for  one-on-one therapies and interventions in the school. 

School suspensions

Last September, a number of parents at CCSS highlighted their fears about a culture of suspensions at the school, which they believed were happening without addressing the root causes leading to students becoming dysregulated and ‘lashing out’. 

In a message to parents during the school’s closure, patron Cork ETB referred to a “significant increase in injuries to staff which have occurred where children have become dysregulated".

This week, it told a mother her child's needs could not be met at the school. 

All of this points to a response that continues to fall short of the meaningful resources students and staff at the school need.

Across the country, there is a severe lack of meaningful resources for children and adults with severe disabilities, and the people who work with them. 

All too often, the focus is on simply securing a school place for students the system has failed to plan for.

And while the State is legally obligated to provide access to this right, it seems there is no further thinking about what it can do to ensure a student has every chance at accessing their education once they are in school. 

Resources do not follow an individual child’s needs — and are allocated to schools rather than to children directly. 

Advice and training does not replace the need for resources on the ground, especially when it comes down to students being excluded from education. 

• Jess Casey is Education Correspondent.