Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 November 2004
272 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Education and Science the extent to which extra staffing needs of a school project (details supplied) in County Kildare as set out by the school authorities is likely to be responded to by her in the next 12 months in the context of the 2005 Estimates; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30913/04]
View answerThe staffing of a primary school is determined by the enrolment in the school on the 30 September of the previous year. The number of mainstream posts sanctioned is determined by reference to a staffing schedule and is agreed for a particular year following discussions with the education partners.
The mainstream staffing of the school referred to by the Deputy for the current school year is a principal and nine mainstream class teachers based on the enrolment of 250 pupils on 30 September 2003.
With regard to special education teaching support, the proposed new system of teacher allocation involves a general allocation for all primary schools to cater for pupils with higher incidence special educational needs, borderline mild and mild general learning disability and specific learning disability, and those with learning support needs, that is, functioning at or below the 10th percentile on a standardised test of reading and-or mathematics. An additional 350 teaching posts are being provided to facilitate the introduction of the new system. It is intended that the new system will be implemented for the 2005-06 school year and the school will be advised of its teaching allocation in advance of this.
The school currently has the services of two full-time and one part-time resource teaching posts and a shared learning support teaching post. The school was recently informed that an additional 12 hours resource teaching support was sanctioned to cater for the needs of pupils with lower incidence special educational needs, SEN. These resources can be put in place immediately.
