The school to which the pupil transferred has submitted an application for resource teaching support of three and a half hours per week. The Deputy is aware that the Department of Education and Science is proposing a new system for the allocation of resource teaching supports to pupils with special educational needs.
The new system will involve a general teaching allocation for all primary schools to cater for pupils with higher incidence of special educational needs or those children with borderline mild and mild general learning disability, specific learning disability and learning support needs. It will also allow for individual allocations in respect of pupils with lower incidence special educational needs.
The pupil's special educational needs are in the high incidence category. It is expected that the needs can be met from the current resource learning support teaching allocation available to the school. The school has the services of a shared learning support teacher and a shared resource teacher.