Firstly, I wish to advise the Deputy that there is no inconsistency in my Department's use of school level data on education achievement. The use of school level data, i.e. standardised test results, is not used in the identification of schools for inclusion in the DEIS programme nor is it used to calculate the social context element of the school's profile in terms of the new SEN Allocation Model.
DEIS is my Department's main policy initiative to tackle educational disadvantage. The DEIS Plan 2017 sets out our vision for future intervention in the critical area of social inclusion in education policy. The DEIS Review consultation process noted stakeholder concerns about the use of educational outcomes as a basis for extending DEIS supports to schools, or for reducing such supports. In particular it was felt that outcomes achieved due directly to the input of specific additional resources and supports should not be used as a means to remove these supports from schools. It was considered that this would give rise to a perception of penalising success and rewarding failure.
In relation to the new model for allocating Special Educational Needs Teachers to schools, in 2014 the National Council for Special Education Working group Report recommended a new model based on the profiled needs of each school, rather than primarily based on the diagnosed disability of individual children.
It recommended that the allocation of additional teaching supports to schools should be based on a Baseline component provided to every mainstream school to support inclusion, and a school’s educational profile, based on:
- Students with complex special educational needs.
- Percentages of students performing below a certain threshold on standardised test results
- Social context of school which includes gender and educational disadvantage.
However, it should be noted that these are separate elements of the school profile and that standardised test scores have therefore not been used to calculate the social context component of the school profile under the special education teaching allocation model.
Full details of how the special education teaching profiles have been calculated for schools are set out in my Departments Circulars on the 0013/2017 and 0014/2017.
