Kathleen Funchion
Question:460. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Education if she will provide an update on a case in County Carlow (details supplied). [28509/20]
View answerTuesday, 6 October 2020
Questions (460)
Written answers
Keeping schools open is a key priority at all levels of the Plan for Living with Covid-19. Alot of work has been undertaken to facilitate the safe reopening of schools in line with public health advice. The experience to date supports the current international position that schools are low risk environments for Covid-19.
My Department has published a suite of helpful guidance for the safe and sustainable reopening of schools. Each school is required to have a COVID-19 Response Plan for the safe operation through the prevention, early detection and control of COVID-19 in line with public health advice. This guidance is focused on the practical steps schools must take to minimise the risk of transmission of infection.
Increasing separation and decreasing interaction is the basis of which physical distancing is achieved in schools in so far as is practicable. My Department has published helpful templates for schools on classroom layout to increase separation to the greatest degree possible.
The objective is to limit contact between children in different class bubbles and pods as much as possible rather than to avoid all contact between pods as this will not always be possible. In this regard pupils in special classes should continue to interact, or integrate, with mainstream classes to ensure their integration needs for educational purposes are addressed.
However, the number of mainstream classes with which each special class pupil integrates should be minimised, in order to maintain pod grouping to the greatest extent possible, and to assist contact and tracing mechanisms, should this become necessary.
At primary school level this may mean each special class pupil integrating with one mainstream class only. At post-primary school level, this may mean special class pupils attending only those mainstream classes necessary for their subject participation.
I would encourage the school in question to contact my Department’s helpline if they have particular queries in relation to my Department’s guidance for the safe and sustainable reopening of schools.