Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire
Question:116. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Education if she will discuss the difficulties new and developing schools are facing in accessing special educational supports. [45694/21]
View answerThursday, 23 September 2021
Questions (116)
Written answers
I am aware of concerns raised by a number of schools with growing enrolments regarding their special education teacher allocation.
There are now over 13,600 Special Education Teachers allocated to mainstream primary and post primary schools.
This represents an increase of 40% in the total number of special education teachers allocated to schools since 2011, at which time 9,740 teachers were allocated.
The allocations are based on the profiled needs of schools, and are designed to be updated, based on new school profile data, every 2-3 years.
In order to minimise disruption and upheaval for schools as much as possible in light of Covid-19, and to provide for continuity of allocations, the existing Special Education Teacher Allocations for schools is being maintained for the 2021/22 school year, with re-profiled allocations now due to be made from September 2022.
The allocations for 2021/22 which are being maintained comprise the allocations made for schools from September 2019 plus any additionality achieved since and any developing hours for the 2019/20 and 2020/21 school years.
This means that schools did not have to engage in an extensive redeployment of posts, or re-clustering, this year.
It also means that schools had greater levels of certainty as to the staff that were in place for September.
It is important to note that no school saw a cut, or reduction, to their special education teaching support for 2021/22.
Additional allocations continue to be made for new schools, schools which achieve developing status, and for exceptional circumstances. Schools that qualify for additional mainstream developing school posts also qualify for additional special education teaching allocations to take account of this developing status.
For the 2021/22 school year, in order to support schools to plan for their staffing arrangements in September, the DES/NCSE brought forward the developing schools allocation process, by initially making provisional allocations for schools
The provisional additional allocations were based on schools projected enrolments, where schools have projected that they will receive developing allocations, based on the criteria below. The allocation of these additional hours will be confirmed once the increased enrolments are confirmed.
The criteria for qualification for mainstream school developing school posts are set out in the DES Circular Primary and Post Primary School Staffing Schedules each year.
Schools who qualify for additional mainstream developing school posts in accordance with these criteria, also qualify for additional Special Education Teaching Allocations to take account of this developing status, as follows:
- an additional 3 hours of SEN teaching support will be provided for schools which have one developing post, or for a schools first developing post where they have more than one developing post
- and 5 hours per each post thereafter, for each school which has two or more developing posts
If a school considers that exceptional circumstances have arisen in their school, which means that they cannot provide for the special educational teaching needs of pupils due to very significant changes to the school profile occurring, a school may seek a review of their allocations by the NCSE.
My Department continues to engage with Education partners to consider concerns in relation to the existing process for providing additional supports to developing schools and to establish if any improvements can be made to the process.