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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 5 Nov 2002

Vol. 556 No. 3

Written Answers. - Special Educational Needs.

Dan Neville

Ceist:

374 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will provide a full time learning support teacher for the learning needs of Scoil Íde Naoife, Raheenagh, Ballaugh, County Limerick; his views on whether it is possible to provide the necessary support for all children in these circumstances; and his further views on whether the brevity of these visits have forced the school into prioritising literacy for those in most need and not catering for children with numeracy learning needs. [20083/02]

The schools referred to by the Deputy currently share the services of a full-time learning support teacher.

In 2000, as part of my Department's reading initiative, learning support guidelines were provided to all schools and were aimed at ensuring that all children achieve appropriate levels of literacy and numeracy during the course of their primary education. The learning support guidelines recommend high levels of co-operation between class teachers, learning support teachers and parents in supporting children who are experiencing learning difficulties.

In selecting pupils for remedial education, priority should be given to those pupils who achieve scores at or below the 10th percentile. In order to allow for measurement error, consideration may be given to selecting pupils who achieve scores up to and including the 12th percentile. Once schools are satisfied that the needs of pupils who have very low achievement or serious learning difficulties have been met, a limited degree of flexibility may be exercised in the deployment of the learning support teacher. The principal teacher has overall responsibility for the school's learning-support support programme and for the operation of services for children with special educational needs.

In addition to learning-support teachers, my Department allocates resource teacher posts to cater for the educational needs of children assessed as having disabilities who have been fully integrated into mainstream national schools where there are no other adequate support teaching resources available to the children. I can assure the Deputy that the needs of Scoil Íde Naoife will be taken fully into account in the event of additional learning support teacher posts becoming available for allocation.

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