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Special Educational Needs

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 July 2021

Thursday, 1 July 2021

Ceisteanna (84)

Joe Carey

Ceist:

84. Deputy Joe Carey asked the Minister for Education the policy of her Department in relation the requirements of national school children with severe dyslexia with regard to extra reading class groups and SET hours in the classroom; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34569/21]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

I wish to advise the Deputy that my Department continues to prioritise investment in special education, with over €2 Billion due to be spent on special education this year.

For the coming school year there will be over 13,600 Special Education Teachers allocated to mainstream schools, who will support class teachers to address the special educational needs and learning needs of pupils who attend mainstream schools.

This year we are also providing for two new special schools and 269 new special classes.

For the 2021/22 school year, we will have a total of 2118 special classes, which is the largest number of special classes that we have ever had, and compares to 548 classes available in 2011.

18,000 Special Needs Assistants will also be available to support the care needs of pupils with special educational needs in our schools.

My Department provides for a range of placement options and supports for schools, which have enrolled pupils with special educational needs, including pupils with Specific Learning Disability (SLD); of which Dyslexia is one such SLD, in order to ensure that wherever a child is enrolled, s/he will have access to an appropriate education.

All Primary schools have been allocated additional teaching resources to cater for children with special educational needs, including pupils with dyslexia.

Special Education teachers support the mainstream class teacher by providing additional teaching support for pupils with special educational needs, or additional learning needs, in schools.

DES Circular 007/2019 for primary schools and 008/2019 for post primary schools set out the details of the model for allocating special education teachers to schools.

The Special Education Teaching allocation provides a single unified allocation for special educational support teaching needs to each school, based on each school’s educational profile. This model has replaced the previous model of allocating resource teaching support and learning support to schools.

The Special Education Teacher allocation, allows schools to provide additional teaching support for all pupils who require such support in their schools and for schools to deploy resources based on each pupil’s individual learning needs.

It gives greater flexibility to schools as to how they can deploy their resources, to take account of the actual learning needs pupils have, as opposed to being guided by a particular diagnosis of disability, and schools are guided as to how they should make such allocation decisions.

The school will take account of learning needs of children as evidenced by performance in schools but also supported where relevant by information provided regarding the nature of a condition that a pupil may have.

The Department of Education and Skills has published guidelines for schools as to how they should utilise and deploy their resources under the new allocation model, which are available at www.education.ie.

The guidelines support schools in how they identify pupils for additional teaching support and decide how much support to provide for pupils who need it.

Under the special education teacher allocation model schools are frontloaded with resources, based on each schools profile, to provide supports immediately to those pupils who need it without delay.

Children who need support can have that support provided immediately rather than having to wait for a diagnosis.

Children do not have to be labelled with a particular condition to qualify for extra teaching assistance.

The model gives greater freedom to schools to give extra teaching help to the pupils who most need it, regardless of their diagnosis.

Schools also do not have to give a set amount of time to pupils based on their disability category. They can give the most assistance to the pupils who need the support most and allocate resources based on needs.

We will continue to invest in and support young people with additional needs.

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