Ms Teresa Griffin:

I shall address that particular issue. We have planned information evenings for parents. We are testing the model to ensure we are getting the right information and that it is providing what parents need. We have done so in Carlow and Dublin 8 and another test will take place next week or the week after in Tullamore, County Offaly. The whole point is to get parents in, especially parents of newly diagnosed children or children who are just about to go to school. I take Mr. Moore's point that transition is the key for children with special educational needs and that information should be provided on how the system supports children - for example, through their interaction with the HSE, as stated by Ms Áine Lynch. It is not just what happens in the school that must be communicated; the parents need to be given the whole picture. Following the evening in Offaly we will review whether the information is right and, if so, the idea is that it would be rolled out by SENOs in each of the 80 SENO areas throughout the country during the course of the school year to specifically address the points made and also to introduce the SENOs. How does a parent know that a SENO exists? Often they go along to the school and that may be the first time they hear of a SENO. We are trying to get the information out that the SENOs are a really good resource for parents in terms of providing information. I hope that will address the information deficit in some way. We will keep it under review because we think it is crucial to try to support parents more and ease the system in terms of transition.

We hope, at some point when we have a little more time, to look at transition points to ascertain how we can better support children who are making the transition not only from primary to post-primary but also from preschool to primary and, perhaps, from junior national school into senior national school and, at the end of school, from fifth or sixth year into wherever their pathways bring them, whether to adult services, supported employment, continuing education, further education or third level. Those are plans over a few years because we have limited resources. We are prioritising the parents of newly diagnosed children and children about to enter the school system and we hope that will roll out and feed through.

With regard to labelling, in case members misunderstood what I said, when we speak with parents we find that some value having a label because they like to know what the issue with their child is. The main concern is that labels should not be allocated simply to drive educational resources. We have to find a better way and that was the thrust of our supports paper and our policy advice paper to the Minister earlier in the year. There has to be a better way. Actually, the Minister has given us the go-ahead. We are looking at how to get away from a disability or a medical model in terms of allocating teachers and we hope to come up with a better way. We are in the middle of our consultation phase in considering that issue.

On the issue of qualifications, with regard to what should be provided and what the teachers in special schools need, one of the central themes coming through all of our policy advice, whether in respect of children who are deaf or children who have challenging behaviour, through our supports paper and in all our research is that the specialist knowledge of teachers is what is important. Not only do they have to be subject specialists but they also have to be specialists in what the child needs to learn, because children are different. Some are visual learners and others are more logical learners. For example, children who are deaf have specific requirements with regard to maths. They find the maths concepts very difficult. Much specialist knowledge is needed.

With regard to undergraduate or initial teacher education and CPD in initial education, Ms Mary Byrne and I sat down with the Teaching Council last week to see how we can feed into the development of initial teacher education and how we can provide more information and inform the process of initial teacher education. We were pleased that the subject of special education, which was hit-and-miss in initial teacher education for so long in that the amount of information one got depended on which college one attended, is now more standardised and is one of the critical areas that has been identified by the Teaching Council to cover in initial teacher education and CPD for teachers. I appreciate Mr. Moore's point. The NCSE believes a framework needs to be put in place for teachers. The reality is that a large number of children who have special educational needs learn differently. They may not necessarily need additional support in the school but the teachers need to know how they learn and differentiate their approach and language accordingly. In our policy advice we have recommended that a framework for the professional development of teachers be put in place. The framework includes initial teacher education and induction but also CPD. All teachers need to be trained in CPD. If there are children who do not have an assessed special educational need, they may have underlying reasons for learning differently. Obviously in special schools, children with complex needs need dedicated learning.

The whole ethos of the NCSE is that the child's needs must be at the centre and plans need to be put in place around the child. Whatever CPD the teacher needs to put a properIEP, individualised education plan, in place for the child, a structure needs to be in place to enable the teacher access that. We went one step further in our supports paper when we said that this training and CPD must be mandatory. All teachers must have a qualification in the area of special education and must have at least one day's training-----