Ms Breda Corr:

I will shorten my statement. I had planned for five minutes. I will outline the issues. Our suggestions are laid out in our submission to the joint committee. I may discuss a few of them.

I thank the committee for affording us the opportunity to give the views of our members. The National Association of Boards of Management in Special Education, NABMSE, is the management voice of special education in Ireland and represents boards of management of special schools and mainstream primary and post-primary schools, usually with special classes.

In my statement, I will concentrate on the adequacy of training and supports for providers of special needs education. I will not touch on the DEIS issue as it is not our issue. The first matter I will address is training. While there is some training available for teachers at initial teacher education level, most training is undertaken as continuing professional development, CPD, and through induction. We have provided some detail of CPD in our submission, and while this is very welcome, teachers must have some experience of special education to undertake these certificate and diploma courses. Very often, it is the newer entrant to the school who may be asked to teach in the special class.

We acknowledge the huge range of supports available from the special education support service, SESS, in our submission. However, we have also detailed the lack of training for other members of staff involved in the support of pupils with special educational needs, SEN, in schools, namely, the special needs assistants, SNAs, and bus escorts. The issues we have identified in respect of the training needs and associated issues include a lack of essential whole-school training; the high costs of initial training of staff in a range of areas and the costs of regular renewal of this training, some areas of which we have identified in our submission; the high cost of positive behaviour, crisis intervention and health and safety training; and the need for training of bus escorts. Our suggestion is for an annual training fund for the training of whole-school staff, including the roll-out of bus escort training.

The second part of our written submission details the area of supports and their level of adequacy. The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, policy advice paper, Supporting Students with Special Education Needs in Schools, published in 2013, contains 28 recommendations in respect of training and CPD, early intervention, transition planning, etc. There are a huge range of recommendations there.

The findings and recommendations of the report should be examined and implemented without delay. One recommendation on the new allocation model of teaching resources to mainstream schools has been introduced recently, so there is some movement.

Our first issue is that of capitation funding. Special schools and classes receive enhanced capitation grants based on the special educational needs of their students. However, this grant has been reduced over the past seven years and does not adequately cover the needs in this setting. In these schools, capitation is required to cover the basic running costs, but in special education settings, these costs are higher due to the complex and additional needs of the students. In addition to the basic running costs and essential staff training, which are referred to in our submission, maintenance of specialised equipment and health and medical provisions are also funded from the capitation grant and very often from fund-raising as well. Some schools have experienced difficulties this year with the cost of insurance, and work has started on examining the issue. It is hoped a resolution can be found in the near future. Suggestions in our submission include an examination of capitation funding with a view to increasing the funding. I have also mentioned the introduction of a training fund which schools could, with guidelines, avail of and prioritise their training needs.

The second issue is staffing. I will refer again to the NCSE report. There is a need for a reduced pupil-teacher ratio. Recommendation 27.2 of the report regarding a reduced pupil-teacher ratio and provision of a school nurse reflects the complexity of needs in some special schools and settings.

Another issue we have identified is substitute cover for all teacher absences in special education settings and issues relating to posts of responsibility and the appointment of principals and deputy principals. I have mentioned the deputy principal issue in this forum before but I will refer to it again. NABMSE suggests a number of things. One is substitute cover for all teacher absences because a class of children with special educational needs cannot be divided. All staff should be included in the determination of posts of responsibility in special education settings.

We welcome all the recent curriculum developments, including levels 1 and 2. However, it is essential that special educational needs are included in all new curriculum developments in the primary and post-primary sector. This includes language and numeracy, which was mentioned by the previous speaker.

One of the issues identified is the provision of specialist subject teachers for pupils aged over 12. There has been no allocation from the Department for some years. That is causing some trouble in the introduction of these new programmes. Other issues are the provision of suitable learning materials and the provision of home, school, community liaison for special schools, which is recommendation 27.3 in this policy advice paper. I will mention one of the suggestions in our submission. A mechanism needs to be found to increase specialist teacher hours for special education settings. Another is the implementation of the home, school, community liaison service for schools without delay.

The fourth issue we have identified is on planning. A number of the issues identified are opportunities for inclusion, which should be planned for, and transition planning from various levels of schools, that is, primary mainstream to post-primary mainstream and back and forth between special schools and mainstream schools. A really important one, which the committee mentioned, is future planning for special educational needs provision, especially in the area of post-primary provision. It is clear that co-ordinated planning needs to take place around educational provision for special educational needs. It is essential there is early transition planning between health and education, planning for inclusion and planning for proper provision of special classes to ensure students with special educational needs are provided with an appropriate education.

The next issue is support staff. We all know here that the education of students with special educational needs can depend on their ability to access the curriculum. This is often dependent on the correct health related supports being available. We have identified the need for funding and governance of nursing staff as many special education providers are educating students with the most complex medical needs. Recommendation 27.3 of the NCSE report No. 4 should be implemented without delay. We also suggest that other therapies detailed in the submission could be provided on a cluster basis to schools and that the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, be available to all schools.

I am almost finished. Integration between health and education is an important issue. We feel substantial moneys are being spent in the education system. However, a more integrated approach throughout the system might yield better results. There needs to be more robust integration between health and education, particularly in the provision of therapies, services and nurses.

The last point is on ICT and assistive technology. The use of ICT and assistive technology is essential in the provision of education to pupils with special educational needs. The current ICT grant to schools awards €4 extra per pupil with special educational needs. However, as the numbers of pupils in special schools tend to be lower, this is inadequate to purchase the equipment. Some of the suggestions we will look at is the recognition that communications technologies are essential for access to the curriculum for some children, an increase in the funding for ICT to special education settings to reflect their specialist nature, and establishing funding for our schools for multisensory rooms or environments. Providing other methods of distributing the ICT grant should be explored. Suggestions have been made for a separate scheme for special education or a grant per classroom rather than per pupil.

I have probably gone over my time. I thank the committee for the opportunity today and we look forward to working with everyone. Members have probably seen my submission. There is a lot more in it.