Mr. Fergal Kelly:

I thank the committee for its decision to consider the matter of the provision of special classes and for the opportunity to provide this input to its deliberations. I also wish to thank our member schools and principals who have provided feedback to us for this submission.

The provision of a special class provides many opportunities and, indeed, challenges for schools. In my experience, special classes are a very positive development for a school in a whole-school sense. They provide opportunities for the pupils to achieve, prosper and integrate with their peers in a whole-school setting. Special classes also provide opportunities for staff to learn new skills and to take on other more specialised teaching roles in the school. Special classes in our schools provide opportunities for our school communities to enrich themselves in the knowledge, learning and support for pupils with special needs.

In terms of workload, I refer to the position of a teaching principal in circumstances where the challenge is often having to manage what are, in effect, two separate different types of schools with very different needs, challenges and expectations under one roof and making them gel together to make one successful educational facility, while also having a class and teaching full-time at the same time. Many of the significant tasks for principals are consulting the other professionals, creating and maintaining an appropriate physical environment for pupils, sourcing and purchasing associated educational equipment and technology and the increased administration that is often a feature of having a special class, such as policy formation, dealing with admissions, formation of support plans and so forth.

The CPSMA makes the following recommendations. Special classes are a positive addition to a primary school and our member schools strive to ensure that all pupils in their schools are provided with equality of access. However, given the increasing workload which this places upon principals and boards of management, the CPSMA believes that serious consideration should be given to ensuring that every principal of a school with special classes would become an administrative principal. Schools should, whenever possible, be encouraged and supported to establish special classes, rather than being compelled to do so. Adequate continuous professional development for teachers and SNAs working in mainstream schools with special classes must be made available on a whole-school basis. All of us have mentioned that so far today. We welcome the regional support teams proposed by the NCSE which will endeavour to support schools in this area, as laid out in the recently published comprehensive review of the SNA scheme.

Many smaller schools have access to part-time secretaries and caretakers. With regard to sensory needs, sometimes that includes better facilities in terms of sensory gardens and so forth. The increased administrative burden on schools and the workload could be alleviated by the provision of increased funding towards provision of ancillary staff where schools only have funding for part-time ancillary staff. The current system of management of bus escorts sees the Department provide a grant to individual schools from which each bus escort is paid. We call for bus escorts to be paid centrally by the Department of Education and Skills in a similar manner to SNAs.

Breda Corr has already spoken about the increase in capitation. In terms of resources and funding, we acknowledge the different rates for capitation, but we believe increased costs for schools due to special class facilities merit an overall increase in the capitation for each pupil. We strongly believe that funding for schools must be restored. We call for immediate restoration of the capitation grant in this year's budget to €200 per pupil and for the minor works grant to be paid every year as a non-discretionary payment by the Government.

I am old enough to remember therapy supports which involved occupational and speech therapists coming into schools. This worked very well for the most part, but they were discontinued in 2005 or 2006. It was a great opportunity for all partners - parents, therapists multi-disciplinary teams and educationists - to meet together in a school setting. We might look at this approach again. The NCSE's proposals have a positive approach to it and I look forward to reviewing it.