Mr. Kieran Golden:

Good morning, Chairman, Deputies, Senators and fellow invitees. The NAPD is very grateful for the opportunity to make a submission to the Joint Committee for Education and Skills on the use of reduced timetables in schools. Members of our executive were invited to forward comments on areas they regarded as relevant to this particular submission. I am also speaking in my own capacity as a principal of a community school. I was in school yesterday and I will be in school first thing in the morning.

School timetables are first and foremost about ensuring that our students access the curriculum as prescribed by the Department of Education and Skills. The primary goal of our timetables is to meet the needs of all our students - I am stressing all of our students. Effective timetabling is all about supporting all of our students to reach their full potential. Effective, clever and strategic timetabling can facilitate our students to access the additional resources that are provided to us by the Department through the allocations model. In many schools they have very effective and creative use of team teaching which can meet the needs of all of the students in the classroom. Again, effective timetabling can also be used to reduce and minimise possible disciplinary challenges as well.

However, in exceptional circumstances, consideration may have to be given to reduced timetables to help with a variety of challenges. These range from students with serious and significant medical issues, or a student who is reintegrating or coming back to us after a long period of absence. I have sat opposite students with serious issues around mental health, and to ask such students to come into school for a full day would have been very difficult for them. One does everything one can to help a student and their parents to get that student back into school in a meaningful way. There are times as well where behavioural issues are so significant that it is not just impacting on the rights of the child, but on the rights of the other students in that classroom as well.

Reduced timetables should only be considered and agreed in consultation with school management, the students themselves, the parents and guardians, and very much in consultation also with external agencies. The external agencies I am specifically referring to are those that advocate for their students such as the education welfare officer; Tusla; the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS; special educational needs organisers, SENOs, under the National Council for Special Education, NCSE; and, if a school is fortunate enough to be one of the 75 schools involved, the national behaviour support service, NBSS, supporting behaviour for learning, which is a wonderful resource for school, or, equally, if a school is fortunate to access the services of the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS.

There are times that a reduced timetable may be used, and the goal of the timetable should always be about the child and getting them back into school. As to management of reduced timetable, it is on a continuum and it is the last option, where everything else has been considered and all other resources have been used. I fully agree with Mr. Reilly that real conditions and parameters are needed around the use of a timetable. Specifically, there is a start and end date; reviewing on a daily basis through use of things like report cards; and, regular meetings with the parents. Then one decides what is best for the individual child and where we are going with this. This is very much at the end of the continuum.

I am very conscious as a school principal that the impact of disengagement from school is catastrophic for our young people. Once a child is marginalised, it has significant impacts, not just on their individual well-being, but on their life chances, not just for that child but very often for their whole family as well.

The idea of reducing a timetable should only be used in very exceptional circumstances and in the best interests of the child. It should clearly indicate a plan that will point to a transition for that young person back into school or, where appropriate, a lateral movement to another placement that will serve the very real specific needs of that individual child.

I thank the committee again for the opportunity to speak here and I will answer any questions later on.