Mr. Kieran Golden:

Another form of accountability for schools is the inspectorate. This year alone, my school has had a whole-school evaluation - management, leadership and learning, WSE-MLL, incidentals and subject inspections recently, as well as a DEIS evaluation. There are incidental inspections and special educational needs, SEN, evaluations. Timetables are checked. I refer to school timetables, not individual timetables. Every child is entitled to 28 hours' tuition at second level. An inspector will go through the timetable methodically and will check that the students are getting 28 hours' tuition. The post-primary DEIS evaluation is very forensic. They look for very specific data, including how many suspensions a school has had in the last four years in respect of male and female students; the number of expulsions of male and female pupils in the last four years; and the number of students, male and female, on reduced timetables. For my own school, I was able to say that we had zero in the last four years. Anecdotally, I will tell the committee why. About six years ago I had a student going into the senior cycle who was extremely challenging. I know exactly what Senator Ruane is talking about in terms of communities. Our school is a sanctuary and a safe place for our kids. It is an important place for them. For a variety of reasons, this particular boy was extremely difficult. We went through all the options of what kind of supports had been offered to him. He had been referred to a student support team and had worked with a guidance counsellor, a learning support teacher and the educational welfare officer, EWO. We had worked the parents on numerous occasions. He had that one significant adult, which we all know about. We had teachers trained up in the check and connect intervention model who met the student. However, we were coming towards a point where he was getting extremely difficult for other kids as well. The EWO persuaded us to try a reduced timetable. It was an absolute disaster. The student ended up being totally disengaged and disaffected with school and it was almost his pathway out of school. We were almost formalising that and telling him his behaviour was too difficult. Four weeks later, another student came into the office and asked to try the timetable the first boy had. It is not necessarily the right way. We have to ask ourselves what the behaviours of students are telling us and we must hear what they have to say. I could not see a reduced timetable working at post-primary level, although I take the point about having a conversation with the pupil and finding out which teachers he or she gets on well with. There are nine periods in a school day. The student might tell us he likes Ms Ruane, she is sound, he does not like Ms Martin, and he likes Ms O'Sullivan. He is with Ms Ruane for period 1, will not go to Ms Martin for period 2, and will be with Ms O'Sullivan for period 3. Where will he go in period 2? Coming back to compliance, the issue for us is safeguarding. Who is going to mind that child for the 40 minutes? We have a duty of care. Am I going to ring his mum and ask her to come up for 40 minutes? It is this issue around compliance and it is just not workable in terms of having a kid in for one class and out for another. The other issue, then, is where we find the teacher. All the teachers are timetabled. The timetable is done by the end of June. We cannot free somebody up to mind somebody, and the pupil deserves to be minded. On home tuition, where does the parent get the right teacher to mind the child and give good quality learning and teaching at home or wherever it might take place? I am not going to get on the soapbox about teacher supply but I think we know that.