Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Mulkerrins and Deputy Buckley. I will make some comments before we wrap up. I have spoken about this matter a few times, especially at the education committee. Having listened to the presentations, I have comments rather than questions. Our guests should feel free to comment as well. We are continuing to see what should be a normal way of teaching within a diverse system as something additional. We are taking it for granted that every child in a room must learn in the same way except for one child who might, possibly, be on the spectrum or is diagnosed as being on the spectrum.

That is instead of acknowledging that there should be a mandatory or general training scheme for teachers. That should be the case even if a teacher is not aware that a child in a room has a diagnosis or if there is child in a room that should have diagnosis. Teachers should be informed and trained in such a way that they teach on the assumption that they should teach in a particular way regardless of whether there is specific notification of a child or children needing special attention or special education. I am the mother of someone on the spectrum. Navigating the school system was really difficult for her. If some simple things had been done within the mainstream system, it could have made that experience much easier for her.

Looking at some children who end up on reduced timetables particularly due to tiredness and the emotional toll it takes to navigate a school day - when one has that narrator in one's head about what one is supposed to do next and has to consider how to find one's way to a classroom when everybody moves into the corridors at the same time, or even where the teacher sitting at the top of room constantly clicks a pen and is not aware of the impact of that on someone in the room - there are very simple things that could be done to stop reduced timetables. It is the environment that creates the anxiety rather than the person's diagnosis. This involves the environment, the response to the person and the learning style that person is not receiving - the idea around verbal instruction and how we provide people with information on how to carry out their homework. The problem is that we keep seeing special education as additional. Every single piece of teacher training, regardless of what module it is or what teacher training year it is, should have a thread through it. It should naturally include the idea that different people learn in different ways. Perhaps what I will say next is not true but I will make the assumption that it is. If a teacher taught a class as if every member of it had autism and the assumption that everybody in the classroom is different, it would be a much nicer learning environment for most people because the teacher would take into account the fact that some people will have sensory issues or a different way of receiving information. That is where we are failing in terms of special education because we keep seeing it as an add-on. Unfortunately, accreditation would do that as well. Do the witnesses see a space where we need to transform teacher training in general to be more reflective of Irish society rather than having to keep finding these add-ons? What impact would that have?