Mr. Adam Harris:

I addressed earlier some of my thoughts around the need for amendments to the EPSEN Act so I will skip over that question.

We really need to change the narrative around the whole area of IEPs. An IEP is fundamentally about taking the adversarial piece out of the conversation and making it a partnership model where everyone sits around one table and asks how they are working in the same direction.

Speaking from my own educational experience, the reason it was positive was that my parents were lucky enough to always meet teachers who were willing to co-operate and work as a team. We need to get that sense of team back. IEPs in the context of the EPSEN Act are one discussion but it has to be very clear that there is an obligation. It is established clearly in a whole range of circulars, existing policy and court judgments that an appropriate and adequate education must be provided. That requires differentiation and demonstration of how it has been done.

The whole area of SENOs touches on the fact that we keep talking about how EPSEN and disability interact with each other. Certainly, the experience our families tend to have is the word they become most used to is "No". The moment you get a diagnosis, everyone tells you what they cannot do for you and why you should not talk to them. Nobody seems take the role of saying who you should talk to, however, or if you like, holds your hand and actually guides you along the process.

Whether it is enhancing the role of a SENO, changing our approach to the role of a SENO or having a different role that covers all of the agencies, we need families to have a key worker who is on their side and is trying to help them, as opposed to quoting legislation or giving them lists, which really is not very helpful for somebody who does not know the system.

In terms of powers to compel schools, we need to be a lot more defined regarding what constitutes a reasonable excuse in the section 37A process. Some of the responses I have seen include a school stating it is absolutely essential that children have access to a library so it cannot be given up for a class. Libraries are nice to have but the right to an education is a constitutional right and some of our children are being deprived of it. We need to be an awful lot clearer on this.

No school should be able to opt not to deliver the leaving certificate applied. The biggest problem is we have moved children into our education system but we have not changed our definition of success. Many of the problems we are speaking about today come from our definition of success and what is a good educational outcome because we have a system which rewards people who get 625 points but which does not celebrate that for another person, working part-time, living independently and being part of the community is as big and as important an achievement.