Ms Martina Mannion:

To assist the Deputy, I might add something regarding that piece on the assessment of need. In the Department, we were really conscious that this was something we were asking schools to do in co-operation with the NCSE. The Minister talked about the trialling which we did in June, and then the further trialling in October. We learned a lot from working very collaboratively with schools during Covid-19, with regard to the kind of resources and supports which they needed. With the unions, management bodies and the parents, we worked through what schools would need to be supported to go through this. For example, we did a guidance document with step-by-step procedures on how to complete the process. We did a short video, because people felt that video was a very snappy way to be able to engage with it.

There is a dedicated email within the National Council For Special Education, NCSE, that is monitored and responded to. There is a dedicated telephone line with people trained to answer the assessment of need, AON, queries. We have aFAQdocument that we update regularly on foot of the feedback from the schools. We have completed exemplars of where schools did it and how they did it. We have that up again on our website. Then, we have the in-person support visit. The key piece on this is when we are asking schools to engage, and the Minister talked about engaging with the information that is already in the school on the student and in the student's support plan, this is very much in line with what schools do already. It is part of the continuum of the education process. It is part of the initial teacher training whereby teachers assess and understand the needs of the children in the class and modify the curriculum to meet those needs. That is built upon at every stage including the initial teacher training and continuing professional development, CPD. When we introduced the special education teacher allocation in 2017, we produced significant training and guidance as to how we go about identifying need. Members may recall that at that point, we moved away from requiring a diagnosis to get resources. In 2017, we trained and supported teachers to be able to identify accurately a need within the classroom and then apply their skills and competencies to meet the need of that child. We have built upon that again in the new autism guidelines we issued last year. In effect, in the AON, we are asking schools to take the information and skills they have and the information that is held on the student's support file and transfer that to the NCSE, which will then quality assure it and it send it over to the HSE. We have given that commitment, which the Minister referenced, to meet the stakeholders; I meet them regularly. We have committed to doing a review of this before the end of the school year and we are absolutely going to do that with both the primary and post-primary stakeholders.