Ms Rose-Marie Flanagan:

In the context of my own school, children have moved from special classes in post-primary settings to our own setting. We find that the predominate increase in children applying are in fourth, fifth and sixth class in primary school because their primary school is not able to meet their needs. The same applies in post-primary. Mr. Browne mentioned a child who had completed first year in his school. It is very common for children to transition into our school for post-primary because basically they are being failed in the mainstream post-primary school. Unfortunately, they are having no meaningful relationships with peers and are left isolated. We know that we Maslow before we Bloom in our school context. Unfortunately, in mainstream settings there are class sizes of 30 children and more, so these children are being left behind and failed.