Dr. Aideen Hartney:

That brings us back to the overall direction of travel towards inclusive education and the importance of the universal design of the environment as an enabler for that, so that if school buildings are being brought on stream, they have all of those considerations as part of the design and planning phase. Some of our concern about special classes and special schools is that students often go in and remain segregated and do not go back to the mainstream, even where that special class might be on the same campus or the school might be on a joint campus. We envisage a school building where people can withdraw and reintegrate over the course of the day and keep that mainstream provision. Even where an autistic student might find the environment overwhelming, at a point in time, the ability to withdraw means that is not a persistent problem, requiring a segregated provision. That is important. We have presented universal design guidelines for school buildings to the Department of education in the past. It is about ensuring that planning and design conversations happen at the earliest stage to enable that.