Ms Lorraine Dempsey:

I thank the Chairman, Deputies and Senators for the opportunity to represent the voices of parents of children with special educational needs. The Special Needs Parents Association is a voluntary registered charity run by parents for parents which exists to support all parents of persons with special needs and disabilities, irrespective of age or diagnosis. We strive on a national level for improved treatment, education, welfare and acceptance for our children.
Since its establishment in 2010, the SNPA has been actively involved across Departments and with other agencies and organisations to further our mutual goals. I am also the chair of education sub-committee of Inclusion Ireland and I am on the board of directors of Inclusion Ireland and the Genetic and Rare Disorders Organisations to further that aim. In a previous presentation to this committee on 7 November 2012, the SNPA referred to the current resourcing model and its inadequacies. It stated:

The special educational resource allocation system administrated by the NCSE under Department of Education policy is currently based on diagnosis. SNPA would like to see an alignment of the model of special education resource allocation with the needs-based approach being proposed in the area of disability service provision.

In 2013, following the consultation on special education provision and subsequent publication of the NCSE report, Delivery for students with special education needs - A better and more equitable way, in 2014, the SNPA was again invited to participate in a consultation on the new model for teaching allocations on behalf of our members whose children span the broad spectrum of disabilities and special educational needs. We are encouraged by the development of such a proposed new model and support it in principle as it reflects much of the input of SNPA members who contributed to our verbal and written submissions to the NCSE.
The proposed model is complex in so far as it is a whole new vision for special educational allocations in a mainstream school setting and we appreciate it will take some time for stakeholders, including parents and public representatives, to gain an understanding of the overall vision as it is incomparable to the current system in which many inequities have been identified due to its prescriptive nature.
Notwithstanding the potential of a new model for allocating additional teaching supports and the increase in the number of resource teaching posts, the overall provision of hours over recent years has led to a 15% reduction in resource teaching hours across the board since 2011. The Special Needs Parents Association cannot stand over a new model whereby the reduced pool of resources is seen as a baseline from which the new model will be implemented. The 15% reduction must be addressed in the upcoming budget. As the implementation of the model will involve a major change in how teaching supports will be delivered and a shift towards self-management of those supports in school, educators, parents and pupils must have assurance that the overall pool of resources will be available to deliver a system to meet the educational needs of children presenting and that children with learning difficulties at the milder end of the spectrum, in particular, will not lose out in the long term due to pressure as a result of historic reductions to special teaching supports which have not been reinstated.

The full implementation of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 has not been realised a decade on, thus undermining the once envisaged framework of rights for children with special needs. The Special Needs Parents Association, SNPA, would request that the Department of Education and Skills sets out a timeline and costings for the full implementation of outstanding parts of the Act and that the development and implementation of the new model will be in line with the Act with particular reference to individual educational plans.
The following observations are based on feedback from parents about the NCSE working group report. The Special Needs Parents Association is fortunate to have a diverse profile of parent members, among whom are parents who work in the current special education system as well as having personal experience of supporting their own child through the education system and parents who have detailed knowledge of the educational and social challenges associated with a broad range of learning difficulties and disabilities.
I will touch on aspects of the model that Mr. Stack presented. I will deal with the allocation of additional teaching supports to schools. The current methods of allocating teaching supports to schools and individual children have served many children well, but it is recognised that anomalies and exclusions exist when using a system of allocations based on diagnosis and numbers of pupils and teachers without regard to the need for such allocations on an individual and school level. SNPA supports the implementation of a model based on needs and in line with reforms currently ongoing in the children’s disability services - progressing disability services for children and young people -but would add caution that any new model be properly tested before being fully implemented and that a further and final consultation period be planned for a later date once work on outstanding finer details in the model framework have been completed.
Mr. Stack broke down the observations on proposed new model in respect of the school educational profile into three component parts. With regard to complex special educational needs, the descriptors for complex special educational needs need to be robust. The current descriptors of the NCSE working group report use the word “extremely” on two occasions and this would need a definition in order to have transparency and a clear understanding of what level professionals and parents identify behaviour in particular as extreme. It is our understanding that the NCSE, NEPS and HSE are currently consulting each other on the development of clear descriptors to identify students with complex educational needs and these should be subject to a further consultation period once drafted.
On the question of standardised test results, parents have indicated concern over the use of standardised test results in developing a school profile. This comes from experience of their children who have high STEM scores 8-10, but have significant impairments requiring teaching and other supports. In pages 40 and 41 of the NCSE report, it outlines the many caveats that were considered and recommendations 7-8 have addressed this concern. The Department must ensure that resources are available for accessible teacher training and that NEPS or the proposed inclusion support service, ISS, have the staffing resources to support schools to process and analyse test results in a timely manner, minimising the administrative burden on teachers.