Mr. Pat Goff:

The Irish Primary Principals Network, IPPN, accepts the rationale behind this proposed new model of allocating resources for students with special educational needs in mainstream schools. It is always desirable that schools with the greatest need for additional supports have a mechanism whereby those supports can be accessed. It is also desirable that equity prevails and that the school with the greatest needs receives the greatest level of support.

Staffing and financing schools to reflect the additional resources required for children with special or additional needs is a complex process. There is a very real fear among principals and teachers nationwide that the proposed new model could be used to further reduce special education needs allocations to primary schools. It is imperative that the 15% reduction in resource allocation to primary schools imposed in recent years is immediately restored and that this be used as an initial alleviation for schools who will be losing staff. In addition, there is an increase in the school-going population, probably increasing by 2% every year, and one has to factor in that the limit on the number of teachers supporting special needs pupils has not increased because of the cap on that figure. Effectively, the number is down 20% on where it would have been without those reductions.

The Irish Primary Principals Network would like certain observations and recommendations to be noted. We believe the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 should be fully implemented. It is hard to believe the Act was first introduced ten years ago. We are still waiting for it to be fully implemented and enacted.

I would like to deal with a few of the concerns that are affecting principal teachers around the country before setting out what we consider to be the benefits of the proposed model. The school profiling element of this model has caused deep concern. Many principals, particularly in rural and smaller communities, are worried that the gathering of personal information could damage the school-home relationship. Given that this information is already held by the Central Statistics Office in one form or another, one would have to ask why it was not gathered from that source rather than from schools.

Principals are also concerned to have been told that if they do not survey parents, they are entitled to come up with a guesstimate that they consider to be an accurate reflection of the current position. As future resources and audits will be based on those guesstimates - it might be one's best professional estimate, but it is still an estimate rather than a fact - there is a high level of unease among principals.

I would like to mention three areas in which clarification has been sought by principals. Will high-performing schools be punished for efficient use of available resources and lose some of their current allocation? Is profiling guaranteed to deliver a more equitable distribution of resources? Can the NCSE and the Department guarantee that profiling will not lead to the establishment of school league tables without regard for complexity of need and social context? This is causing a certain amount of concern.

Many schools will inevitably lose supports as a result of school profiling and the establishment of a baseline allocation. When many schools examine their profiles, they feel the proposed baseline allocation of 15% is much too low. Even though they might agree in principle that the reallocation or redistribution of resources is to be admired. The numbers of many small rural schools have already been affected by changes in the pupil-teacher ratio. Such schools, which are being asked to be inclusive, are finding it difficult to come to terms with the possibility of losing their supports.

Everyone around here will know that all politics is local. If a school is losing resources, it will not be happy with the new model. This is what we are hearing back on the ground. Smaller rural schools, in particular, are afraid they will no longer enjoy the supports they availed of in recent years as they brought pupil scores from 20 to 30, from 30 to 40, or from 40 to 50. This is a major concern for them.

We fully accept that the new model has many benefits. The streamlining of the allocation process will bring benefits. It will introduce greater equity to the system. Large numbers of Traveller children, newcomer children and children with complex needs will have unhindered access to adequate supports. As teachers, parents and principals, we fully support the elimination of the labelling of children. If that can be done, we will be delighted.

It is proposed to provide for automatic access to necessary supports without the requirement for a diagnosis. However, a diagnosis will still be required for SNA support. That will be a dilemma. We would have loved the SNA system to be structured in line with this. A package of supports, including the services of a National Educational Psychological Service psychologist if one is available, is provided in schools. It is not just a support teacher, a SNA or a class teacher. We hope there will be an increase in the number of psychologists.

We welcome the decision to start using the term "support teacher". We have been looking for that for nine years, since 2005. We do not feel there should be a distinction or separation between learning support and resource teachers. In the last year, teachers have been passing themselves on the road going to and from different schools. We are delighted that this is coming to an end.

Overall, we welcome the thrust of the new proposals. Consideration needs to be given to the implications and impact of the proposal with regard to profiling. There is a vacuum at the moment because schools are looking at the 15% allocation and nothing else. They are filling that vacuum by saying "we are going from two teachers down to half a teacher". That will have a knock-on effect. The bottom line is what is best for the children in our schools. That is where our concern will be.