Ms Paula Prendeville:

I can answer this really quickly if that is okay. I am getting a look from the Chairman. First, on behaviour, there has been a lot of work on behaviour for the training of teachers and SNAs. A lot of work has been done in the background with regard to those specific behaviours of concern that are in schools. There were plans to publish that prior to the Covid pandemic and that work is at a very advanced stage at the moment. Alongside the work the Department has done on that, the NCSE has developed a behaviour framework and we are really hoping both of those will support schools in the next academic year to meet that very intense need of building the capacity at universal level, the target level and the very specific level to build the whole capacity of the school system.

Specific to teachers and teacher training, the céim recommendations around the requirements that young trainee teachers coming out into the system have an understanding of the needs students with disabilities and inclusion are mandatory from January of next year with the Teaching Council. That means every initial teacher training course in the country has to have embedded those practices within its training programme. There are provisions there for supporting those teacher trainers who are out on their professional training placement, so that will progress in that space.

On the SNAs, as the Deputy knows, we have the course that has been running in UCD. An internal review was done on that and as the Deputy rightly said, there is that need for the SNAs to have greater understanding of the behaviours to address and meet the behaviours of concern for students - all student with needs. It has been looked at and, in response to that, to support it there is an extra module being developed currently that will be available to the SNAs who are attending that course. This extra module is specific to addressing behaviours of concern to build the capacity within SNAs to meet that need. There are three positive moves in that space I hope will make an impact in the next school year.