Ms Moira Leydon:

It is important that we be open with each other. Deputies Tully and Carroll MacNeill raised the issue of the mixed response at school level to special needs. No school can discriminate in terms of admissions but we all know the concept of soft barriers. There are soft barriers there. How do we change it? I referenced the concepts of accepting societies and inclusive schools. These are goals and processes. How do we get there?

It is important that we talk about the fact that they exist for starters. We cannot gloss over it. Our job as trade unions is to represent our members and defend their working conditions. We can also play a role as honest brokers and discuss what goes on at system level. In terms of soft barriers whereby a school prioritises academic achievement and the transition to third level as being more important than an emphasis on inclusion and culture, the system has tools to address this. The tools are working. I see them as a carrot and stick approach. The stick is an cigire or the inspector. The inspectorate has 16 models of inspection within the formal school system, not to mention the youth detention centres and special schools. One of those models, as I said earlier, is a dedicated inspection of special educational needs, which is focused on outcomes and use of resources. It assesses whether the additional teachers allocated to the school to teach and work with students with special needs, are actually teaching honours maths as distinct from co-teaching. The inspectorate reports identify these practices and schools are required to change them because the inspectorate performs follow-up visits. After giving schools recommendations, inspectors come back to see what is happening. There are quality assurance mechanisms in the system to address the soft barriers.

We also have a model of internal quality assurance in the school system called school self-evaluation. We are all familiar with the concept of school planning. It is a dual process. Schools now have a three-year plan - prior to Covid it was typically a two-year plan - which is based on a self-evaluation. Schools gather evidence, look at different types of students and how they meet their ambitions and departmental requirements etc. This is ongoing all the time. Again, we sound like a broken record. What do teachers say about this process? They ask when they are going to get the time to do it. They are doing it at lunchtime or during breaks. We have a very 19th-century view of teachers as people just being in front of a classroom. The role of the teacher in the 21st century is a wide professional role based on classroom teaching but with multiple non-classroom teaching duties. Until we start to factor in those non-classroom teaching duties into the working day, we will not achieve the kinds of outcomes and educational policies that we want. We make no excuses as teacher unions in saying teachers need time, because they do not have time. Teachers go into school for 9 a.m. and they are still there at 3.50 p.m. teaching students. Where do they get the time to do all the other tasks?

The Deputy is right to raise the issue of soft barriers. There are quality-assurance tools available to the system. There are also cultures that need to be addressed, which the member's Government colleague, the Minister, Deputy Harris, identified in his critique of the over-reliance on moving to third level education as distinct from looking at other post-school opportunities. We need to start broadening our horizons about what is a valid way to contribute to society in the 21st century. It is not all about going to college or apprenticeships. It is about autistic students who have extremely poor interaction skills and no friends. When they leave school, they can communicate and have friends. That is a huge achievement for a school and we need to start highlighting the value we attribute to that. Yes, we need to discuss and acknowledge that there are soft barriers. It would not be fair to pretend that everything in the garden is rosy.