Ms Phil Fox:

I thank Deputy Tully for her question. All teachers once they are qualified and registered with the council are all qualified to the same foundational competencies. On that note, I might come back to the initial teacher education programmes before I move into Droichead, if that is okay with the Deputy. I think one precedes the other. We have the role and remit to review and accredit all programmes of initial teacher education. We are in our second cycle of accreditation at the moment and that process will span from 2021 to 2023, so we are amid that process. What has happened since the first cycle of accreditation is we have engaged in consultation processes and commissioned research. Two areas of note that came up during that research and that consultation process with stakeholders was that the areas where we needed to strengthen, or we believed we needed to strengthen, the provision at initial teacher education was in the area of inclusive education and working with parents. The new standards, Céim, to which I referred in my opening statement, have inclusive education as one of the seven core elements which underpin all aspects of programme design. Why I refer to that is that it underpins foundations, professional studies and school placements. Under the newly configured programmes student teachers will spend either 24 or 30 weeks on school placement, depending on the model of provision. Our standards, as set out, require that the student teachers would have at least two alternative placements in a variety of school situations and contexts, including special education.

The Droichead process is in place to support those teachers when they come out of that programme. It is a daunting task for any newly qualified teacher, and like the Deputy I am also a teacher. The provisions under the Droichead framework are to support newly qualified teachers, to give them access to experienced teachers and to the support services and national induction programme for teachers, to facilitate them meeting with one another in cluster meetings, to collaborate with each other and to have a professional learning activity of their choosing. There is also a thread that threads through now. Any student who started first year of teacher education in September 2022 will be on a programme that is measured against these new Céim standards where inclusive education is one of the seven elements underpinning every module they do and every part of the programme in which they are enrolled.

Part of that is Taisce, which is their learning portfolio, where they identify one of the areas they must work on is inclusive education. That is now threaded through the continuum into Droichead where they bring that learning area with them as an area where they might look for support from more experienced teachers in their professional support team in the school, the national induction programme for teachers and from colleagues at their cluster meetings.