Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 4 October 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Autism
Autism Policy in Education: Discussion (Resumed)
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I would like to welcome everyone to this public meeting of the Joint Committee on Autism. We have received apologies from Deputies Ó Cathasaigh and Harkin. Before we start business today, I would like to read some formal notices and the Covid-19 code of conduct. All present in the committee room are requested to exercise personal responsible responsibility to protect ourselves and others from the risk of contracting Covid-19.
On privilege, I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the place where Parliament has chosen to sit, namely, Leinster House, in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where he or she is not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the parliamentary precincts will be asked to leave the meeting.
For the information of the witnesses, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references they may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. They are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
The first item on the agenda is the minutes from our previous meeting, the private meeting held on 14 July 2022. These minutes were already approved at a virtual private meeting but I ask for their approval in public session. Is that agreed? Agreed.
Therefore, if witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
There will be two sessions today. The first is with representatives of the Teaching Council and the second will be the Teachers Union of Ireland, Fórsa and the Irish Primary Principals Network. I propose that we have a short break between the sessions. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I propose that the following arrangements apply. We will first hear each opening statement and that will be followed by a question-and-answer session with members. Witnesses are asked to ensure that their statement lasts only four or five minutes. Each member will have four minutes. Members may speak more than once and they will be called in accordance with the list of speaking slots, which was circulated previously.
The first item on our agenda are minutes. Are the minutes for the private meeting held on 15 September and the public meeting held on 20 September agreed? Agreed.
Our second agenda item is consideration of autism policy. Today, we will pay particular attention to education and related matters. This session will conclude after one hour.
On behalf of the committee, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the representatives of the Teaching Council. We are joined by Ms Phil Fox, acting director and Ms Bríd Murphy, acting head of initial teacher education and induction. We are grateful to our witnesses for taking time out of their busy schedules to contribute to the public session of the joint committee on autism.
The education system at all levels is critical when it comes to enabling autistic children to reach their full potential. The committee wishes to find out how autistic people are enabled to participate fully in primary, post-primary and third level education and how the transition between schools and further education and training is facilitated.
The committee is interested in learning how the education system interacts with other services, including health and employment support services. We want to know if there is sufficient interagency co-operation. An area of particular interest is how teachers are trained and supported in educating autistic people.
The Teaching Council is the regulatory body for the teaching profession and has 116,000 teachers on its register. The committee would like to hear what policy initiatives are ongoing or are planned, including teacher training, to assist autistic pupils and students. We look forward to hearing the views of the council on the issue of autism policy, particularly from the perspectives of teaching standards, initial teacher education, continuous professional development and anything else that may occur.
Before we hear from witnesses, I propose that we publish the opening statement from the Teaching Council on the committee's website. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I call on Ms Phil Fox, acting director for the Teaching Council to make her opening statement.
Ms Phil Fox:
Dia bhur mbeatha ar maidin. Gabhaim buíochas as ucht an gcuireadh a thabhairt dúinn a bheith anseo don chruinniú seo. I am the acting director of the Teaching Council and I am joined by my colleague, Ms Bríd Murphy, acting head of initial teacher education and induction. I shall briefly summarise the details of our overall submission and we look forward to our discussion with the committee.
The Teaching Council is the statutory, professional standards body for teaching in Ireland. We are responsible for promoting and regulating the profession of teaching as set out specifically by the Teaching Council Acts 2001 to 2015. All of our activities relate to the practice and promotion of teaching as a profession. This work spans a range of areas that we have summarised on page 1 of our written submission. We currently maintain a register of approximately 116,000 teachers, which is the largest professional register in the country.
Our specific statutory role relates to teachers as professionals. It is important to note that this does not involve any direct functions, funding or service provision within schools or educational establishments. However, we have an interest from a policy and programmatic perspective on the contribution of teachers in the areas of concern to this committee.
Teachers and the practice of teaching have a massive influence on the social and personal formation and well-being of young people as valued and unique human beings in their own right and as valuable participants in our society and economy for the future. This embraces inclusivity and respect for all educational needs for all of us care deeply about the education, progress and success of all learners.
The Teaching Council develops and sets the standards for programmes of initial teacher education, ITE, formerly known as teacher training. Based on those standards, the council also has the statutory remit to review and accredit programmes of ITE provided by higher education institutions, HEIs. Graduates of these programmes are eligible to register with the Teaching Council and to teach in recognised schools. This is supported by a dedicated induction framework called Droichead, to support teachers as they start their careers and additionally by Cosán, which is the framework for teachers’ continual learning and professional development throughout their career.
The council holds the view that the best response to learners’ needs is one that is also informed and supported by teachers' ongoing professional learning. This is particularly important in the area of inclusive practice. As I mentioned a moment ago, there were almost 116,000 teachers on the register across primary, post-primary and further education. Each year, there are up to 5,500 applicants for initial registration, who are now eligible to teach in schools. The standards that are set for initial teacher education are called Céim: Standards for Initial Teacher Education. This is the first step on the continuum of teacher education, with inclusive education as one of the seven core elements that underpin all aspects of programme design. This is defined as any aspect of teachers’ learning that is aimed at improving their capacity to address and to respond to the diversity of learners’ needs and to enable their participation in learning. The standards also seek to remove barriers to education through the accommodation and provision of appropriate structures and arrangements that are designed to enable each learner to achieve maximum benefit from their attendance at school.
Furthermore, the standards also identify that a truly inclusive approach to professional practice recognises that teachers encounter a diverse range of needs in the course of their teaching, regardless of setting. This will include additional learning needs, autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia, for example. It also includes learning needs that are associated with diverse linguistic, socioeconomic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
In summary, the Teaching Council prioritises inclusive education among the key learning areas that teachers need to pursue throughout their careers. We also provide research funding and offer a wide range of seminars, journals and literature to teachers with the latest insights on teaching and learning in this area. The continuing success and evolution of the teaching profession is essential to the well-being of everyone in our society, with inclusivity, diversity and respect for all at the heart of that process. The life and role of a teacher is a continuum whereby teachers contribute throughout their career to the learning experiences of our young people, from initial teacher education, to induction, to teachers’ ongoing learning. Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach agus le baill an choiste.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Fox. We will now move on to questions and comments from members. Deputy Carroll MacNeill is first on my list.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the representatives of the Teaching Council for coming before the committee. What are their views on delivering a July programme for next year?
Ms Phil Fox:
I thank the Deputy. The July programme, or the summer provision programme, is a programme that in the main requires teachers to be registered. In the past couple of years, the council has worked to enhance the supply of teachers available to students in receipt of summer provision or July provision. I refer specifically to this year gone by and to the student teacher registration process that was brought in by statutory instrument last January. This gave rise to more than 1,200 student teachers being made available to the system in order to provide summer provision to students who are in need of it.
Furthermore, during the time of Covid-19, to release some supply of teachers to those students, we initiated a measure in conjunction with the Department of Education to facilitate newly-qualified teachers who had completed their programmes but had not completed their registration to become involved and to be eligible to participate in the July provision and the summer schools programmes. Therefore, students under that measure who had completed their vetting-----
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I apologise for interrupting Ms Fox but I have a short amount of time for questions. How many teachers does Ms Fox think are needed to deliver July provision to everybody?
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Ms Fox just told me that 1,200 student teachers were made available from that process and that the Teaching Council is trying to make more early stage teachers available. This is a key challenge for every teacher and for this committee. While Ms Fox said 1,200, does she think 2,400 or 24,000 are required?
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I know what the Teaching Council's role is but Ms Fox is working in this day-to-day while I am not, so I am asking her, in her professional opinion, how many teachers she thinks are needed to deliver July provision.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Ms Fox told me that 116,000 teachers are registered in the State. She said it is the largest professional registration of all. When we talk about teachers available for July provision, Ms Fox cannot give me any estimate between 2,400 and 24,000 out of 116,000. She has given a figure of 1,200 who have been made available by the Teaching Council's changes to the entry level process. It is difficult for this committee not to have anything in between. If the Teaching Council does not know how many are needed, how will it make changes or facilitate teachers being made available?
Ms Phil Fox:
We engage regularly and have frequent communication and collaboration with the Department of Education. Enrolment and allocations are available to the Department. The Teaching Council's register relates to the number of registered teachers rather than the number of registered students. A subset of that is the number of students who have additional needs. We do not hold those data.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I know that. We are just trying to get a handle on who knows. The Department knows the number of students. The Teaching Council has access to all of the teachers. Ms Fox tells me that there are 116,000 teachers and that the council is involved in regular dialogue with the Department about delivering this and assessing the numbers one way or the other. I still do not know the number I am seeking. I know how many teachers there are and how many student teachers became available. I have no sense of the number of teachers that Ms Fox believes are necessary or how the Teaching Council will activate them.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Ms Fox said that part of the Teaching Council's function was to enhance the supply of teachers for July provision. That is in her opening statement.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Does the Teaching Council hold any data about the number of teachers who are registered and working in the State who are also providing private provision in any way during July or August?
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Does the Teaching Council regulate that in any way?
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Does the Teaching Council regulate the conduct of teachers outside of work in the State system, including in any private capacity or work that they do?
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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We have all those data but we still do not know how many teachers are needed to deliver a proper July provision programme or, as parents tell us, how many may deliver other contemporaneous solutions in that period on a private basis. We just do not know. I do not mean to be aggressive; I just want to know how many teachers are needed. If this committee is going to recommend July provision for every child, then we need significant input from teachers.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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We can all do more than our basic function. We can all take that extra step towards proactivity. This is a key challenge for children and teachers. Everybody wants this to be delivered. We can all do more than basically turning up. We can be a bit more proactive.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Yes but that is still not enough because it is not being delivered. In addition to the 1,200, how many out of the 116,000 are needed and how will we deliver? I am over time and I am sure my colleagues also have interesting contributions.
Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I apologise for being late. I read the Teaching Council's statements last night. I wanted to query a couple of things. The statement mentioned Droichead, which I am familiar with because I was a teacher before being elected. Ms Fox mentioned newly qualified teachers employed in special settings in exceptional circumstances.
I have had engagement with several parents whose children are autistic, and who have been put into special classes only to find that the teacher is not qualified as a special education teacher. What has happened is that the principal has told this newly qualified teacher that if they take the special class for a couple of years they will be guaranteed a permanent job in mainstream. What happens is you have a young teacher in that position who is not qualified. They will do their best, and the parents praise the young teacher who goes out of their way to try to learn what they need to learn to address the needs of the students. However, it is not fair on the teacher who is put in that position because that is not their qualification. It is not fair on the students because not only are they getting teachers who are not qualified to teach them, but they are only getting that teacher for maybe a year or two, and then they move on, and we know autistic children need routine and familiarity. Has the Teaching Council come across this issue? Can it address it in any way to ensure it does not happen?
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.
Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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All newly qualified teachers will have a good basis of inclusive education.
Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I refer to teachers who have already qualified. I know there is CPD but it is optional and many teachers do not show any interest in finding out more about inclusive education and addressing the needs of the students in their class, whether it is mainstream or special settings. I know as a teacher that there were many teachers who had no interest in students who had additional needs and were only interested in the students who were easy to teach. They did not even seem to be aware if a student had dyslexia or something like that.
Could it be made compulsory for all qualified teachers to undertake continuing professional development, CPD, in inclusive education?
A number of people with qualifications in autism studies provide assistance for students in a community setting where there are no school places and home tuition is required. They get temporary registration from the Teaching Council. Is it possible to broaden that so that people who are qualified in autism studies are recognised for what they do? They are never going to be teaching in a mainstream setting so they do not need the additional qualifications necessary to do so. They do, however, provide an important service in that they know how to relate to, and can help, even non-verbal students. They can make them comfortable and form a way of communicating with such students. It is frustrating because those qualified people get temporary registration but unless they take on a lot of extra study for something they are never going to use, they do not get permanent registration as a teacher. Is that something that could be addressed?
Ms Phil Fox:
I thank the Deputy for her question. I must refer to the provisions in the legislation that require us to hold and maintain the register of teachers. In order to be registered with the Teaching Council, it is a requirement for a person to be a teacher. The standards we have set and about which I spoke a moment ago apply to any teacher who wishes to register with the council. As a professional standards body and regulator, it is our role to ensure those standards are maintained.
Mark Wall (Labour)
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I thank our guests for coming before the committee. It has already been an informative meeting. I will go back to the issue of July provision that Deputy Carroll MacNeill spoke about earlier. Ms Fox mentioned the fact that there are 116,000 registered professionals, which is great to hear. Would they all be capable of completing or teaching in a July provision programme?
Mark Wall (Labour)
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Ms Fox mentioned 1,200 teachers in her response to Deputy Carroll MacNeill. Was that the amount of teachers, of that 116,000, who took part in this year's programme or was that the number of student placements? I want to confirm that.
Ms Phil Fox:
The 1,200 was an additional cohort of student teachers who had not previously been registered. Those who are in third and fourth year now are eligible to apply under route 5 for student teacher registration. That number was in addition to the established register that was already there. It was an additional supply of teachers to try to assist the system in the difficulty it faced. The point I was making about newly qualified teachers was that those teachers would not have received their awards in time to register for July provision. To get ahead of that and assist with the issue that had arisen in previous years, we came to an arrangement whereby if those newly qualified teachers had commenced the registration process and, critically, had concluded their vetting process, we would facilitate them with an access route to participate in July provision, or summer provision as it was called on different occasions, as long as their registration was completed by October, at which stage they would be paid. That released approximately another 3,500 teachers into the system. I do not have the exact figure but it was approximately 3,500. That was to assist with the difficulty in which parents, families and the system more broadly found themselves.
Mark Wall (Labour)
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The issue over those summer months was the lack of routine. As Ms Fox will be aware from interacting with families, there was no July provision in major towns around this country. Has she any idea of the number of teachers who took part in July provision? Is that number available to her and will she share it with the committee?
Mark Wall (Labour)
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I appreciate that. I wish to raise one other issue. I wish to put on the record that I am not a teacher. This committee relates to autistic persons. Ms Fox mentioned the ongoing Droichead induction. How much of that is specific to autism?
Is there a module specific to autism? Ms Fox also mentioned 24 or 30 weeks in special education. How much of that is specific to autism? Is that information available to us as well? Ms Fox might comment on that.
Ms Phil Fox:
The 24 and 30 weeks are the school placements for student teachers throughout their programmes, depending on the model of provision. The droichead framework is not modular; it is a mechanism to supply mentoring support to newly qualified teachers in whatever context they find themselves and whatever the area that is of challenge to them. It might be working with parents or it might be working with children who have additional needs, including autism. It is high-level and flexible for that reason and the newly qualified teachers themselves identify the area of concern to them and the area where they need support in their learning. At primary level that is a minimum of 60 days and at post-primary level it is a minimum of 200 hours of engagement in the droichead framework.
Mark Wall (Labour)
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I have a lead-on question from there. The Chair has brought us around a number of special schools and one of the big issues was autistic person-specific training. Ms Fox has said it is dependent on the training teacher coming back and asking for that. Should there be autistic person-specific training, given the complexities many families and students have? Is that something the Teaching Council will consider? It seems to be a growing concern for parents and Deputy Tully also mentioned the concerns that parents face with students in special classes versus students going into mainstream education. Is the Teaching Council looking at that? I hate to go back to this again but the committee needs to know about autistic person-specific training. Is that something the Teaching Council is considering, outside of the asks by its representatives and members?
Ms Phil Fox:
It is now a mandatory element of initial teacher education. It is not just something that we have been considering but it has been implemented in the core elements of the programmes for all teachers who will be qualified through the programmes provided by HEIs within the State, and those programmes are accredited by the Teaching Council. I missed one of the Senator's questions. Would he mind repeating it?
Mark Wall (Labour)
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It is all leading into that question. Ms Fox is saying there is a module that is autism-specific. I ask Ms Fox to tell us about that again and what it involves.
Ms Phil Fox:
Heretofore it was a mandatory element of the programmes of initial teacher education and there was a specific modular approach to it. In the new programmes which commenced last month - and the accreditation process is ongoing in that - inclusive education is one of the seven core elements that underpin all aspects of the approach and programme design. Students will have inclusive education as one of the underpinning elements to each and every module and each and every aspect of their programme over the course of their four or two years, depending on the model of provision they choose.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Senator Wall and Deputy Carroll MacNeill mentioned numbers. Could the Teaching Council supply the committee with the number of teachers who took part in the July provision, be it home-based or school-based? Ms Fox said the Teaching Council has those figures from the payroll and she mentioned that 1,200 students had taken part. Can we get the figures for non-students who took part in the summer gone by?
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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That data cannot be supplied by the Teaching Council.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Who could supply it?
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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It is something the committee might write to the Department to look for figures on.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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We cannot hear Senator Ardagh. I will try to bring her back in after the next speaker. There is no sound from Senator Garvey either. I ask both to log out and back in or to try using a headset if possible. While we are waiting, any members here may come back in with additional questions.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the Teaching Council's role in registration but I am sure the witnesses can understand that, from our perspective, the committee is trying to get a particular body of work done and trying to piece everything together. Senator Wall and I were just discussing this. It appears from the witnesses' own figures that there are 119,000 people available to make a contribution towards summer provision. Ms Fox spoke about the extra 3,500 and 116,000 so that is how I got that figure. We hear constantly from parents that this cannot be provided. It is a huge disconnect for us. An OECD report came out this morning on education in Ireland. It refers to extremely good outcomes and underinvestment but also to our teachers' salaries being some of the highest in the OECD. I think they are the sixth highest in the OECD, which includes most of Europe plus the United States, Canada, Israel, Korea and so on. It is a very broad group of countries. We can ask the Department about this but we will not be able to get a sense of what people are doing privately through the Department because it is, of necessity, private so we will struggle with that. Perhaps the teachers' unions might be able to provide us with better information on what number of teachers made themselves available for July provision in schools last year or the year before and what the need is. On the face of it between those two things, it looks like there is a very large number of people available, who are paid comparatively very well, yet we do not have this service for our most vulnerable children. That is our point of frustration, which I think is readily understood.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Ms Fox talked about the proactive steps being taken to add to that.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Let us imagine we were having this conversation this time next year. Within the Teaching Council's particular remit, what more can it do within that body, with its access to teachers and its particular role and function? What more can it do to ensure a better July provision is delivered next year?
Ms Phil Fox:
In the past when we have been challenged with teacher supply, and it continues to be a challenge, we have worked with the education partners. We have worked with the Department of Education and other agencies and we have worked with the managerial bodies. We have a good method of communication with teachers. That is one avenue that can be explored, as regards how we can reach out. We have access to all of those 116,000 teachers-----
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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In practical terms, what would Ms Fox do? We have dialogue and communication. Ms Fox just said that has been done in the past. I am asking what we can do that is different in order to deliver a different outcome next year.
Ms Phil Fox:
I was just getting to that. In recent times we have contacted and had communication with teachers on the register who may have been retired to encourage them to consider becoming involved in substitution where a need may arise at a local level.
In the future, we could look at communicating with the register to see if there are teachers who are available or interested in becoming involved in different programmes offered by the State to assist with the national effort on this. I am not sure it is going to deliver.
Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Ms Fox was talking about all teachers having training in inclusive education. How many teachers have specific training in the area of special education? I am talking about teachers who are completely focused on the area. Does Ms Fox have figures on that?
Ms Phil Fox:
We could provide the committee with statistics on the qualifications teachers have declared on their registrations. It is important to say that, once teachers are registered, they may add other qualifications to their registration. It is a matter for teachers whether they wish to do so. We can certainly provide data on any qualifications we have been informed of.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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As Ms Fox will have seen from the tone of the meeting, summer provision is a major issue of concern for the committee. Some 80% of children in special schools, the most vulnerable children, did not get summer provision. It will be said there is home-based provision but, unfortunately, some parents are not in a position to get a teacher to provide that home provision. The children for whom the July provision, as it was then known, was set up are getting nothing for the entire summer. That is not acceptable. What is Ms Fox's view on that? We have mentioned numbers and figures but the reality is there is not a sufficient number available to provide this. There are towns in which there are multiple children with a need but where there is no provision taking place. In the vast majority of our special schools, it is not taking place. As I have said, it is not acceptable. What is Ms Fox's view on people who work in the early childhood care and education, ECCE, system who have level 6, 7 or 8 qualifications but who do not have a Teaching Council number working in the summer provision system? Could something be put in place to make them eligible to work in the summer provision programme? My personal belief is it should be mandatory for all special schools in the country to provide the summer provision. We need to look at a system like what Senator Wall mentioned, that is to say, where there are a number of schools in a town, they should be brought together to ensure there is availability for students in every single town. What are Ms Fox's views on expanding the scope of eligibility to work in the summer provision programme, perhaps through providing a temporary Teaching Council number to people with a certain level of education?
Ms Phil Fox:
As the Chairman spoke, it struck me that, since 30 April 2022, we have completed processing 6,700 applications for teacher registration. I again refer back to my opening comments on the council's legislative remit and the provisions set out in both primary and secondary legislation - statutory instruments - on which the Houses of the Oireachtas have signed off. We are required to ensure the standards are met. I realise I am repeating what I said earlier. Our role is to register teachers. Matters of employment and deployment fall outside of the council's remit. The council is very focused on its role, remit and responsibilities, which are quite extensive. That is where the conversation and the work is focused.
Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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I have listened to what was discussed here. What does the Teaching Council believe could be done to facilitate students in the July provision and in schools? Ms Fox referred to the seven programmes, one of which is inclusive education. Ms Fox stated that all 116,000 teachers can teach an autistic child with special needs. Is that the case?
Ms Phil Fox:
Of the 116,000 teachers, some are registered under primary and post-primary and further education and once a teacher has met the standards for registration to enter the profession, his or her deployment and employment is outside the remit of the council. The short answer to the Deputy's question is "Yes". Once we are satisfied that teachers have met the standards, they can be deployed by their school management or their principal into the various settings according to the school need. The council has no role in that provision.
Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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In that case, we really should not have a problem around July provision or children's education. I seek clarification that this is what Ms Fox is saying as the Teaching Council.
Ms Phil Fox:
Yes. There are 116,000 on the register. On how the numbers break down, I must say that some of those teachers are retired and they have kept their registration. A number of those teachers may be abroad and have continued to maintain their registration with the council. We are not clear on the number of those teachers because we do not hold their employment data. This goes back to the same point again that we just told their qualifications, their vetting and other necessary data for them to be on the register of teachers. Where they are employed and the decisions they make thereafter are not contained within our register or in our database.
Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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Okay.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Deputy Collins still has time.
Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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I would like that clarified because I believe we are going around in circles with regard to the Teaching Council. The council seems to be only looking after the actual qualifications and that teachers are registered with those qualifications. What I am getting back from Ms Fox is that thereafter, the council has no role in this regard, so we are going to have to go somewhere else for the details we need. Perhaps Ms Fox can tell the committee what the Teaching Council would need to try to get more information or does she believe this is in the remit of the Teaching Council? Is the council just happy to do what it actually does?
Ms Phil Fox:
We work closely with the Department of Education and the teacher supply groups. I am a member of the teacher supply steering group, a member of the teacher supply implementation group, and I chair the communications group. We also have a nominee, the head of registration is on the teacher supply data group. There is a lot of communication and collaboration regularly and frequently back and forth with the Department on the supply of teachers. The information that we hold is in relation to teachers' registration. To be clear, we do have other functions outside of registration but they are not in the arena of employment. For example, we have the role to review and accredit the programmes, we have the fitness to teach and the maintaining of the register on professional standards. There is also our research function. There are many other functions where the council has quite an extensive and broad remit but not in the area of employment of teachers.
Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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I thank Ms Fox for that clarification.
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I thank the witnesses for their attendance. I just have a couple of questions. I seek real clarity on the decision that the July provision must be done by qualified teachers. Is this a demand of the parents of children with autism or is it a demand of the Teaching Council or the Department of Education? That is my first question.
Can we increase training days for mainstream teachers in being autism-aware? This would be for two reasons, the first being to help them with early diagnosis as there are still children who are slipping through the gaps. On specific training for working with children with autism, I am not up to date with what the Teaching Council and the Department of Education have done to help teachers have better tools, based on the fact that we have seen a huge increase in the numbers of children with autism.
Ms Phil Fox:
If it is okay, I will take those questions in reverse order. One thing I have not mentioned so far is the supports we make available to teachers under our remit to regulate and promote the profession. One of those is our Collaboration Research for Ongoing Innovation, CROÍ, series. Each and every teacher who is registered with the council has free access to the EBSCO library. We have a research support framework through which we supply funding to teachers who are involved in formal programmes of teacher education. Some of the teachers who are in receipt of those bursaries are focusing their learning on the area of special education and inclusive education. We also have a suite of resources available on our website under the heading "Using Research in our School". That is available to any teacher. Inclusive education is, of course, one of the core elements of that.
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I am sorry to cut across Ms Fox but there are loads of resources on everything available to teachers all of the time. They get mountains of resources posted through to them and everybody and anybody sends them links. That is brilliant but my question was clearly on proper training, by which I mean training in the physical presence of somebody who knows how best to give teachers the tools to work with children with autism.
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I completely agree but parents want to know that teachers have special skills in dealing with children with autism. That is what my question was about.
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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They know to train, is it? I am a teacher myself. I have worked with many schools and teachers of children with autism and I do not see the in-service days they are crying out for. I just do not see it. I see lots of resources being developed. People are getting paid lots of money to develop resources to be put online but hands-on training is by far the best and would also increase the incidence of early diagnosis. That is what I am asking about. Does the council do that kind of training?
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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Whose responsibility is it then? That is the support teachers need and the council is there to support the teachers. Would the Department of Education-----
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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If the council is representing teachers, has it highlighted that this is needed? I hear from teachers about it all the time. If the council is representing the teachers, is it making a case for increased training? Even if it is not its own role to run such training, it could be its role, as a teacher representative body, to ask for it.
Ms Phil Fox:
Within the areas of training that are under our remit, including initial teacher education, that is exactly what we have done. We have included inclusive education as one of the seven core elements, as I explained earlier. The Droichead induction framework is also our policy. In the areas under our remit, we focus on special education and inclusion in the round. However, in areas that are outside our remit, we have a role in promotion. With regard to the areas we promote, we had Mr. Adam Harris from AsIAm at our FÉILTE conference. I believe that was in 2018 but I am not sure of the year. We always have inclusive education and inclusion as part of the brief for our FÉILTE conference, which happens on World Teachers' Day, which happened to be last Saturday. However, the council does not have a remit to provide programmes and courses.
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I understand that but is it not within the council's remit to ensure the teachers get the training they need rather than just having a speaker at a conference that many teachers cannot go to?
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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Is the Teaching Council taking that on as an issue to support the teachers in their needs? Is what I am asking fair?
Ms Phil Fox:
Yes. This speaks to my earlier point that teachers are the ones best placed to identify that need, which will be different from teacher to teacher and from context to context. Those teachers may engage in a variety of learning settings. I note that the Senator mentioned a specific training model. That is one model of continuing professional development, CPD, or teachers learning but there are many ways in which teachers learn. Sometimes it involves a professional learning community and sometimes a formal programme.
We also have a researcher-in-residence scheme that provides funding for teachers who are researching on an area within their own school. We have teachers who are engaged in that scheme in the area of inclusive education. That is what falls within our remit and that is a way we can support teachers.
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I do not want to run out of time. I will let Ms Fox answer my first question. Does the July provision need to be done by qualified teachers? Is that a demand of the parents of children with autism? Who is demanding that? Is it the Department of Education or is it the Teaching Council?
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I understand that concept. I am not asking about that. I personally have registered with the Teaching Council in the past. I am asking specifically who is demanding that the July provision is done only by qualified teachers.
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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However, the Teaching Council is struggling to provide the teachers. The Teaching Council is trying to support the teachers. I know teachers pay well to be a member of the Teaching Council. It is blatant to everybody on the committee that there is a major issue with providing teachers for July provision. Is anybody in the Teaching Council looking at alternatives? We know that teaching is now more difficult than ever. The number of teachers available is reducing every year as teaching becomes more stressful. As we move forward, it is less likely that teachers will be available in July and August when they need that time off. They usually spend a week or two in July wrapping up after teaching for the school year and a week or two in August preparing to go back teaching. It is not realistic for the Teaching Council to think that they will be the ones sorting this issue out. It does not seem to make sense.
In order for someone to teach, it is necessary to register with the Teaching Council. That is great and it is good that we have a system in place. However, the teachers are crying out for support on this and they feel bad that they cannot do the July provision. They would like the children to get the support because most teachers are really dedicated to their pupils. Is it not time for the Teaching Council to have a really frank conversation? The Teaching Council may be pushing the notion that people other than qualified teachers may be able to do the July provision? Does Ms Fox have any opinion on that?
Ms Phil Fox:
At the risk of repeating myself, we are confined by the legislation that requires us to register teachers. That is the role that we occupy. We have a supply of 116,000 teachers available on our register. We have implemented measures to increase the supply of teachers to make them available for July provision at a time when it seemed it was very necessary to do that. The requirement to be registered with the Teaching Council is in the employment space. We do not occupy that space at all. I again point out that the registration assures the public and assures prospective employers that a teacher is a fit and proper person and has the requisite qualifications.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Those involved in the home-based programme, which is the alternative, do not need Teaching Council numbers or to be qualified SNAs; they just need to be Garda vetted and over 18. That is the alternative for parents if they can get somebody because we do not have the school-based programme. That is the source of the frustration among committee members. There are tens of thousands of children who are not getting into the programme because the school-based programme is a very limited, particularly in special schools. There are 8,000 children in special schools and over 80% of them have no programme at all.
We as a committee want to prioritise it for the summer of 2023. We have a summer-based programme throughout the country that every child who needs it gets, but that needs qualified teachers to make themselves available or we need to change the legislation to allow either people working in the early childhood care and education, ECCE, system or people who have levels 6, 7 or 8 in education to work in this scheme. Children and their families, particularly where the children have a higher need, need that programme. That gap of eight weeks and longer for families is not acceptable. The committee would like the Teaching Council to highlight that. The council said we need to promote this to more teachers for them to make themselves available. I am not criticising in any way but the children need it. Otherwise, they will regress and then it will be a more difficult September and October. We need more specialised training in special education.
Ms Fox mentioned teacher supply groups. We have a teacher supply issue for the summer provision and all here accept the massive need. I mentioned at our previous meeting that some schools have made a decision already that they will not be doing summer provision next year. Thousands of families have already been told 12 months out that they will have no summer provision next year. It is unacceptable we allow that happen. Will the Teaching Council promote this to teachers to make themselves available? Could we get the number of teachers who are registered and are perhaps retired who would be available to work? Could we contact them to see what number would be available to work? We need to start this work now to make sure we have this summer provision next year.
Ms Phil Fox:
Certainly, we are very happy to do anything we can do within our role to assist and support the committee in its work. We wish it well with this work. It is very important for everyone in society that this work is done.
We have the role to promote. We have access to the register of teachers and we can communicate with teachers in that way. Certainly, if that is something that would be of assistance, we can look at how we might be able to assist in that way.
One other point that might be helpful to know is that there are several routes to registration - primary, post-primary and further education - and there are different requirements under those routes to registration. It may be the case that some of those in the ECCE sector would be eligible to register under some of the routes. That would be worth checking for each of the individual teachers and it would be on a case-by-case basis.
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I appreciate the remit of the Teaching Council. I want to ask one question again that was half-answered. If we are trying to increase the number of teachers registering for the July provision, would it not make sense for the Teaching Council to look to the Department of Education to run specific continuing professional development, CPD, training, or to do such training itself, to support teachers and give them the confidence to want to work in this area? Not every teacher has the confidence to work with children with autism. Surely they would be more empowered by having specific training, and I do not mean resources online but specific training to give them the confidence to believe they have the skills and tools they need, even though they are already qualified teachers, which is fantastic, but we all know teaching children can be challenging. Does the Teaching Council have a plan to do clear training to support, encourage and empower teachers to put their names on the list for the July provision? This would help us increase the number of teachers available for it. I do not know where we are going if we do not have any figures on how many more we need. That is probably not the job of the council either.
The Teaching Council has increased the number of teachers available for the July provision. If we are not getting as much as we need, it might be worth seriously listening to my suggestion that the Teaching Council run CPD and proper training courses that will give teachers the confidence to believe that they can offer the July provision. Maybe the teachers do not have children with autism in their school. Maybe they are new teachers. Maybe they do not believe they have the skills, although we all know they have. Some specific CPD training could help increase the numbers on that list.
Ms Phil Fox:
I thank the Senator for that. It would be helpful to make the point that programmes are available. There are training programmes available through the Department of Education. We are aware of them because teachers come to us with them to add them to their registration. They are provided for teachers who are in a special education setting and who wish to increase their knowledge base and their skill base in relation to inclusive education and who have identified learning need-----
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I am not referring to teachers who are already in a special education setting. I am speaking about those teachers who are not because it might not occur to them that they could also provide the July provision. Does Ms Fox know what I mean?
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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Will the Teaching Council advertise the training programmes to its database of teachers? It might help to increase the numbers on the list of people willing to do the July provision if it could give them the information. The Teaching Council is the only body with the database of teachers, because everybody has to register with it, and it could let them know about these training courses.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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We will finish up with Ms Fox’s answer.
Ms Phil Fox:
At the risk of running around in a ring again, our role is clearly defined. We are supportive of teachers and, of course, there is a continuum of teacher education. It is our experience that the teachers are life-long learners and they engage in CPD as and when they need to. They are continually learning. They are learning in their own context and they are making conscious decisions to learn where they have an identified learning need. That has been our experience.
Last Saturday, more than 1,000 teachers attended our national conference, either physically or in a hybrid manner. As part of that, one of those sessions was facilitated by a teacher who has autism. That person is engaging in research and we look forward to hearing how that might go. However, as regards being a provider of CPD, we are not facilitated by the legislation to do that.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I thank both of our witnesses for contributing today. It has been beneficial to committee to hear their views. We will consider them when we are making our final report. I know they are limited in what they can and cannot do, but I would ask them to highlight the concerns the committee members have raised ahead of summer of 2023. We get the figures and we have a fair idea already that there are significant numbers of children who do not have that provision and who are regressing because of that. We ask the Teaching Council to take those concerns on board and bring them to the teachers’ supply group and to any discussions it may have with the Department of Education.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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We will suspend the meeting for five minutes to allow our witnesses to exit and to allow the representatives of the Teaching Union of Ireland, Fórsa and the Irish Primary Principals' Network, IPPN, to take their seats.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I welcome our witnesses. From the Teachers' Union of Ireland, we have Mr. David Duffy, education and research officer, and Ms Anne Howard, assistant general secretary. From Fórsa we have Ms Linda Kelly, national secretary of the health and welfare division, and Mr. Andy Pike, head of education. From the Irish Primary Principals' Network, we are joined by Mr. Páiric Clerkin, CEO, and Ms Caroline Quinn, leadership team support.
For the information of the witnesses, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references they may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. They are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction. Before we hear from our witnesses, I propose that we publish their opening statements and submissions on the committee website. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I will now invite our witnesses to make their opening statements. First, we will hear from the TUI, which represents 19,000 teachers and lecturers in the Irish public education sector. It is the third teachers' union to have met our committee. We would like to hear how education and inclusion is working out in practice and what the is role for special schools and special classes, as well as mainstream classes. I invite Mr. Duffy and Ms Howard to make their opening statements.
Mr. David Duffy:
The TUI would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to make this submission on the topic of services and supports for autistic people. Data show us that disadvantaged schools enroll by far the most significant proportion of students with special educational needs.
In terms of options for schooling, it is important that all options are available to a student with special educational needs, SEN. Therefore, both mainstream and special school options should be available and the deciding factor should be what is in the best long-term interest of the child.
The Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs, EPSEN, Act requires serious investment and a number of groups have questioned whether it is still possible to implement. More than 15 years ago, the TUI emphasised that schools were not sufficiently resourced to implement some elements of the EPSEN Act, in particular designing and delivering individual education plans for students with SEN. Since then it has become clear the medicalised model envisaged in EPSEN is no longer possible due to an unwillingness of the Department of Education over many years to facilitate ongoing resourcing and legislative arrangements. In the absence of adequate resourcing, many of the needs of students with SEN are falling on parents. Schools will need continuing professional development, CPD, teaching hours, time for administration and the restoration of pastoral supports. The student profile or plan recording system needs to be redefined entirely. Furthermore, schools, students and families will need to be able to access out-of-school supports such as occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, child and adolescent mental health services etc., in a timely fashion. We are all aware of long waiting lists for access to vital supports, such as operational therapists, speech and language therapists etc. The backlogs are not in any way the fault of the staff in those services who are trying valiantly to cope with unmanageable caseloads. However, the waiting lists present significant difficulties for schools and families who are trying to support students with autism.
It is vital that students with autism continue to be able to access supports when moving into and through higher and further education. College guidance and disability offices need to be adequately resourced to achieve this. The disability access route to education scheme also needs to continue and, if possible, expand.
Education settings require support from relevant agencies with expertise in these areas if the school is adequately to support students with autism. Those supports to students are frequently lacking. Cuts to pastoral supports in schools, such as guidance and middle management, have also made it difficult for schools to support students in these difficult situations. Numbers of posts of responsibility have also not kept pace with ongoing rises in student numbers. Schools most urgently need time, resources and CPD to support students with autism. Restoration of the special needs allowance would encourage more teachers to seek this important qualification. Schools need time to do department-level planning as well as student-level planning. Some schools do not even have an assigned special educational needs organiser, SENO. The lack of integrated inclusive supports on site in schools, such as nurses, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists etc., makes truly inclusive education a dream rather than a reality. A pilot programme, the school inclusion model, is available in some schools. The TUI is cautiously optimistic about the prospects of such a programme and looks forward to the forthcoming research report on the pilot scheme.
It is vital all public buildings be made autism sensitive. All new buildings should have the facility to incorporate safe spaces as well as room for special classes as required. Many older buildings will require significant retrofitting.
The TUI would like to make the following recommendations to the committee. Students with autism should be able to attend school with their siblings and neighbours without travelling long distances. It is essential that vital support structures within schools are restored. It is essential that students with SEN are able to access further education and training opportunities. There needs to be investment in students with autism before, during and after their post-primary education. Better forward planning is required for students due to move into post-primary education while they are still in primary school. Hours allocated to SEN need to be used solely for SEN work, such as planning, direct student support, family liaison etc. The Teacher Conciliation Council, TCC, has for some time been addressing the issue of a specific time allocation to schools for department-level planning. A recommendation from the TCC soon would be helpful. Follow-on programmes are required at senior cycle for students who pursued level 1 and level 2 learning programmes at junior cycle. Resources for schools will need to be provided to enable this.
An extensive school building and refitting programme is needed urgently. Significant investment is needed in out-of-school supports. Investment is also needed in the health system to enable assessments of need, which are, after all, a legal right. The National Education Psychological Service must be involved in schools from the ground up. Every school should have an assigned SENO. It would be useful if all staff had the opportunity, if they so wished, to engage in CPD on supporting students with autism.
The DARE scheme needs to continue and, ideally, expand. The SEN allowance should be restored and the provision of special schools and special classes should continue until a viable and fully resourced alternative can be provided.
I thank the committee for listening to this opening statement. The TUI would be more than happy to answer any questions members may have. The TUI would also like to direct members to the more extensive written submission we made to the committee last month, which provides more detail on the matters outlined.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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We will now hear from Fórsa, which represents 16,000 workers in its educational division and 30,000 in its health and welfare edition, and will have a view from both sides, including the education and health service perspectives.
Ms Linda Kelly:
Fórsa welcomes the opportunity to address the Joint Committee on Autism on matters relating to the services and supports provided by the State for autistic people. The Chair has outlined who we are and that we have made a dual submission covering areas of health or education, so I will get straight into the detail of it.
The health policy areas that have already been mentioned by my colleagues impact on the lives of people diagnosed with autism across a number of policy areas. We cannot cover them all in this submission but we need to focus on some of the areas that are in crisis and require immediate Government and political intervention. These areas are: the funding arrangements within the community and voluntary sector; children’s disability network teams; and the need for a chief health and social care professional, HSCP, office within the Department of Health.
On the community and voluntary sector, everybody is well aware of the problematic funding arrangements that exist. We have included in our appendices to our submission a number of documents and research the union previously published. While those funding arrangements extend past the disability sector and impact across a number of different areas, they have a disproportionate impact on the provision of services to autistic people because of the impact on disability services. It is still unclear whether the additional €65 million announced last week by the Minister will prioritise having those pay claims addressed by staff within the sector. That is tied into the children’s disability network teams, whereby there are people working on the same teams and earning different rates of pay, which is untenable.
On the children’s disability network teams, it must be acknowledged that the reconfiguration of any service is a challenging change of environment, a challenge made even more difficult by the Covid-19 pandemic. Notwithstanding that, there are several significant issues within the service that can be addressed by the Government and the HSE if there is an investment in finance and leadership. Rather than take up all the time with my opening statement, I have included an appendix on the significant issues that are causing a massive recruitment and retention crisis within children’s disability network teams. This all stems from the fact that we have a lack of a chief HSCP office in the Department of Health. There is a clear and urgent need for the creation of this to bring a strategic focus in the Department of Health on all issues related to HSCPs. Similar to the funding arrangements, while this would encompass many areas outside of disability, it would have a positive impact on the roll-out of progressing disability services. We have set out a number of recommendations in the opening statement. I liked them so much that we included them twice.
I will move on to our submission on education. The Government’s approach to delivering an inclusive school system has been disjointed, confused, and marked by a failure to deliver on key policy commitments. This failure has let down many students, including autistic students, who stood to benefit from a more inclusive educational experience. The policy initiatives announced by successive Governments in this area have sought to fulfil the commitments enshrined within the EPSEN Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities but unfortunately these commitments have not been delivered. The blueprint for changing the nature of Ireland’s school system was set out by the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, across several publications and policy announcements, including the development of policy advice to Government. The NCSE summarised these initiatives in its progress report on developing policy advice on special schools and classes in October 2019. The council stated that “substantive improvements” had been made "in the wider system of supports for students with special educational needs." However, the required changes have not been delivered.
The NCSE stated that in 2018 a demonstration project commenced to bring specialised therapies into 150 preschools and schools. In the schools sector some 75 schools participated in the pilot in community healthcare organisation, CHO 7.
To date, the evaluation of the pilot has not been published and there are not verifiable outcomes against which this approach can be measured in terms of educational achievements or improved learning.
The council also stated that the commencement of legislation to compel schools to open a special class would quickly improve provision. In fact, it was not until 2022 that the legislation was enacted and used. The council stated that in 2019, a new schools inclusion model was piloted aiming to build schools' capacity to include students with additional education and care needs. Again, no evaluation of the outcomes of the pilot has been published and the direction of Government policy remains unclear. The Department of Education informed schools that a new mechanism for allocating special needs assistants, SNAs, to mainstream classes would be implemented at the commencement of the 2022-23 school year.
Mr. Pike is telling me I can skip the rest of the submission and take it as read. In the time left, we will get straight to the meat of the issue, namely, the recommendations.
The recommendations are key from our perspective. The first is to abolish the statutory special needs assistant scheme and replace it with a national SNA service with staff allocated to every school. This would end the uncertainty for students and staff about the continuation of SNA supports year to year. Every school should be inclusive and every school needs a complement of SNAs to work with students with additional care needs. Second, the Government should establish a national school nursing service to provide advice, support and clinical care for students with complex medical needs in mainstream classes and special classes. Third, it should work with stakeholders to agree a robust redeployment scheme for SNAs to ensure the right staff are in the right place to deliver the service. Fourth, it should ensure the SNA workforce is properly trained and qualified to meet the need of students. The national SNA training programme must be accredited and should continue. The minimum essential qualification for SNAs should be modernised and accredited to at least Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, level 6. Fifth, each student should be facilitated with a pathway to mainstream class provision if it is right for them and if it is appropriate. This requires resourcing and assessment of school capacity and staffing requirements.
We are happy to go into detail on anything in the submission or its appendices. Mr. Pike was wrong that my Cork accent could not get through everything in the five minutes.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Kelly. We will now hear from the IPPN.
Mr. P?iric Clerkin:
In its widest sense, inclusive education aims to enable participation, raise achievements, support well-being and create a sense of belonging for all learners, including those with additional needs and those who are most vulnerable to exclusion. Special needs are either met or they are not and, if not, there is a consequential impact not only on the child with special needs but also on the other children in the class.
The IPPN recognises the current pressure within the system in terms of a shortage of places for children with complex additional needs in special classes and special schools in Dublin and elsewhere. We fully support the principle of ensuring equal access to quality inclusive education for all learners, alongside their siblings and friends in the local area in which they live. This inclusion must be planned, supported and fully resourced.
Under section 37A of the Education Act 1998, the Minister has the power to direct schools to make additional special education provision available and ensure sufficient places are provided. It must be recognised that a requirement to exercise those powers means that the system has already failed to adequately prepare for the placement of children with complex additional needs into schools alongside their peers.
The IPPN encourages all schools to undertake to open a special class if or when an application is received on behalf of a child within their catchment area who has a recommendation for placement in a special class. The reduced timeframe for the admissions process required under legislation does not afford sufficient time for the planning, support and resourcing to be undertaken that is required to facilitate the placement of children with complex additional needs in their local national school. This was raised by the IPPN as an issue at the time the legislation was enacted. We believe an amendment to the legislation to allow schools to receive advance applications on behalf of children who have a recommendation for placement in a special class 24 months in advance of their school start date would alleviate this difficulty. This extended period would allow the school, in consultation with the SENO and parents, to address what needs to be put in place to ensure the child’s access to quality inclusive education. It would provide certainty to the parents about school placement, would obviate the need to invoke section 37A and, most importantly, would ensure that children with complex additional needs will be able to attend the same local national schools as their brothers, sisters or friends.
At the heart of the issues we hear about from our members is a need to differentiate between high-incidence special needs and more complex low-incidence special needs and how such needs are planned for, supported and resourced. Adopting the same approach to both is problematic and incompatible with the differing challenges they present.
Ms Caroline Quinn:
Children with low-incidence complex needs generally fall into three categories: those whose needs have been clearly identified and whose transition to school is anticipated, planned for and resourced; those whose needs may have been identified but have not been flagged to the school and, accordingly, have not been planned for and resourced; and those whose needs emerge when the child is in school.
The adequacy of a school’s quantum of resources is compromised largely, but not exclusively, as a result of children presenting in the school whose needs have not been flagged to the school or children with identified complex needs who may not be linked in with a disability team. Notwithstanding the excellent work of public health nurses, GPs, early intervention teams and early childhood educators, it is not uncommon for a child to present in school with clearly identifiable complex needs that have not been flagged in advance to the school. Parents may not have identified their child as having complex needs nor have engaged with services, feeling the school placement may be compromised. Either way, when such circumstances arise, it can have a profoundly negative impact on the experience of the child and a consequential impact on his or her peers in the class.
It is crucial the system is agile enough to respond quickly to an emerging need so as not to compromise unnecessarily or unduly the school’s ability to meet and respond adequately to that need. This is not currently the case. Most children with low-incidence complex needs can thrive in a mainstream class setting or in a special class in a mainstream school if their needs have been identified to the school in a timely manner; there is sufficient time to plan for and put in place the supports the children require; and the school’s allocation of supports in the areas of teaching, special needs assistance, technology, furniture, building modifications etc. is adequate.
In summary, the following key issues need to be addressed. There need to be adequate resources and funding, including staff and board of management training regarding supporting children with autism. The low-incidence complex needs profile of a school needs to be considered as a separate entity to high incidence needs. The exceptional review process, by which schools can seek to have the accuracy of their SNA allocations considered, is unwieldy and slow in responding to emerging need. The IPPN notes the targeted review process that is referred to in circular 0035/2022 and supports its piloting as a matter of urgency.
The IPPN acknowledges the increase in funding announced in the budget, including the extra 370 special classes to be opened, 234 at primary level, as well as the extra SENOs to be recruited. Having an efficient number of SENOs in the system has a knock-on effect. We do not want to go back to SENOs having between 60 and 70 schools on their caseload, which is not sustainable. Where the resources allocated to a school are not sufficient to meet the needs, it makes no sense that the parent would appeal the allocation of resources to the school leader who has had no influence over the level of resources allocated to the school.
The pilot school inclusion model has merit with the access to additional assistance, such as behavioural support, added psychological support and therapy services. There is significant doubt whether such a model can be delivered countrywide given the dearth of such qualified professionals available. That causes an issue at school level, meaning people cannot be substituted or they are on maternity leave in the health services. That adds to the burden on school leaders trying to access the reports for children in their schools.
There are other issues which we are more than happy to discuss with the committee today. We thank members for taking the time to listen.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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We will now have questions and comments from members. We will again work to the rota from the previous meeting. I ask members to try to keep their questions and answers to five minutes if possible.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I do not believe the witnesses present had the opportunity to see the previous session, meaning they are at something of a disadvantage. The committee is focused on the delivery of the July provision. We have listened to 15 minutes of various contributions and I agree with many of them.
Not one representative in that 15-minute period mentioned the July provision or what teachers can do to enhance July provision. I have the list of things that were mentioned, including investment in a whole range of things, all of which are important but not once did the representatives mention what teachers can do to offer and not once did they address our concern around the delivery of the summer provision programme. Reference was made to the unwillingness of the Department to facilitate resourcing; investment before during and after; school building investment; school supports; and health supports - all correct; and assigned SENOs, special educational needs organisers.
I totally agree with Ms Kelly about the health and social care professionals, HSCPs, and the Department of Health and a range of other points and other criticisms, including redeployment schemes. All correct but there was not one reference to what teachers can do to enhance July provision. With every respect, there was not one reference. It is like, "We have 99 problems but July provision ain't one." I am not trying to be funny but 400 children out of 8,000 got the full four weeks of July provision last year. We heard from the Teaching Council that there are 116,000 registered teachers, and an additional 3,500 were made available who could help to provide July provision. As a committee, we just do not hear what is happening, what is the extra contribution for what can be done, or what is the plan. It is of huge concern. We are already engaged on the health side. That is the point of this committee. We are trying to address it piece by piece with everybody. We are not here to hear a list of demands. We are here to get solutions. It is deeply frustrating to have listened to 15 minutes of important content but without one constructive point for what the representatives believe teachers will do within the next 12 months to make sure that this statistic in respect of children and July provision does not happen again. I leave it open to the witnesses. What is going to be different this time next year from the teachers' perspective?
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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We will take it as given in the statement.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I will have one other comment when Mr. Duffy is finished.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Which includes this.
Mr. David Duffy:
Indeed, and I absolutely accept that it is an important part of it, but this is what we were asked to present in relation to it. It is quite a broad remit that we have. I can make very clear that the TUI's position on the July provision is that it is extremely important. It should happen and ideally it should be broader than it currently is. It should be more available than it currently is. We have been involved, even within the last year or two, in encouraging people to get involved in July provision because it is an important service.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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May I ask Mr. Duffy for the detail on that? How many TUI teachers were engaged in it? How many teachers does Mr. Duffy believe need to be engaged on it, if the TUI has been in communication with them?
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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But the TUI engaged with its own-----
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I ask that Mr. Duffy will supply those figures to the committee when they become available.
Mr. Andy Pike:
I apologise if we have not addressed the issue of July provision. Had we known that this was the focus of the committee, we could have done a submission solely focused on July provision. It is something that we look at on a regular basis and have some issues with. I am looking at the four areas we were asked to comment on in a submission. It would not be clear to me upon reading those four topics that the committee was indeed focused on July provision-----
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I respect that entirely but from our perspective, we are talking about services and supports for such children and this is the single biggest gap in all of our work so far. We talk about this as the greatest danger to children, namely, the regression they face. We are working through all the different issues but this is the single biggest gap. We are told that the biggest problem in relation to it is matching the teachers to the need. That it did not immediately jump out at the witnesses as the single most important question for us to be able to resolve is, of itself, concerning.
Mr. Andy Pike:
I would point to the third topic, which is education, including limited effectiveness of special classes to promote full inclusion. That was what we thought the committee wanted to hear about. Fórsa's view on July provision is that it needs to become embedded in the school calendar. It needs to become something that schools are expected to provide more than given an option on. There are resource issues there that probably need to be looked at. We do not know how many special needs assistants participated in July provision. The only way one could find that out is to look at how many were paid the rate. That is something that mitigates against SNAs necessarily volunteering to do July provision. There are some issues there, in that the rates have not been looked at for many years.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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It is not just SNAs; teachers.
Mr. Andy Pike:
I cannot speak for teachers. We represent SNAs and health professionals. I can leave it to others to look at the contribution that teachers can make.
One of the comments we continually make to the Department is that where the arrangements are announced so late in the school year, I should imagine that if one is a school leader such as a principal or deputy principal - my colleagues can speak on their behalf - it gives a person very little time to get everything organised.
If it was the case that the circular issued at the beginning of the school year, schools could at least plan with a little more information. It seems to be done at the very last minute and that should change.
Mr. P?iric Clerkin:
Like my colleagues, I took the brief as being much broader and raised the issues we felt to be crucially important for children with special educational needs who could not access a classroom. We believe that there are solutions that would make the situation better for families through the admissions Act. This is an issue we have raised with all of our colleagues whenever we have had the opportunity because we believe it will make special education accessible for children in their local area. We are very concerned that children are not getting the opportunity to attend school with their brothers, sisters and friends in their local community. That is something we would like to see corrected and is therefore an issue we have highlighted today.
We absolutely support the July provision and want to see it succeed. From a schools point of view, school leaders proactively promoted the scheme but, quite simply, they found it very difficult to get staff in a position to take it up this year. As an organisation, we have proactively engaged with the Department with regard to supporting families, schools and children and we made it easier for them to access a teacher or special needs assistant, SNA, through our portal for education posts. We developed that technology to support families. That was very much our focus for this year. We will develop that further. We want to see the scheme succeed. We appreciate how important it is for children who have missed out on a great deal over recent years and who are facing another very difficult challenge this year because many schools, especially in urban areas, have posts vacant and are not in a position to fill them. We appreciate how important it is for children with extra needs and, as an organisation, we will be doing everything in our power to ensure it succeeds.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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As Chair, I accept that the brief sent to the various organisation was a general one. It was not specific.
Ms Anne Howard:
What I have heard from teachers in schools in the post-primary sector is that engagement with the schools came quite late so, with regard to planning, there was a rushed effort at the end on the part of the schools and putting all of the structures and resources required to roll the provision out in schools was incredibly difficult. This year in particular was incredibly difficult because people were coming out of two years of the Covid pandemic and there were great demands on schools. It was a very stressful environment. People had been working in a very difficult environment over the two years. Many of our members and colleagues on the ground were saying they were just exhausted. When it came to the summer time, they just could not face back into the classroom.
I will address one of the difficulties. This year, the Department rolled out an online claims process for teachers, which I really welcome. That speeded up payment for teachers and was welcomed. Last year, the situation was different. The committee members will have heard reports of some people not being paid until December. That was a real difficulty. It was particularly difficult for one group. As members will be aware, not all teachers get full 22-hour contracts when they start out, particularly in the post-primary sector. Their contracts also do not pay them throughout the summer. Some people's payments end at the beginning of June and they are not paid again until they take up a contract in the summer. These people can be left with no choice but to take up other work during the summer months or to sign on for a jobseeker's payment. Some such teachers were concerned that they would not receive payment until December and could not allow themselves to receive no payment during the summer months. This is one of the reasons they did not engage. I do believe this is a crucial service that should be rolled out. If it is rolled out and if schools are given adequate time, it will be possible to run it in a good structured way.
It would become part of the system but, again, the structures and supports need to be given early to schools so they know what they need, what they have available and how many people they can employ to do that.
We would also like to see a number of things put in place in respect of the July provision. For example, there is a situation whereby students in sixth class who want to avail of July provision are not able to do so in the post-primary school they are going to the following year. It would be a very welcome change if it were possible for those students to avail of July provision in that post-primary school so they then get an opportunity to be in the place they will be in the following year. It gives them a great opportunity to begin there. It would be wonderful if the teachers in the school could be encouraged and facilitated to do that. In order to encourage and facilitate teachers in post-primary schools to engage with that, it would also be great if continuing professional development was rolled out to them. People should be given adequate skills and training so when the offer of engaging with summer provision becomes available to them, they feel they are equipped to do it.
There are a number of issues. Mr. Duffy outlined the needs in our submission. I understand the Deputy's frustration. I know she sees this as a service that is essential to families. It is even more so now, given what we have been through for the past two years. It is very important because the disconnect is already there due to Covid. To continue that disconnect, where students were unable to engage with summer provision, was a major loss to those families and not just to the students themselves. We absolutely support the roll-out of July provision. We are just saying to give schools, as with all roll-outs of SEN provision in schools, adequate time to plan, prepare and put the resources in place so they can roll it out appropriately without the stress. Schools have become an awfully stressful environment, and they are incredibly busy.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I will come back in. I agree with and accept what Ms Howard said. The number of classes, and I can see this in my constituency, has significantly expanded at secondary and primary level. There is more to go but it has expanded significantly. I have seen that since 2019. That is just a fact. I know the children who are in those classes.
Ms Howard is quite right about planning and preparation, which we will take up with the Department, but I want to hear an overwhelming rush from teachers to make sure that this happens this year. What will teachers do differently this year compared with last year to make sure, from their perspective, that no stone is left unturned? It should not be down to somebody else. Everyone involved - teachers and the Department - should have been so proactive and got ahead of this in order that, despite any sort of clashes or people fighting with each other, the only outcome that will be acceptable will be proper July provision for children and their families. Indeed, this will have a knock-on effect for teachers in not having to deal with regression for the first four or six weeks of the next school year. It is absolutely in everybody's interests, and that is why we are so strong on the matter.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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That is correct, but what is the dialogue about making teachers available? We have this difficulty whereby 116,000 teachers are on the register, an extra 3,500 teachers were made available, through emergency measures, by the Teaching Council last year, and more than 1,200 student teachers are in training. We are being told that teachers are not available to offer July provision. There seems to be a very large number of teachers. We are told by the Teaching Council that teachers are the largest group of registered professionals in Ireland. There is some gap. Not all of them are needed, but a subset is. Nobody can tell this committee who those people are, where they are, how many there are and how they are being activated to do that July provision. I am sorry; I should not take up my colleagues' time.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Does Ms Howard mean financially attractive?
Ms Anne Howard:
I mean attractive in every way. It is about having people who are appropriately trained. This is not just about money. If the job of teaching was about money, we would not have so many people doing it, especially when we consider the fact many young teachers are not on full contracts or full-hour contracts, and are sometimes on half-hour contracts. This is not just about money; it is about adequately resourcing, making time available and ensuring that people have appropriate training to do the job.
Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I thank all the representatives for their presentations; there is very little in them that I disagree with. This committee is focused on autism. What we need to do to ensure the inclusion of autistic children in education, and, as much as possible, in mainstream education.
That is, I would imagine, proving impossible because of the failure of the progressing disability model. How is that impacting on schools? Since the establishment of the children's disability network teams, about one third of them have been understaffed and are not functioning properly. If children are not assessed at an early age, they cannot be placed in appropriate educational facilities.
Mr. Clerkin mentioned having 24 months advanced knowledge. At primary level, you are talking about a child of three, because they usually go to school at five, but they are not being assessed at that age. We need to ensure that children are properly assessed, have ongoing assessments as they move through school and are put into the right place.
Our focus also needs to be on inclusive education. We want to see the minimum of children in special schools and special classes, and more in mainstream. Parents shudder when I talk of inclusive education. They are fearful of their child in a special school or class going into mainstream because resources and supports are not there. Have the witnesses had those conversations with the Department? Is there a move towards that?
The EPSEN Act was mentioned. It is being reviewed and we are told the review will be finished by the beginning of next year. Mr. Duffy mentioned that the medicalised model envisioned is no longer possible due to the unwillingness of the Department of Education to facilitate it. It should not be a medicalised model. We ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, so we should be talking about a rights-based model and making sure that education is inclusive for all of our children, especially autistic children.
Reference was made to the social inclusion model. Some people are not that positive about it. That model puts resources into schools but the therapists in the schools deal with, talk to and advise the teachers. They do not interact with the students. If it were possible to combine our failed children's disability network teams with the social inclusion model, but where the therapists interact with the children so the children do not have to leave school to get these therapies, it would make for a better model.
Children are not getting assessed or getting early intervention, so are not being the best version of themselves and will need more supports down the line. That is what we are seeing all the time. Students who do not get early intervention require more assistance the older they get. Have the witnesses had much interaction with the HSE on the progressing disability model or the Department on the social inclusion model? How should we address the shortfalls in assessment and supports in the community for the children in the school?
Mr. P?iric Clerkin:
I will take the first point and then hand over to Ms Quinn. The Deputy mentioned the 24 months. The admissions Act is transparent and we would argue that it is fair. There is the section 29 process whereby if a parent does not feel the policy has been implemented appropriately, that can be appealed. The problem is it is not working for children with complex special education needs. It is not possible to put everything in place in that short a period.
In my school, we are taking applications now for next September. By the time that is processed, we get back to every parent and go through the appeals process, it does not leave time to get everything in place for children with complex needs. As a result, we have the section 37 process. That is reactive and does not facilitate children attending school in local areas. It facilitates children attending school somewhere else. Most of them are being bused, taxied and brought across their communities to other schools. We could achieve that through a slight amendment to the admissions Act, whereby children with complex needs could make an application earlier. I take the Deputy's point that children are very young at three. Some may not have been assessed but many are within the system. We would be in a better position to prepare for those children and it would not in any way interfere with the admissions process. The children would still only be offered places if they were entitled to them, which is mostly on the basis of age. In most situations, you would be able to predict whether the child was going to get a place the next year or not. Worst-case scenario, the admission would be delayed by a year because the child was too young. We feel that is a fundamental issue and that is a message we are passionate about getting across. We feel that will make things better.
The section 37 process does not work for families and does not work for children. It does not get them access in their local school.
Ms Caroline Quinn:
In the 11 years that we had three special classes in my school, I saw a major sea change in the way the healthcare professionals had worked. In times gone by there was a huge issue. There was a dearth of people coming into the school and engaging with us. In recent years this has changed. I would certainly have seen it working very well in many cases. One of things we had said quite a bit was that if each child had his or her own team, and then some of those teams and healthcare professionals are coming in to see other children, then resources could be used in a much better way if a regional team was linked to a whole regional group of schools. I was in Killiney, for example. It would be much better if one person, whether it is a psychologist or an occupational therapist, was coming in to see several children. It worked best for us in our own school where we did our own pilot on a school inclusion model, and this was before the current pilot. We had speech and language and we had occupational therapy. We employed those people through the school. They worked with the school, they worked with the teachers in the classes, and they worked with the parents. They worked with the children at home. It was a real wraparound service and it was something we thought could definitely be rolled out and something worth thinking about if this school inclusion model was going to be expanded or changed. The biggest problem being faced by schools at the moment is where people are on statutory leave such as maternity leave, or where they are sick and substitution is needed. This is where there can be a huge gap in services.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Is there any comment from Fórsa?
Mr. Andy Pike:
I am sure Ms Kelly will have a comment or two also. We believe that at the moment one cannot really be certain as to what Government policy is for the provision of services to autistic students in mainstream. The Government endorsed the schools inclusion model, and part of that is a move towards the allocation of staff according to a new model called "front loading". That was due to be introduced at the start of this school year. There were reasons for looking at the introduction of front loading. There were many reasons it probably should happen, one of which is the move away from a student being required to have a formal diagnosis or to go through the assessment-of-need process to access supports from a special needs assistant. It moves the assessment into the school. Guidance was produced for principals, teachers and SNAs on how that was to be carried out but the Department decided not to proceed with that model. I believe that the reason was that the metrics they were using are showing that they had got people in the wrong place. To try to move people to the right place could not be achieved in the short space of time available.
The schools inclusion model itself involved 75 schools in the Kildare area in the main. Nobody has seen the evaluation report. The staff working in the schools just say to us that there is a sense of drift around it. The therapists were employed by the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, but they have had trouble recruiting and retaining staff. The way it was supposed to work was that therapists were not necessarily employed to provide therapies directly with students on a routine basis, although they would where the need arose. They were asked to design individual programmes that would be of assistance to the students in those 75 schools. They worked with the teachers and the special needs assistants around how a speech and language programme could be delivered in the school. It is the role of SNAs to assist with the delivery of such programmes. It is something that probably needs to be looked at in the very near future. We feel that if a family wants to give their son or daughter, who may be autistic, the best possible chance of getting the best experience out of an education that they would want to move them towards a mainstream place. Mainstream places are hard to get. The pathways from special classes into mainstream are just not there. The failure to deliver on the model for special educational needs in mainstream is a real problem. The guidance is still out there. Some schools are conducting assessments of students who present with problems. They may not have a diagnosis but the problem is that there is no way of matching that student with resources. There is no way of getting extra resources into the school. Some schools are doing those assessments but others are not because the whole system has not gone live. It was supposed to go live in September.
When they look at who they have and where they are needed, they have not done any assessments of where they need SNAs in mainstream classes since 2019. Consequently, many people will need to be moved from areas where there is no longer a need to a different school where there is a need. However, there is no way of moving them from A to B.
Going back to the question on July provision, we suggest looking at the work being done to welcome and accommodate Ukrainian students to our schools, of whom there are now 6,000 or 7,000 enrolled. The education and training boards, ETBs, on a regional level have co-ordinated the regional education and language teams involving groups of professionals from different organisations and have done that work really well. It shows what you can do if you ask the ETBs to deliver something. In each county there is an ETB. Instead of asking or begging independent schools to get on board with July provision, maybe the Government could ask the ETBs to make sure there is sufficient provision in their catchment area. They can instruct the schools administered by ETBs to run programmes; they cannot instruct a school that is run by a different patron.
Ms Linda Kelly:
The situation with children's disability network teams, CDNTs, is dire. There is no sugarcoating it. Everybody recognises that. Looked at from the perspective of a family or parent, it is overwhelming to try to deal with the challenge in both health and education. Everything we try to do collectively has to be about making that process easier for the family at the centre of the service. Our members on the health side, in terms of health and social care professionals, are clear that they want to provide a high quality public service to children with disabilities and their families.
We talk about engagement with the HSE or about leadership, such as in the three pages in the appendices around all of the issues concerning children's disability network teams. Clinicians are asking questions, some basic and some more in-depth, and there are no answers coming. When you look at what happened in recent weeks around the Government decision to reinstate health and social care supports to school, we had a gap of four weeks where there was no engagement from the HSE with us as the representative body for all of the staff working in CDNTs, even though we made ourselves available to be a willing partner in a constructive process. We were against the decision to remove them in the first instance.
When we eventually got to meet with the HSE and got into the detail of what would happen, there was a comment to the effect that this was about returning health supports to education settings. Okay, what does that look like? Nothing. How did the HSE propose to carry out the first tranche of recruitment for bringing people back into special school scenarios, which is only one educational setting? The other educational settings are totally excluded from this decision, which is another area that clinicians have a concern about because it reinforces an inequity in the system. We are talking about children now accessing two different teams, which I heard from a parents' group last night is being misrepresented across the system as people being obliged to transfer teams. Families do not need to be dealing with this. The answers are in services, with clinicians and with families. Where is the investment into a change programme as fundamental as progressing disability services for children and young people, PDS?
There is acknowledgement that the communication strategy within the services is not working. Where is the resolution for it? So many things can easily be resolved. We have clinicians who do not have offices, clinical rooms or access to assessments. How are they to provide the service that families feel they require in order to hop over the arbitrary fence into education? It is hugely difficult. When the workforce planning was done last year on 11 October - they will repeat it on 12 October this year, apparently, which is not far off - teams were operating at about 30% less than their capacity. Most of that is unfilled posts but a number of those posts are to do with the gendered policy decision not to replace people going on maternity leave, which has a significant impact in a female-dominated profession.
It was something that came about during the austerity years and it absolutely has to be addressed. Not only is it an issue for those who are not on leave having to deal with the increased workload; it also makes it very unattractive for women to want to come to work in these services. The HSE's implementation of this plan from the Government is to reassign people. If a children's disability network team is operating at 70% capacity and the HSE wants to reassign some of those people to provide a service in a special school, it means children on the list who are not attending at primary school will have fewer people to work with them. It needs leadership from the HSE which is just absent at the moment. It is causing so many systemic issues that have now rolled into such a multitude that it is seen as an Everest that somehow cannot be fixed. It is infinitely fixable if there is leadership and investment. Certainly we see that from the discussions with our members.
Mr. David Duffy:
I thank the Deputy for the question. On the medicalised model, there is general acceptance now almost 20 years after the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act, EPSEN, that the medicalised model is not the way to go. The TUI has had discussions with the Department of Education, the National Council for Special Education and quite a number of the disability rights groups. Indeed, we have made submissions to the Oireachtas committee on education about what might be an alternative way forward, where we do not end up putting impossible responsibilities on schools or creating an expectation by parents that schools can do something they are not legally mandated, able or resourced to do, that could provide a better model that does work.
My colleagues have more than adequately covered the school inclusion model. We simply do not know what the report on the model says. We look forward to seeing it. We have asked to see it and await it. On what was said about occupational therapists, OTs, speech and language therapists, SLTs, and so on working directly with students as well as a trickle-down or cascade model, we would strongly argue and have argued that the same should apply to the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, programme. Students need one-to-one support from NEPS. Trickle-down or cascade has an element of validity about it but it needs to be much broader than that.
I may well have taken up my Fórsa colleagues wrongly and my apologies if I have. I would just say on the reference to Réalt and to ETBs, which is generally working very well, I have a fear it is not just about ETB or DEIS schools in the context of support for special needs, it has to be all schools. There has always been a little bit of a fear, particularly in the ETB area and among DEIS schools that they are the first to try anything. It needs to be much broader.
In response to the Deputy's original question about what we can do, as Deputy Carroll MacNeill has said it is such a broad thing to deal with here in respect of autism. If I could boil it down to three particular areas where we could make things better, and of course I am leaving out a lot of other important areas, one is prompt access to assessments and, second, is planning for places years ahead of when we need them. We cannot plan that exactly so of course there is going to be a little bit of flux. However, we have a pretty good idea years ahead of time, particularly for post-primary as to where we are going to need those services. There also needs to be prompt access to in-school and out-of-school supports for students, families and schools. All three of those things have to be done, at least in the initial stages, at a national level. The individual school cannot fix that.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for their detailed answers to those questions. Senator Wall is next.
Mark Wall (Labour)
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They are very detailed and interesting answers. I thank all our guests for being with us this morning. It has been a very interesting discussion so far. I want to come back to school places. All the witnesses have mentioned forward planning. I am from the lovely county of Kildare and school places are a big issue for us there, including for special places. Every time I have met the Department and the recent Ministers, they talk about principals providing the information on school places and what is needed. Who should be providing the information for school places? I believe it is the Department. They are the ones looking at this. They know where the buildings are going and so on.
They and the NCSE have information. However, it seems that much of the emphasis comes back on the principals and schools to provide that information. Perhaps I could get a comment on that. It is huge issue in places such as Kildare.
On transfer teams, I received two phone calls this morning on this, where parents were asked to transfer teams. Ms Kelly is 100% right that it is putting much stress on parents and their children. It is just unacceptable. I think it was in appendix 4 that she submitted to us where she wrote about recruitment and retention and mentioned that this is fixable. We have nine months to get a report together. Can she give us some information on how she and the 30,000 people she represents would fix it in order that we can include something like that in our report? As I said, unfortunately, we have nine months. I repeat this and I said it to our previous guests as well - our remit is specifically in relation to autistic persons and young people. If Ms Kelly has some answers, we would love to know them. Perhaps she can expand on how we can help the retention and recruitment crisis that her union is facing at the moment.
On the SNAs, I wish to put on the record - I am sure all colleagues will agree - that SNAs do tremendous work. Mr. Pike spoke about a school nursing service. Perhaps he could expand on that. I also want to hit on July provision. It is huge for us as a committee. As I said, we have a nine-month remit and it is huge for parents and routine for their families. Where do the SNAs fit into July provision? Mr. Pike mentioned money. I know it is not all about money and I appreciate the great job that teachers do. However, there seems to be a discrepancy between what a professional teacher may get and what an SNA gets. Highlighting that is important as well.
I have two more quick questions. Mr. Duffy mentioned expanding the Disability Access Route to Education, DARE, scheme. I have many second level autistic students who want to go to third level and get involved in employment and apprenticeships perhaps at a different level as well. What does Mr. Duffy believe the expansion should be and how can our committee feed into that?
Other colleagues mentioned the school inclusion model. I am delighted to hear it is in Kildare. I would like to see the report on it as well, because we are getting very little feedback on the ground as public representatives, in fairness.
Those are my questions to start with. I might come in later on with some more.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I call on Fórsa representatives first, to vary who goes first.
Mr. Andy Pike:
To answer the Senator’s questio non the provision of information on places, in terms of SEN places, I would have thought the NCSE should be collecting that information and monitoring capacity around the sector, looking ahead, doing the forward planning, working with schools to develop facilities and put resources in where they can see a growing need. The Department is not in a position to do that. From Marlborough Street or Athlone, it will just not be able to reach out and do that. That is one of the things we always thought the NCSE was set up to do.
On the school nursing service, this was part of the original plan for the school inclusion model, that one stream of activity would be the creation of a pool of nursing and other healthcare resources that would be available to schools in mainstream and special classes to assist with meeting complex medical needs. This is a problem that restricts access to schools for many students. Just to think about autistic students, quite a high proportion of them have autism and something else that is an additional care need. Therefore, it is relevant to them. The theory was that the Department of Education and the Department of Health would together be able to provide teams of staff that could go into schools. They would be able to assist with the provision of clinical care and treatment, say, for students with diabetes or epilepsy, students needing percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, PEG, feeding, and a range of other conditions. They would also assist with the training of staff. As Ms Quinn knows full well, in the special school sector, staff are trained up. However, if a student who is epileptic or has unstable diabetes is to enter a mainstream class, the staff find it very challenging to meet those healthcare needs. That was the theory. We have not seen any progress on delivering that, even within the 75 schools in the catchment area of the school inclusion model. It is something that would solve a lot of problems for autistic students and students with additional care needs in mainstream, were it to happen.
Back to our old friend, July provision, there is a difference in rates between teachers and SNAs. It is not so much of a problem where a school is providing a programme directly because existing staff are paid their existing rate, and there is no argument there. However, where there are no on-site programmes available for a family, there is the option then of home provision. That is where there is a huge difference in rate, depending on if a person has a Teaching Council registration number or not. If not, that person is paid at the SNA substitute rate, which is very low. It barely covers the cost of travel and no travel expenses are provided. People are paid in November and sometimes the payments have been delayed to December. It is not an attractive option. However, there is a real need there. As other members have indicated, the spread of July provision is very patchy. Where there is not a programme in a locality, there is the option, as a parent, to have someone through the home provision scheme. However, it is very difficult to persuade SNAs to participate in that because they know they are paid about 40% of the rate a teacher gets for doing the same job.
I will hand over to Ms Kelly for the other questions, if she has anything to add.
Ms Linda Kelly:
On what it takes to solve the problem, one of the things that has been most concerning for us in recent months has been the HSE saying it has set aside its own workforce plan for children’s disability network teams. There is a document from 2015 that is referenced in the appendix that looks at safe staffing numbers. The HSE has told us it has set that aside. It has not provided any sort of alternative to that or given any indication it is going to look to establish an alternative to that. Looking at things in terms of a systemic failure and sustaining this into the future, how is that to be done if there is no plan for how many staff are needed? It is one of the basic cornerstones that we need within the health service. A recommendation from this committee that there be clear workforce planning guides would be powerful.
That is, for us, tied into the lack of a chief health and social care professional, HSCP, within the Department of Health, even though there have been political commitments left, right and centre. Our friend, Robert Watt, was at the health committee last week saying it was going to be implemented. I will believe it when I see it and it is actually in place. That is a key strategic piece. If we do not want to be here in five or six years’ time again, we need to have those pieces squared away.
On more immediate solutions that can be found, what we have at the moment within the HSE is an industrial relations process around a career pathway review for health and social care professionals that is 20 years overdue. The HSE is implementing it in one section, in primary care, but not implementing it in others. What we have then, in effect, is different streams of the HSE competing against each other for health and social care professional staff, because people are leaving disability services to go to primary care where they have more options for promotion and progression within their chosen profession. That can be easily remedied. We know the details of that process and it can be implemented in disability services. It would demonstrate symbolically to staff that they are valued and are wanted to be retained.
One of the concerning pieces is that, anecdotally, what we are hearing from people on the ground is that they are actually leaving without another job to go to because they are so unhappy with what is happening. Imagine that. We have a scenario where health and social care professionals are leaving disability networks and are not going into any other employment because they have been so damaged by what is happening there. We need a person who is responsible for this change management process, who has a budget to implement it and who can address things like the lack of offices, lack of assessment and funding for people around continuing professional development, CPD. In the main, most of the people working in this, even though they are not deemed a clinical specialist, are in reality operating at that level. We need to reflect that in what we provide for them. Most of the detail of that is outlined in the submission, but I am happy to write in and provide further detail on that if required.
Dr. David Duffy:
I thank the Senator for his question. On school places, I would agree entirely with my Fórsa colleagues. The NCSE has detailed information on students who are receiving support through the education system. I would have imagined it would have the data that would be most applicable in that context.
School places also raise the question about buildings. If we can plan in advance, we will not be in a situation, as we seem to find ourselves frequently at the end of the summer period, of trying to find or create school places where I would have thought we would have known a significant period of time beforehand.
What ends up happening then, with the best of intentions by everybody, is the special class gets created in a prefab out in the car park. With all due respect to people trying to solve the difficulties at short notice, I am not sure what message it sends to the students that they are the ones in the prefab. I would have thought the special class should be genuinely integrated with the whole school body, and a prefab in the car park does not necessarily say that.
I thank the Senator for his comments and question on the DARE scheme. It needs some additional funding - not a huge amount, but some - and it needs some additional staffing so it can provide further supports to students before they enter college. There also need to be additional supports after students have entered college so they can deal with what is quite a significant transition for any student, whether they have autism or not. It requires support for the access offices, the disability offices and additional support for counselling services in schools for any student who needs to access them, not just any one particular group. All students should be able to access them.
Mr. P?iric Clerkin:
The question was asked about who has the information and when it becomes available. The Department has regional data but as to who has the information, on a local level it is the school. When does it have it? It has it as a result of its admissions week. That is happening eight or nine months at most before the children are due to start school. Again, the admissions process is robust, fair and good but it is not working for children with complex needs and we need to look at that. It is a fix that can be resolved.
My school is in Dublin 15 where there was pressure on school places for a long number of years. The problem is leadership at a regional level where there is pressure on school places through oversubscription of schools. The way to resolve that issue, which again is very resolvable, is shared enrolment policies. However, to make that work is getting more complex. In many of the local areas, schools now have different patron bodies. I have spoken to many of the patron bodies about this and there is a willingness to work together, but what is required is leadership at local level. I suggest that leadership needs to come through the system such as through the inspectorate or a body like that, where schools are brought together to address some of the issues of concern where there might be oversubscription. When schools work together, which I have seen in my own area, it can be ensured every child gets access to school at the most appropriate age.
To make the system really work well for children so they have access to a local school at an appropriate age, which is what we all want to see, we need to work together and find better ways to do so into the future. This is especially so when we know that, in areas where there is pressure, we need to implement policies such as shared admissions policies. However, we need somebody to bring that together and to steer that between the different schools because each of the schools is an independent body. There is a willingness to do that but it is about helping them get over some of the barriers to it.
I return to the point that the admissions process does not work for children with complex needs. Assessing eight to nine months in advance of a child starting school will not work and we will continue to face these problems in the future where we have section 37, which is reactionary, and we will never give those children the opportunity to attend their local school with their brothers and sisters unless we correct that.
Ms Caroline Quinn:
To go back to the July provision question, if we were to summarise it and look at what must be done, the first thing is we need the timeframe to be given to schools in a timely manner. It needs to be early in the school year and to be a very clear timeframe. Under that timeframe should be clear guidelines as to what the school is expected to do to prepare for each section. For example, one of my colleagues mentioned that some of the children in a special school may need to be PEG-fed. If they are doing the July provision, we cannot just have anybody doing that. Thus, the school leader needs to have the timeframe, know when he or she is to have the people in place, and all of those things. CPD may be needed because sometimes young teachers or teachers in the final years of the their training may join in, so there must be some kind of training.
One of the things we did not mention regarding the July provision is a board of management must satisfy itself about health and safety in the school. In many cases, the few weeks you have in the two summer months are the only time a board of management might have to do building work and so sometimes the health and safety impact of building work going on on the school affects the July provision as well.
If we really worked on this, you would find that there will be teams of people on staff who will become the July provision people, including both SNAs and teachers. Mr. Pike has already mentioned the issue with payment. The difference in payment is one element and the late payment is something that has been a huge issue for years.
One of the things that happened in the last year, which was very welcome in many schools, was that through discussion with the Department, a school could decide whether they would do the July provision, or summer provision as it is now called, in July or August. In our own case, last year we were taking in quite a few new children or children whose emerging needs had just been identified. We chose to have the programme in August because we felt we should take the children back a few weeks before they were due to come back and have them well settled in this big place they call school before it was necessary. This year we took a different decision and had it in July because we did not have the other need, so there are all sorts of areas where schools themselves can make local decisions but if the overall framework is there and is clear, then we would go a long way down the road to ensuring it happens in many more schools.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Deputy Joan Collins was on the call until a few minutes ago but she had to go, so I pass on her apologies. Also, Deputy Ó Cathasaigh is unavoidably unable to attend this meeting. Deputy Harkin is next.
Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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I thank everybody for their presentations. In a way I feel I have a foot in both camps as I was a teacher for a number of years. I agree with our guests that schools are very busy places. We all like to think sometimes that our lives are the busy ones, and indeed they are, but lots of others have busy lives too. The truth is when teachers get to their summer holidays they are looking forward to it, just like ourselves, and it is the same with principals. July provision is not for everybody. It is for some teachers but not for others. In this committee we hear the heartfelt pleas from parents. We have sat here and listened to some of the stories. Our guests know as they are involved in this area, and we know from talking to our constituents, how much parents want to see that next year, July provision is in place in schools. They are asking us to do something about it. In that context, I have a few questions, thoughts and ideas.
I hear some of the points our guests have made. They have talked about timely engagement and again that is something we can push for from here. That means timely planning but also timely payment. Again, that is something we can push for from here. Ms Quinn mentioned CPD roll-out. Are those courses in place? Does the Department need to do anything in the next three, six or nine months to try to ensure the specific type of courses that would be useful to teachers and SNAs could be put in place? Ms Howard spoke about making it attractive and Deputy Carroll MacNeill asked was that about money. Of course it is about money, as well as the fact people are working in a system that works well. Something being attractive is partly about money and partly about the system.
No one has to apologise for that.
My questions to the groups will be from that perspective. As unions, do they have a proactive role in informing teachers or encouraging them to participate in working with ETBs or schools? Is there anything more that the unions could do proactively this year so that we would have a better system of July provision next summer?
I wish to ask Fórsa about the barriers for SNAs. The issue of money was mentioned. The Teaching Council appeared before us earlier. Unfortunately, I was not present, but I know that people need to be registered. Is that an issue and, if so, how should we deal with it? Mr. Pike discussed the role of ETBs. While it sounds good, would it work everywhere?
I wish to ask about those who work in the childcare sector. We have spoken to a number of representatives. Many of them indicated their willingness to get involved in July provision. What are the witnesses' views on this? It should not just be teachers who are involved in July provision. There are trainee teachers, SNAs, childcare professionals and OTs. We can see how well the model in Malta works. How do principals feel that schools can work within that system? It is a significant challenge that requires a great deal of planning and is a large responsibility for schools. What could it be done? Is there something that the Department could do to facilitate it?
My final question has to do with what is going around in my head. What are the witnesses' views on the possibility of putting July provision into a separate system? Currently, the number of teachers participating is a trickle. It needs to be greater. Is there a possibility of a separate system for July provision?
Ms Anne Howard:
I thank the Deputy for her questions. The issue of CPD is linked to her query on what the union can do to encourage people to engage in July provision alongside the engagement in working with special classes. The roll-out of CPD by the Department would be beneficial. There is a need for something to be devised and rolled out nationally. At local level, schools are running programmes, sometimes independently, sometimes in the evenings. When I was teaching, the school that I came from ran a course in the evening that teachers engaged with willingly. The roll-out of CPD is important.
Connected with that issue, I will refer to the postgraduate qualification in SEN, which many teachers have pursued. It is a great qualification and the Department should encourage people to pursue it. It would be most beneficial if the qualification were paid for fully by the Department as the employer, given that all of the benefits of the course go to the school. At one stage, an allowance was given for those who had achieved the additional qualification in SEN. It encouraged people to give up their time to pursue the course, but it no longer exists. It would be great to see it return to schools because the qualification is a significant benefit and resource.
An allowance is not just about making a financial commitment to people who engage with CPD, particularly at that level. Pursuing the qualification takes a great deal of time from their families and their lives. Obviously, the qualification benefits them and their schools, but we should be acknowledging and rewarding those who engage with it.
Regarding what encouragement we, as a union, can give, we are requesting that the resources that teachers need to do their jobs well, roll out special educational needs programmes within their schools and provide for their students be put in place. Money was mentioned. Sometimes, putting resources in place means that people are paid appropriately for their jobs.
On separating out July provision, consideration could be given to a separate post being created within a school as a subsection. The connection between the student and the school is important. The school is the place that the student is familiar with and the environment that the student knows and there is great security in it. All of the people working on the scheme do not have to be teachers, but if they are familiar to the students who engage with the summer programme, there is great security in that for those students. There is the possibility of a role being created within the school as a subsection.
I always have great difficulty with things being designated back to the school to do. The school is a building and does not amount to an individual. When something is once again sent back to a school for the school to do, the designation does not identify who in the school will take on that job. The Deputy knows this, given that she comes from this environment. Even in the past ten years, the extent to which demands on school personnel have increased has been significant. The environment within the school has changed greatly. If this job was designated to an identified person, it would take pressure off school management, including principals and deputy principals, who have done Trojan work. This is something that could be considered.
Regarding the roll-out of SEN in schools, I am conscious of the fact that there has been an erosion of middle management roles in schools, including what are now AP1s and AP2s - assistant principals - at post-primary level. If a school were to have a designated co-ordinator for SEN, it would allow for the co-ordination of all of the resources. The Deputy spoke about health professionals being engaged to work with students in schools. I would support the idea of health professionals coming into schools to work with teachers, but I agree that they need to be working with the students and the teachers if their engagement is to be beneficial. If there is a co-ordinator role in schools, it should not be filled by people who are doing it on a voluntary basis. It should be rolled out nationally and the same process and supports should be in place for all staff, not just those in individual schools. Individual schools and ETBs have employed psychologists to do the necessary work on the ground, but that work needs to be done in all schools. It cannot come down to a geographical lottery where people can only get what they need because they are in schools in particular areas. All students in all areas should have access.
I hope I have addressed the Deputy's questions.
Mr. Andy Pike:
I thank the Deputy for her questions. We are not aware of problems with SNAs working within summer provision programmes. It has always been the case that, if an SNA wants to work in a school, he or she needs to be Garda vetted. That will often mitigate against SNAs working in new schools where their Garda vetting certificates have not been issued within the past two years and they need to be vetted again. Where programmes are put in place at the last minute, as has happened in recent years, there may be a recruitment problem. There is a recruitment problem in home provision, which we touched on a few minutes ago.
Regarding CPD, an important debate is ongoing about the accreditation of qualifications for SNAs.
We appeared before the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science in June on that very issue. There is a great deal that the Government could do to ensure that appropriate accredited training is made available to special needs assistants, SNAs, and to ensure its uptake by facilitating release against the obligation to be available for an additional 72 hours each year of non-classroom time. That time could be used a great deal more for continuing professional development, CPD.
Looking at the Deputy’s suggestion for a separate system for July provision, we can think about a safety net service, where entreaties are made to a school to provide a summer provision programme, and it is just not possible in a certain location where the school cannot take it on. Does the Government have a responsibility to step in and make provision available? Yes, the Government does. How can that be done and what levers are there? There is the National Council for Special Education and there are also the education and training boards, which could be asked, or if necessary instructed, to provide something by way of a summer provision programme. We have education centres in every county which could be used. These programmes do not necessarily have to take place on school premises. It would be better if they did but, as a safety net, there is a great deal more that could be done with a little imagination.
I would caution against the committee concluding that this is all the fault of staff or schools. It is not. We would be in a better position to respond to questions if the invitation to attend had directed us towards this particular issue but it did not. It is not listed as one of the topics which the committee necessarily want to focus on. I am a bit concerned that we are in a situation where the Department of Education issues notification very late. There are always many queries about how to provide a programme. There are resource problems and we may be moving into the space where the sole issue is what we need to do to ensure teachers and SNAs agree to work on the programmes. This, if anything, is a failure of Government, rather than a failure of staff or individuals.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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On the issue of the invitation, it was general but committee members are entitled to ask any question they wish of our witnesses, and it is their entitlement to either answer them or not. It is fair for someone to ask a specific question on the summer provision because it is something that is very important and is a major issue which we want sorted for 2023. That is probably the reason for such an invitation and, as I say, every member is entitled to ask those questions.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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This issue is not the sole subject matter of the meeting but it is a general information meeting. I call Mr. Clerkin from the Irish Primary Principals’ Network, IPPN, to speak now.
Mr. P?iric Clerkin:
To answer the question as to whether there is more we can do and whether we need more support, from the school leaders point of view, that is absolutely the case. School leaders need whatever support can be given because our job is all about relationships and building those within our school community. We are there to support our school community and our families and to support children. The last thing any of us want to do is to see a situation arise whereby a child is not getting the support they need, whether it be during the school year or during the July provision period. Put quite simply, we have research coming out to show this. Too much is being asked of our school leaders and there is not enough support for them. As a result, all of the research will show it is damaging the well-being and health of those school leaders. What is very frustrating is that most of the time is being spent on non-teaching and non-learning tasks. Too much time is spent by school leaders on these tasks and we need to find a better way forward to help them to focus on the leading of teaching and learning. What we are talking about today in regard to July provision is exactly that. Every school needs access to greater supports as well as the required supports for the administration side of all of these tasks. Every single one of them is a project in itself.
There are opportunities and the Deputy mentioned CPD. We have promoted the opportunity to build leadership capacity even in respect of July provision and we have encouraged schools to look at it as an opportunity to give those who are interested in leadership an opportunity to lead that during the July provision period.
Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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Do Mr. Clerkin’s colleagues in the unions agree with that?
Ms Caroline Quinn:
I was not going to add anything to that except to make a plea again for a clear framework. Within the framework, the elements would be designed, whether that is the CPD or how one actually schedules what happens during the July provision. There is a certain onus and accountability from a departmental point of view on what is actually happening. If one is a new school leader, for example, one very much needs the clarity of having guidelines which tells the person all along the way-----
Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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What one can do-----
Ms Caroline Quinn:
----- and the timeframe for each thing. I am not forgetting, of course, that we have learned through the Covid-19 pandemic period that some of the CPD can be delivered online. Again, this must be done in a timely fashion and much earlier than the last-minute stuff that has been happening for the past number of years. That is very important.
I do not believe it is a great idea to separate it from the system. It has already been mentioned by others that there is a safety net service within the system itself.
Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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This is in the context of a system if it is not working. By the way, I do not see this as a failure of teachers but of a system that does not work. If the system is not working, then, perhaps, is it not time to look beyond that? That is very much the question.
Ms Caroline Quinn:
That is perhaps a question for another day but I do not believe that the system can be divorced from it either. If one was to talk to families, parents and their children, they know that the safety net is probably in the building, or with the people they know, but there has been such a lack of clarity for so many years in this whole area that that is what is causing the problem. We have only addressed some of them today.
Again, I reiterate that we would have been a great deal better prepared for today had we had a different focus. There is a great deal of work to do but it has to be done within a framework where everybody is clear about what is expected and that the resourcing is then put in place in a timely manner.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Ms Howard can come in now to respond to questions from Deputy Harkin.
Ms Anne Howard:
This year may not have been a great test or running example because, as I have said earlier on, we have come out of two very difficult years. My own experience of talking to colleagues and members on the ground is that they were exhausted. The planning was not in place and the apology came from the Department in May when we met its representatives on the summer provision. The Department gave reassurances in moving forward that the documentation would go to schools much earlier and reassurances on the roll-out of payment to both the SNAs and the teachers who engaged in the work. It said that it would also iron out many of the glitches that we had identified as issues at that meeting as we moved forward. I am not sure that this year is a good yardstick.
Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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Yes:
Ms Anne Howard:
One will have to look at it next year where additional time and planning has been put in place and, hopefully, many of the issues that have been identified by unions as concerns for teachers can be looked at.
The July provision is not part of the teaching contract and did not form part of the contract teachers signed into. That does not suggest that teachers are not or would not be willing or delighted to engage in the work. It does come down, however, to making it attractive and making teachers feel comfortable, confident, willing and wanting to engage in the work. To do that, it is about giving people the expertise, the knowledge and the opportunity to do so, where this is secure, safe, well organised and well constructed, and where they are not going in and feeling that they are not on terra firma. All of the things that have been identified by all of us earlier on in how this is rolled out, moving forward, would give a much bigger or better picture of whether the system is broken to an extent, or is in the process of repair around the summer provision.
It is great that it and the possibilities have been very significantly extended out but we will not know until we get a “normal”, which is a word I dislike and is overrated, perhaps a more normal academic year which may give us a better indicator of the extent to which it is still broken.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I am conscious of time and I wish to allow Deputy Ó Murchú to speak now. He is standing in for Deputy Buckley and has five minutes to speak, please.
Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. I apologise as I intended to be in here earlier but I had an hour-long meeting which went on for two hours, which was not down to me, I might add.
I apologise for any repetition. I assume I am like many other elected representatives in the sense that I am inundated with contacts from parents of kids with autism who are looking for services - everything from early learning through to primary, secondary and beyond. We all know the issue we had with the insufficient number of places in secondary schools. Everybody asked how it had not been planned for, in the sense that the numbers are known in advance for kids going to secondary level. We have had an increase in the number of units.
Before I continue, I should say my son falls into this bracket. He went to St. Joseph's National School in Muirhevnamor in Dundalk. I do not think he could have had a better educational experience without his resource teachers and special needs assistants, SNAs. That is not to say there were not difficulties, and that he did not create his own difficulties, because that can happen. He is now in Ó Fiaich College in Dundalk. In fairness, the teachers, his SNA and the school are all doing their piece from the point of view of giving him the best educational outcome. We will see where it goes. It is a journey.
Many parents have made the point that even where they have had places in primary school - some parents say that their kids are not necessarily in Turlough's place - that they need a separate unit, where they may have higher needs and other issues. They are disappointed that they do not have choice when it comes to secondary school. In some cases there is anger at certain schools that do not have provision. That is a very simple argument. It is a question of what needs to happen. What are the resources across the board that must be put in place so that we can offer what we need to offer? I accept we cannot wave a magic wand and produce what we need, but if the witnesses could give us the answer in the next five minutes it would be very worthwhile.
Mr. David Duffy:
We have an extensive range of recommendations that all of the organisations have made and I am sure the committee will review them. If I can, I will boil it down to three things. There is an element of making it a little bit simplistic, but there are three key areas that would answer the questions addressed by the Deputy. The first is prompt assessments. The second is planning for school places years ahead of when they are required. It should be easier to do in the post-primary and further education, FE, area because, in fairness to our primary colleagues, there is clearly a much longer lead-in time. The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, and the Department of Education have a significant amount of data, so it is hard to see why it cannot be done significantly ahead of when it is required.
The third element is the provision and expansion of in-school supports and out-of-school supports. I know the committee has a tight timeline to write its report. We have covered the July provision extensively this morning and as my Irish Primary Principals' Network, IPPN, colleagues have rightly said, August provision as well, in terms of summer provision. That is a very important issue, but I respectfully request that the committee would also look at how we support autistic children for the rest of the year because that is also very important.
Ms Anne Howard:
One point that I would like to add is that in terms of allocations of time back to school and the use of the allocation, one step that would be hugely important in making the transition from primary to post-primary school is that an amount of time would be allocated to schools for engagement. My colleague referenced earlier the communication between schools within a geographic area. Some very important work that many post-primary schools are doing is that they are visiting primary schools so that they get the backstory. They are making those connections and getting the information, so by the time the student comes into the post-primary sector the school has a very good and very clear picture. That is an essential piece of work that should be included and embedded in the use of the allocated time.
As my colleague, Mr. Duffy says, the NCSE lists of primary schools should be a clear flag and indicator to the post-primary sector of how many places are and will be required down the line. It is not a speeding train. It is there on paper, and it is available. It is about planning, which is key.
Mr. Andy Pike:
In answer to Deputy Ó Murchú's question, I can only say it would help if we knew what Government policy was. Good ideas are propagated from time to time but none of them are delivered across the school sector. I will not go back over the school inclusion issue, but it is a shame that when the sector was gearing up for a new approach it did not happen and we do not know what the future holds.
In our submission we go through some of the problems that schools will face in managing SNA supports to autistic students because we were transitioning from a system whereby an SNA was assigned to a specific student to a system that we thought would develop something along the lines of a national service where SNAs would be available in most if not all schools on a permanent basis. Again, that project is up in the air. Moving away from a scheme towards a service which students with additional needs such as autism would be entitled to is the right path to take. It should not be a lottery or depend on an application. It should be a case of assessing need and if the need is there it should be met. I will hand over to my colleague, Ms Kelly, to see if she has anything to add.
Mr. P?iric Clerkin:
It is a very important question, and it is one on which we as an organisation have a very definite view. We must have an appropriate admissions process for children with complex special educational needs. The admissions Act is well intentioned, and it works for the vast majority of children. It is right that the admission is taken in the year that the child is due to start school. It was not right that children who had moved to an area could never get access to their local school because they were coming in later than those children whose names were put on a list after they were born. The policy is right, but it does not work for children with complex special educational needs. A slight adjustment is needed, which is more time. The simple answer is that we need more time. Our position is that we need a lead-in time of 24 months. For children with complex special educational needs, the school needs to be able to take that application 24 months in advance of the child being due to start school. It does not compromise the admissions policy of the school. The admissions policy will still be administered the next year, as is the case currently. In most schools, it is age based so the older children are offered a place. The school will be 90% sure whether a child would get a place the next year. The worst-case scenario is that the child is too young and he or she will have to wait another year. That means the school then has 36 months to prepare. That is what is needed to get the infrastructure in place. The point that we are making is that section 37 does not facilitate children to attend their local school with their brothers or sisters. It is reactionary and it is not fair on those children. The only way we will be able to address it in the longer term is to amend the admissions Act.
Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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The recommendation is to amend the admissions Act. I will only take a moment. In fairness, Mr. Clerkin has given me the core of what I was asking about. When parents come in to deal with a particular issue they have a very specific question. They want their child to be in a unit and the unit says it is full. The parents want to know why there are not units in school X, Y or Z. On some level, they give reasons there should be in terms of legislation and whatever else. I am not saying that is fair, but such issues must come across Mr. Clerkin's desk at some point. What is his view in that regard?
Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That answers it. I thank the witnesses.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Speaking as Chair and as a parent, July provision was highlighted here, as it has been highlighted to the committee in recent weeks as a serious issue. If we do not make the changes and recommendations now, it will not happen for summer 2023. I gave the figures earlier, which are that 80% of children in special schools did not get any provision at all. That is not acceptable. Whatever we need to be put in place has to be put in place to make sure that this happens. We have home provision that is advertised. You have to be over 18 or vetted to do it. We have seen cases where it was advertised on social media. Parents are advertising looking for someone to give them that provision for the summer. I have seen professionals and teachers on social media advertising that they would engage in summer provision and taking two, three, four or five children for a day. They are not getting individual-based provision, which is what was set out. That is why there is a strong focus on that today. It needs to be changed for next year.
I am making a request of the teachers' unions and particularly of the principals' organisation because ultimately, many decisions come to the board of management and principal. I have seen 2023 school programmes in place for the school year which have, as of two months ago, made the decision not to do summer provision next year. That is not acceptable. Should each of the 136-odd special primary schools provide, at a minimum, summer provision in 2023 for the 8,000 children with extremely high needs? It has to happen. It was mentioned that we should look at the ETB system, which is a State system with State schools, about providing it at post-primary level but in general, all the schools are State-owned. Will the witnesses say here today that every school should provide it? It is up to the State to put resources into the schools but we need schools to be open to doing it. We need to ascertain what staff can work in it. We have had evidence and met groups representing ECCE workers with level 6 and 7 education who cannot work in a school-based programme.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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That is up to Government to put there.
Mr. P?iric Clerkin:
Absolutely, but it is a significant issue. As a result of that, I can point to international research telling us that the health of school leaders is being affected because of that. We are finding it harder and will find it harder into the future, to recruit and retain school leaders. They need more support from the system to ensure they can deliver what we ask of them. While schools of course should do everything in their power to support their students and families, they need to be given adequate support to fulfil that. More is needed from the system to support the schools in order that they can do that successfully. I do not believe for one minute that any school does not want to provide this provision but in putting it in place, schools have found it difficult to staff it.
From a leadership point of view, we take our responsibility in this regard seriously and that is why, on our own bat as an organisation, we have put structures in place to support schools and families who want to access these services during the summer. The last thing I want to see is people using social media to do so. That is why we use our platform through EducationPosts to support families to access supports during the summer.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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On the supports being put in place, the reality is some schools do it but the majority do not. As each school has the same issue in trying to get staff, why are some schools doing it and yet, eight months away from next summer, other schools already have decided not to do it? It is the vast majority of them. It is the 8,000 children with the highest need who are getting no provision. A strong message needs to come from this committee and from the representative bodies that we are neglecting and letting down those families and children if we do not put it in place. That is our collective responsibility. I would like to see a strong statement on that for summer 2023. It is not acceptable that we have a repeat of the last number of years. Families and children and being let down. We are highlighting and, particularly through the health services, talking about early intervention. If we do not give continuous help at a younger age, it will affect children in later life. I make this point strongly and I seek support from the organisations present for the position that we will do everything in our power to make sure that summer 2023 is different from recent summers. Parents have gone through Covid, lockdown and difficult times. We need to put that in place to give support to them.
Ms Caroline Quinn:
The Chairman will not find any issue with our organisation supporting the summer provision but when he refers to schools eight months out saying they will not do it next year, he should remember they are saying that based on a poor timeframe and a lack of clarity and proper resourcing. It is a whole different ball game to encourage our members and make a strong statement when we can say we know the resources will be in place. Today, we cannot say that.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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They are for some schools, because some schools are doing it. The vast majority are not, so the same situation holds firm. We need to open up those eligible to work in it. I mentioned ECCE. We have people qualified in ECCE working 38-hour weeks, and then having to sign on for unemployment benefit while we have a perceived shortage of people working in that system. That needs to be changed.
Ms Caroline Quinn:
With respect, that would come from the system, that is, when clarity comes from the Department of Education and we are told that such people are eligible to work on July provision. Up to now, schools are operating under conditions whereby they cannot have teachers working on it without a Teaching Council number. As has been mentioned, everybody needs to be properly vetted and all that kind of thing. If such clarity existed at an early stage, I guarantee the Chairman would see a different picture out there.
Mr. Andy Pike:
Vetting is a real issue, no matter who is providing summer provision. When you approach a summer programme, you cannot carry your vetting with you. You need to go back to the Garda, fill in a fresh form and get it done, which can take weeks. If the circulars come out as late as they did last year, it is a difficult timeframe to get vetting updated. That is a practical issue but it is to do with the legislation around vetting. That is within the gift of the Government to do. It has always been in the gift of the Government to take this seriously.
I am not sure I agree that all schools are State-run schools. My job in industrial relations would be much easier if they were but it is because they are independent that we are having this conversation. If you looked at national schools or education systems in other countries, a department of education or government could ensure there is some form of provision in every school. Our Government cannot do that because of the structure of the school sector. A safety net could be provided and we would have no difficulty in recommending that SNAs worked in such programmes, should they wish to. We encourage SNAs to participate in summer provision where their school is able to provide it. There are real issues about the time of year the Department chooses to notify schools and about supports for schools that have never done it before. In the 80% of the sector which may not at the moment be considering running a summer programme, I do not know how many of those schools have run a programme before and how many have not but for those that have not, there are many questions to answer. It is in the gift of the Department to answer them.
Other arms of the State are available to help provide some sort of provision. ETBs have a statutory responsibility, there are education centres and we have the NCSE.
If there is a shortfall in any region there are arms of the State, in one form or another, that could help. It is best done in the same school a student is attending but where that is not possible we entirely accept the Government should be looking at providing something elsewhere. It is a surprise it has taken this long for that it to happen.
Mr. P?iric Clerkin:
I want to back up that point on the vetting. That is a structural issue that can be fixed but it is extremely frustrating for schools and SNAs when you can be vetted to work in one school one day and if you want to work in the school down the road you have to get vetted again. At the end of the day we are here to make life better for children but a child with special education needs not having access to an SNA, and in this case a substitute SNA, is a structural flaw that has to be fixed and that can be fixed. It is a practical thing that frustrates schools, school leaders, boards of management and SNAs.
Mr. David Duffy:
Similar to what my colleagues have said it would be important that we not just focus on one type of school because that would be a gross disservice to schools. If we are just looking at DEIS schools, for example, that is unfair to them as they are already doing more than their fair share. I would be nervous around that area. On the point that schools should do something, as my colleague rightly said earlier, schools are buildings. There is no problem with the availability of the buildings but there is a problem with the availability of the staff. For example, our primary school colleagues' schools are still functioning in June and in post-primary level schools the State exams are being run in June. In August all sets of schools are gearing up for the restart, which increasingly is around about 20 or 23 August, depending on the year. What you have in June and August is staff in the school doing various types of work, much of it on behalf of the State. July is when the receptionist, caretaker or school leader etc. go on holidays, as they are legally entitled to do. There would not be an issue with the availability of buildings but what happens with staff? July provision cannot happen with just a building. I would urge caution around stating that schools should do X. As my colleagues have rightly said, a lot of these issues are national ones that cannot necessarily just be resolved at the local level.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Ms Howard mentioned a co-ordinator of special needs in every school, which would be extremely helpful across schools. You need to monitor the supports kids are getting because you would hear anecdotal evidence that some of the learning supports are not being received within schools. The point was made by Ms Kelly about an absence of leadership in the HSE and I totally concur. At a management level the HSE is failing and those failings are letting down families and children. If that was in any other business people in those positions would not be in those positions any longer because the company would fail. The reality is it is children and families that are suffering because of that lack of leadership at that level to make sure we have the professionals in place. The reality is we do not have sufficient places within our third level system, be it speech and language or occupational therapy, to have qualified people coming out of the system to fill the roles we need. The witnesses mentioned the workplace plan the HSE had, and I forget the number that is needed, but we do not have sufficient qualified people coming out of the third level system to fill those roles even if everybody coming out of that system was employed by the HSE, and that will not happen because people will go into private practice or go abroad. There is a leadership issue within the HSE.
The appointment of a chief HSCP officer was mentioned and that is needed. We need a health ombudsman to rule over issues within the health system because when you put in a complaint it is often the person you are complaining about who answers you. We have a Garda Ombudsman etc. and we need someone similar in health to allow parents and people to complain about where there are deficiencies within the system.
On the school inclusion model, I totally concur that we have not seen a report. We hear anecdotal evidence that it was successful and so on but we need to see that. It is something that should be rolled out across the country. You should not take children out of the comforts of their classroom and bring them into a clinical setting for a half-hour session with their parents taking time off work, when that support could be given within the comfortable surrounds of their school. That is something that needs to be pushed on and rolled out.
What would Fórsa think, as a trade union, about the proposal for ECCE staff to work in summer provision?
Mr. Andy Pike:
If it is a school-based provision and you bring in people on different rates of pay, you will have a difficulty that need not arise. If schools are going to recruit staff, we would say there should be common conditions of service. There will be a difference in rates between teachers and SNAs but that is according to established norms. If other staff are to be eligible to work on school-based programmes, the consultation should have started on that a good while ago. If that is being suggested as a solution, we will be down to the last minute again. If our members see other staff coming into their schools to work on summer provision alongside them on higher rates of pay, that will just be a disaster. What could be done in early years settings outside of schools is a different question. We would have no objection to the Government exploring that but if you are going to bring other people in to work alongside SNAs, you have to have a common rate of pay. Otherwise it will become a row that nobody needs.
Ms Linda Kelly:
One other important point is that it depends on what school is looking at the system. The child protection designated persons, CPDPs, cannot be overlooked because you are bringing people in to work with children who have complex needs in some cases and less complex needs in others. There is a fear factor on behalf of people around some of that.
There is a set-up that is not well established in Ireland but is in other jurisdictions, although it is emerging in the health service. These workers do not even have a grade code, so that will tell you how emergent it is. There are speech and language therapy assistants, physiotherapy assistants and occupational therapy assistants. This comes back to the lack of workforce planning and a chief HSCP office. In other health systems and in other jurisdictions that sort of support system is much better established than it is here. What happens here is that they exist in pockets around the country and they do not even have their own grade code, so we do not even know how many of them there are globally in the health service system. There are some synergies between health and education that could be leveraged if there was leadership in both sections, and the committee has heard from this side of the table that there is a deficit on that side at Government level. Because of that we are not even in the space where you are able to talk about effective synergies and collaborations that, from a family perspective, would make the biggest difference and impact. As was rightly said, we all have a role to play in how we look at that.
I want to come back in on the Chairman's comment on complaints because it was an interesting one. We have seen that because the complaints process in health is so ineffective, our children's disability network team managers are highlighting to us that there is an increase in the number of inquiries and complaints into the service, almost going into the thousands. If that is what you are spending your time doing, how are you planning for and providing services? Because parents and families rightly have complaints about the quantum of service or access to same, they are submitting those complaints across a range of forums in order to get any sort of response from the HSE centrally. For clinicians, that often means complaints are going into their regulator. HSCPs are regulated by CORU in the same way that teachers are regulated by the Teaching Council and so front-line clinicians feel vulnerable to facing fitness to practice complaints, not because of anything to do with their professional practice or their competence but because of systemic failures on the HSE side around the provision and quantum of service.
We represent people in that process and we can see it. The Chairman's point is well made that a complaints system that is effective is required.
Ms Anne Howard:
The Chairman talked about making the roll-out of provision compulsory at primary level and not at post-primary level. I would have real reticence about making it compulsory within any sector. I certainly cannot speak to the primary sector as we do not represent the teachers there. In the post-primary sector, however, there are already huge demands on principals. I do not believe there is capacity within their workloads to add to them. I referenced the need for an appointment to be made within a post-primary setting. That is separate from a co-ordinator of special educational needs within schools. That would be a separate role. It would be run as an entity within the school and then at least then the recruitment process can start much earlier. As my colleagues have pointed out, if people understand what is available to them, the roll-out of that will become much easier. An individual will have the energy to drive that and not be caught up in the myriad of other leadership responsibilities that exist within the school.
With regard to the co-ordinator's role within the schools, many schools in the post-primary sector have co-ordinators who do very valuable work. They are designated as co-ordinators, although no allowance is given for that role. Whatever alleviation of time they have is the alleviation that comes from the allocation that is rightly applied because they are doing the administrative work regarding the roll-out. However, they are also the people who need to co-ordinate with the external services. I am really concerned about this because the services are not always available to them. I note that even within the system, access to CAMHS and getting appointments with NEPS for students is just incredibly difficult. Again, this is not a criticism of those organisations or the work they are doing. However, they are under-resourced and, therefore, we just cannot get them.
I spoke to an excellent co-ordinator in a school recently. She is so successful in her job because she is giving all of her time and energy to the job, but she loves what she does. I would be concerned about burnout for people like that. That is a real struggle for people in schools who work in this area. One of the things she said was that no SENO was assigned to her school. She did have access to a SENO who was assigned to another school or range of schools who she could ring if there was an issue she needed addressed. There was nobody assigned to her school, however, because there was nobody available to do that. Again, that is not a criticism of the work of SENOs but it is the under-resourcing with which schools are constantly struggling. When Government says it will roll out the resources and ensure those resources are in place, schools will be thrilled and delighted. They will welcome that, but they will need to see the evidence of it. I am sorry, but they will need to see the evidence before they say "Yippee" and that, yes, this is something with which they can all engage and run.
Schools absolutely want what is best for the students of the ground. They absolutely want what is best for the families because they know, as does the Chairman, that engagement by schools with families is fundamental for all children, but particularly for students with special educational needs. Schools will welcome this, but they need to know the resources are there. They will not welcome them until they see them. We are meant to have access to the other services too but when we go looking, they are just not there.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Howard. I will let Mr. Duffy in in a second. I conscious there is another meeting in this room at 3 p.m. I thank the witnesses for their contributions. Every question was comprehensively answered. If they wish to make any additional submissions to the committee, they should please to do so. We will more than welcome them. I apologise if there was slight crossover, if that is the right word. This was not the particular focus of the meeting - it was just what we have heard in recent weeks and we want to change that for 2023. As I said, it has been beneficial and we received comprehensive answers from all our guests. Are there any final comments they wish to make? I call Mr. Duffy.
Dr. David Duffy:
I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to brief the committee. Indeed, we made a fairly extensive written submission as well as our opening statement. I will, however, come back to what I think are the three most important areas in provision for students who are autistic throughout the entire year. It is around having access to prompt assessments, planning for places in advance and the in-school and out-of-school supports being available. Schools are sometimes expected to do things they were never resourced or trained to do and sometimes do not even have the legislative framework to do. Those are three very important things at a national level that would support schools in supporting autistic children throughout the year.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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Would any representatives from Fórsa like to come in?
Ms Caroline Quinn:
I thank members very much for their attention and for listening to us today. The two parting words from the IPPN are to plead that the admissions issue is looked at and that there would be a longer lead-in that would allow planning.
The second thing we would plead is that there would be a division between how high-incidence resources and low-incidence resources, in other words, children with complex needs, are dealt with in terms of how the allocations are given to schools.
Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses very much. The committee now stands adjourned until Thursday, 6 October 2022 at 12 noon when we will resume in private session.