Mr. Tom?s ? Ruairc:

In the first instance, standards are stitched into initial teacher education as regards the importance of inclusion, in the broader sense, and cultural and linguistic awareness. Furthermore, the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, and the Professional Development Service for Teachers, PDST, which is due to be reconfigured as Oide - it will be a new overall service - provide a suite of resources. For example, since the immediate outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and also more broadly, there is a repository of information and continuing professional development, CPD, resources for schoolteachers on Scoilnet.ie. Those resources cover English as an additional language, EAL, which I referred to earlier, and intercultural and curriculum supports developed by those services, including not only the PDST but also the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment and the education and training board, ETB, sector. We recognised a need at the outset for facilities in Ukrainian. There are digital tools for translation which are quite effective. In the area of special educational needs, one of the early challenges we identified was that Ukrainian parents had reports from Ukraine but they were not in English. The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, now provides a service to translate those reports to assist in the assessment of need process. At post-primary level, the PDST is running leading language support and team teaching for inclusion seminars again in term 1 of next year and provides school support for EAL on an ongoing basis. They are a range of some of the supports provided in that space.