Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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The whole area of assessments of need has, unfortunately, moved from crisis to crisis and rushed solution to rushed solution. A series of court cases has been taken in the past year or so. These found that the approach being taken to the assessment of needs model that was in place was inconsistent with the Disabilities Act. Children were not getting adequate assessment of their needs. In many instances, children were only being seen briefly under what was called the standard operating procedure. That was struck down.

Approximately five days ago, schools received a note from the Department of Education outlining the report of educational needs for the purpose of the assessment of need under the Disabilities Act 2005. To say that has alarmed and worried school staff, teachers and principals is an understatement.

They believe, and are quite entitled to believe on reading this document the Department has circulated, that the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, is passing the buck and is effectively asking schools, teachers and principals, to be the very first step in the assessment of need, AON, process and to be the people who are effectively involved in drafting a document which could form part of a legal document under the Disability Act, which is the assessment of need. This is grossly unfair on school staff, on parents and, of course, on children that schools are now essentially being charged with the initial screening or beginning of the assessment of need process. School staff are not qualified, by their own admission, to do an assessment of children with additional educational needs and it seems this is not in line with the Disability Act. It is certainly not in line with what Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs, EPSEN, Act envisioned is in the best interests of children. Legal experts and many people involved in the special education area believe that the legal basis for this is questionable.

On top of that, this is simply not a sustainable approach. The courts decided that the NCSE had a role to play in this and that it would be responsible for ensuring that the educational needs were incorporated into the assessment of need. At no stage in that court case was it said that the NCSE should decide that the schools should do that, because those in schools are not educational psychologists. The schools have many very capable people who have a great deal of talents, with special education teachers and so forth, but the schools themselves would be the first to say they are not trained to assess the educational needs of children for the purpose of an assessment of need, which is a legal document which has considerable status in the Disability Act.

This is an ill-thought-out approach and will lead to schools, principals and teachers being caught between a rock and a hard place. It could potentially lead to children not getting an appropriate or adequate assessment of need, or being passed over entirely, with all of the implications that that has for admissions to special classes at post-primary level and to special schools, for their therapies or for any supports they need through the system as a whole. This is a very badly thought-out approach and I urge the Department to reconsider it.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I am replying to this Topical Issue debate on behalf of the Minister of State with responsibility for special education and inclusion who could not be here this evening. It provides an opportunity to outline the current position regarding the recent changes to the assessment of need process and on the roles and responsibilities of the National Council for Special Education and schools. The AON process is provided for under the Disability Act 2005. Assessment officers under the remit of the HSE are charged with organising the assessment of need. The assessment officer makes the determination as to whether or not a child or young person meets the definition of disability contained in the Act. The assessment officer co-ordinates and completes the assessment report.

As referred to by Deputy Ó Laoghaire, since a court ruling in October 2021, there is now a legal obligation on the education system to assist the HSE as part of the HSE's assessment of need process.

The Department of Education and NCSE have worked intensively to ensure the process put in place adheres to legal obligations arising from the HSE's AON process, and is one that is rooted in existing good practice in schools. Under the Disability Act 2005, the NCSE is obliged to nominate a person with appropriate expertise to assist in the education assessment process. Where the child is enrolled in a school the Education of Persons with Special Education Needs Act 2004 names the principal as the person the NCSE should contact. Identification of education needs is central to the way schools provide for the inclusion and participation of all students and to providing an education which is appropriate to a student's abilities and needs.

In that regard, it is important to note that schools routinely identify students' needs. This aligns with the obligations on schools arising from the Education Act 1998. They use a range of assessment practices as part of the continuum of support process. This is a problem-solving model of assessment and intervention that enables schools to gather and analyse data about each individual pupil's education needs, as well as for planning and review of the progress of individual pupils. The continuum of support framework enables the school to identify, address and review progress in meeting the academic, social and emotional needs of the pupil, as well as the physical, sensory, language and communication needs.

Schools have been provided with a range of resources to ensure that the education needs of all students, including those with a disability or other additional education needs, are identified and supported. The Department of Education issued guidelines for primary and post-primary schools on how they should identify and provide for the special education and learning needs of students in 2017.

Information derived from the school's assessments in education are recorded in a student support file. In line with best educational practice, the student support file details a student's education needs, as identified by the school. The information contained in the student support file is used in completing the educational component of the assessment of need form which is returned to the HSE via the NCSE.

The Department of Education and the NCSE are conscious of the workload on schools and on school leaders and, in that regard, an extensive consultation process on the educational component of the assessment of need process was undertaken prior to its introduction. This process involved schools, advocacy groups, management bodies and unions. The Department of Education and the NCSE worked with a small number of schools on a draft of the documents required as part of the HSE's assessment of need process. The schools provided valuable feedback on the form and guidance documents which was used to inform the documents that have been issued to schools.

The Department of Education and the NCSE have put in place a suite of supports to assist schools in completing the educational component of the process.

Based on numbers supplied by the HSE, it is not expected that individual schools will have to comply with large numbers of individual requests but if this happens, and I can give a guarantee to the Deputy in the House, the dedicated NCSE resource team will work closely with the relevant schools concerned to facilitate the process.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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There are two very different things at issue here. On the one hand, where a school believes a child might need additional support or may have an additional need, it will talk to the HSE and the NCSE about how that child can be supported. Schools have a role undoubtedly in that and principals and teachers are well-placed to identify somebody who potentially may need additional support.

It is an entirely different thing but it is completely back-to-front for the NCSE to put the responsibility for filtering that onto the school. It is one thing to say that a child may need additional support but it is another thing entirely for the NCSE to be expecting the first part of this process in the assessment of educational needs to start with the school. It changes the relationship quite substantially. A school support plan is a working document which outlines a plan to ensure the child can progress. This changes the nature of that document completely because it can now potentially form part of a legal document under the Disability Act. If the school support plan is now being equated with part of an assessment of need, then what one has been doing with the school support plan, which is a live working document and an instrument of education, changes completely. I want to emphasise that this is putting teachers between a rock and a hard place because parents will be impressing on them the fact that there are needs. The teachers may not agree but the teachers are not educational psychologists. They may miss a child, or they may miss the needs of a child.

This is not terribly complicated when one boils it all down and when one looks at the documents. I have to say these are not the clearest documents but it is educational psychologists who should be doing this work. If there is an additional budget, as there is for the NCSE, why is it not being put to use for this?

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Again, I would like to thank the Deputy for raising this issue but I would draw his attention to the fact, and he would know this, the Education Act 1998 requires schools to identify and support the education needs of all of their students and to use school resources to provide for those education needs.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, has set out guidance and frameworks to assist primary, post-primary and special schools and classes in the identification of educational need. Since 2017 and the introduction of the special education teacher model, the identification of educational needs has been central to the way schools provide for the inclusion and participation of all students. This marked a significant shift from a diagnostic-driven system of allocating support to a front-loaded, responsive and needs-led model. Schools are required to use their available resources to ensure that the education needs of all students, including those with a disability or other additional educational needs, are identified and provided for. It is, therefore, proposed that this approach to identifying education need in schools, an approach which is comprehensive, robust, evidence-informed and appropriate to the education sector at this time, is also appropriate for the purpose of identifying education needs under the Disability Act. I am assured that the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, is satisfied that the educational component of the assessment of need process is child-centred, in line with educational good practice and ensures that schools, who hold all of the relevant information on the child, are supported in providing this detail to the HSE. I assure the Deputy that the Department of Education and the NCSE will continue to provide support to schools as needed. I will certainly reflect Deputy Ó Laoghaire's concern to the Minister of State and ask that guidance be given in that regard.