Written answers

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

Department of Education and Skills

Special Educational Needs Service Provision

Photo of Brian StanleyBrian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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253. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if every child with Down's syndrome who started school in September 2014 will receive full resource hours and access to a full-time or part-time special needs assistant. [39016/14]

Photo of Jan O'SullivanJan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that all children with Down syndrome will have access to resource teaching support for the coming year, either through a schools General Allocation Model, if the child has Mild General Learning Difficulties, or via an allocation made to schools by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), if the child is in the low incidence special educational needs range, as defined by my Departments Circular 02/05.

The NCSE report on Supporting Students with Special Educational Needs in Schools has now been published and is available on the NCSE website www.ncse.ie. The report recommends that under a new resource allocation model proposed by the NCSE, children should be allocated additional resources in line with their level of need, rather than by disability category.

The NCSE report states that the NCSE is confident that the introduction of a new allocation model will overcome the difficulty posed by all children with Mild General Learning Disabilities, including children with Down syndrome, who have additional difficulties and who can be supported according to their level of need and in line with their learning plan process.

In the meantime, schools are reminded that they can differentiate the level of learning support granted to ensure that available resources are used to support children in line with their needs.

I wish to advise the Deputy also that schools may apply to the NCSE for Special Needs Assistant (SNA) support for children with special educational needs who have care needs in schools, in accordance with the criteria set out in my Departments Circular 0030/2014 on the SNA scheme.

Many children with Down syndrome receive access to SNA support in schools. I must advise, however, that SNA support is provided on the basis of the assessed care needs of individual children as opposed to being allocated automatically on the basis of a particular disability diagnosis.

Schools who wish to make applications for SNA support to the NCSE for children with special educational needs for the current school year may continue to make such applications to the NCSE.

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