Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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206. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the supports available for children with dyslexia attending mainstream school within that school system; if specific resource hours can be provided; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23900/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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All mainstream Primary schools have been allocated significant additional teaching resources under the General Allocation Model (GAM) to cater for children with high incidence special educational needs, including Specific Learning Disability (SLD), of which dyslexia is one such SLD.

All Post Primary schools have also been allocated additional teaching resources for pupils with high incidence special educational needs, including SLDs. It is a matter for individual schools to use their professional judgment to identify pupils who will receive this support and to use the resources available to the school to intervene at the appropriate level with such pupils. Schools are supported in this regard by the National Educational Psychological Services.

Schools are not required to apply directly to my Department for learning support for SLDs such as dyslexia. Schools should monitor and utilise their allocation of additional teaching support to best support the needs of identified pupils, in accordance with my Department's guidance. The teaching time afforded to each individual pupil is decided and managed by schools, taking into account each child's individual learning needs.

My Department's Circulars SP ED 02/05 and 70/2014 provide guidelines for primary and post primary schools respectively in relation to the utilisation of additional teaching resources which have been allocated to them for pupils with special educational needs.

Specific Learning Disability is not a disability category included in the list of low incidence disabilities which are eligible for the allocation of resource teaching hours to individual students, under the terms of the relevant circulars.

As the allocation of support for pupils with SLDs is managed locally by schools, a parent who feels that their child requires additional learning support in school should raise this matter directly with their school Principal in the first instance, or with the Board of Management of the school.

In policy advice provided to my Department in 2013 the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) advised that the current system for allocating resource hours to schools to support pupils with specific disabilities is potentially inequitable. This is because the current system fails to take account of the individual needs of the children concerned.

The NCSE recommended that a new model would be developed through which resources would be provided to schools on the basis of profiled needs of each school. My Department has developed the recommended new model and a pilot of the new model was implemented over the 2015/2016 school year in 47 schools.

The pilot has now been completed and a report of a review of the outcomes of the pilot is being finalized. Following consideration of this report, decisions will be taken as to the timeframe for the introduction of the proposed new model. In the meantime there are no plans to extend the list of disability categories for which resource teaching hours will be allocated.

Further supports which are provided to support pupils with Dyslexia include funding for schools for the purchase of specialised equipment; an information resource pack on Dyslexia which has been made available to all primary and post-primary schools as well as provision for continuing professional development for teachers with additional training needs in the area of Dyslexia through the Special Education Support Service (SESS).