Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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66. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reasons a parent has no appeals process with respect to the allocations of learning support and resource hours. [16490/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that DES Circular 0013/2017 for primary schools and 0014/2017 for post primary schools were published on 7th March 2017.

These Circulars set out the details of the new model for allocating special education teachers to schools.

The revised allocation model replaces the generalised allocation process at primary and post primary school level for learning support and high incidence special educational needs, and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) allocation process which provided additional resource teaching supports to schools, to support pupils assessed as having Low Incidence disabilities.

Under the previous allocation model there was no recourse to either parents or schools to appeal the General Allocation of resources for schools, which were based on set levels of allocation per school enrolments.

The NCSE appeal process for parents and schools, which had been in place under the previous allocation model, related only to applications for support to the NCSE to provide additional resource teaching time to schools for individual pupils assessed as having low incidence special educational needs.

As the revised allocation model provides a baseline allocation for all schools, combined with a school profiled allocation, it no longer includes a requirement for applications to be made to the NCSE to provide supports for individual children, who would have previously qualified under the low incidence special educational needs category.

Accordingly, there is therefore no longer a requirement, or necessity, for parents to appeal an application made to the NCSE to have additional resource hours allocated to a school to support their child.  

The new model provides one single allocation to schools based on the profile. Schools will be frontloaded with resources to provide additional teaching support to all pupils who need such support. 

Where parents have concerns that their child is not getting access to the support the child needs, they should raise this concern with the Principal and in the event that they are not happy with the response they should raise this with the Board of Management.

As the profiled allocation is made to the school, schools may appeal the basis of this allocation and specifically whether the data used to calculate the profile was correct and whether it was correctly applied in the case of the school.

The NCSE has published details of the appeals process on the NCSE website: www.ncse.ie.  Should a school wish to appeal they should do so by March 31st 2017.

Schools will be able to appeal whether the data used to calculate their school profile was correct and complete and whether it was correctly applied in the calculation of their 2017/18 allocation.

DES Circulars 0013/2017 and 0014/2017 outline the basis on which the Education Research Centre determined the allocations for all schools.  

In advance of the submission of an appeal, schools should read carefully the DES circulars and in particular the relevant section, which relates to the breakdown of the allocation, which may be under consideration for appeal.   

The model will also allow for some additional provision for exceptional circumstances or where a school’s enrolment levels increase very substantially prior to the next review of the model. The National Council for Special Education will support schools in managing their special education teaching allocations in the first instance. Only in very exceptional circumstances, where it can be demonstrated that the schools profile has changed very significantly since the allocation was made to the school, may an additional allocation of hours be made to the school.

Guidelines for schools on the organisation, deployment and use of their special education teachers to address the need of pupils with special educational needs are also being prepared and will be published shortly.

The Guidelines will support schools to reflect on how they can review and manage their timetabling practices to ensure the timetable is sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of all pupils in their school who have special needs. The Guidelines encourage schools to ensure they deploy their resources appropriately to meet the needs of all of the children in their school who require additional teaching support, including pupils with emerging needs, or new entrants.