Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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172. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the final numbers of schools that have appealed their allocation under the new resource allocation model; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21403/17]

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.

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. 

The NCSE has published details of the appeals process on the NCSE website: www.ncse.ie.

Schools who wished to submit an appeal were asked to do so by March 31st 2017.

The total number of appeals which have been received by the NCSE is 558. 

This represents approximately 15% of schools which have appealed their special education teaching allocation for 2017. This is an appeal level ratio which is broadly similar to the number of primary schools who submitted appeals to the primary staffing appeals board for the 2016/17 school year, which also represented about 15% of schools.

The appeals will be processed in the coming weeks and it is intended that schools will be notified of the outcome by 31st May. 

Schools could 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 any submission of an appeal, schools were asked to read carefully the DES Circulars and in particular the relevant sections, which relate 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 have also now been published and are available on my Departments website.

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.