Written answers

Thursday, 13 July 2017

Department of Education and Skills

Special Educational Needs Service Provision

Photo of Robert TroyRobert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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344. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 318 of 2 May, 2017 the way in the roll-out of the general allocation model for resource hours may have an affect. [34755/17]

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The National Council for Special Education (NCSE), which is an independent statutory agency, is responsible, through its network of Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs), for processing applications from schools for special educational needs supports, including SNA support.

The NCSE allocates SNA support to schools in accordance with the criteria set out in my Department's Circular 0030/2014, which is available on my Department's website at www.education.ie, in order that students who have care needs can access SNA support as and when it is needed.

Responsibility for deciding on the quantum of educational supports and resources to be allocated to schools to support individual pupils rests with the NCSE. It should be noted that SNA allocations are not made to individual children, but are made to schools to support the care needs of children with assessed special educational needs in the school.

The level of SNA support allocated to schools can change from year to year, as students with care needs leave the school, as new students with care needs enrol, or as students develop more independent living skills as they get older and their care needs diminish over time.

In circumstances where a school, or parent, is unhappy with the allocation of SNA support which has been made, or considers the level of support allocated is not sufficient to meet the care needs of the pupils concerned, the school or parent, may appeal that decision via the NCSE appeals process. Details of the NCSE appeals process is available at www.ncse.ie.

DES Circular 0013/2017 for primary schools and 0014/2017 for post primary schools were published on 7th March 2017 which set out the details of the new model for allocating special education teachers to schools.

The new Special Education Teaching allocation model provides a single unified allocation for special educational support teaching needs to each school, based on a school’s educational profile.

This allocation will allow schools to provide additional teaching support for all pupils who require such support in their schools and for schools to deploy resources based on each pupil’s individual learning needs.

No allocation made for such pupils by the NCSE will be removed from schools as long as that pupil remains in the school. Therefore the allocation for low incidence teaching support previously made for the child referred to in this question, will have been included in total profiled allocation for the school.

The school may continue to provide the additional teaching support in the same manner as previously or may revise the manner of the delivery of additional teaching support.

The new allocation model gives greater flexibility to schools in relation to the manner in which they use their resources. Schools may deploy special education teachers in a variety of ways in order to effectively meet pupils’ needs, for example, in-class support, small groups, team teaching or withdrawal.

The provision of support for small groups of pupils, or use of in class support teaching for a number of pupils, as opposed to primarily one to one teaching, also means that qualifying pupils will often be able to receive more support than they otherwise would have done.

My Department recently published guidelines for schools as to how they should utilise and deploy their resources under the new allocation model. These guidelines are available at

The guidelines will support schools in how they identify pupils for additional teaching support and decide how much support to provide for pupils who need it.

The guidelines also advise that effective communication and engagement with parents is an important part of moving towards a needs-based approach to the allocation of additional teaching resources and that this enhanced when parents are consulted in relation to their child’s needs, support plan.

Where parents are concerned as to the manner in which their child will be supported under the new allocation model they should discuss with their child’s class teacher, or the school Principal, the manner in which teaching support can be provided for their child next year. Such discussion may alleviate some of the concerns they may have regarding the manner in which teaching support can be provided in the coming school year.

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