Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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426. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to provide additional teaching support on a temporary basis to help manage the high number of children with special educational needs at a school (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46967/17]

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 7 March 2017.

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

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

Under the new allocation model, schools have been provided with a total allocation for special education needs support based on their school profile.

Included within this is an allocation for a school educational profile component; which includes an allocation for pupils with complex needs, an allocation which takes account of learning support needs in schools as evidenced by attainment levels in standardised test results, and the social context of the school, including disadvantage and gender.

The allocation also provides a Baseline component to every mainstream school to support inclusion, prevention of learning difficulties and early intervention.

The provision of a profiled allocation is designed to give a fairer allocation for each school which recognises that all schools need an allocation for special needs support, but which provides a graduated allocation which takes into account the actual level of need in each school.

The special education teaching allocation provided for the school referred to in this question for 2017/18 was 48.05 hours.

Where a school profile significantly changes following the allocation process e.g. a developing school where the net enrolment numbers significantly increase year on year, additional allocations may be made.

The criteria for qualification for mainstream school developing school posts are set out in DES Circular 17/2017 (Primary School Staffing Schedule) and DES 10,11,12/2017 (Post Primary School Staffing Schedule).

Schools who qualified for additional mainstream developing school posts in accordance with these criteria also qualified for additional Special Education Teaching Allocations to take account of this developing status. 

The school referred to in this question was provided with an additional net SEN allocation of 2.45 hours on the grounds that the school qualified for one additional developing mainstream teaching post. 

The school has now therefore received a revised total special education teaching allocation of 50.5 hours.

This allocation equates to over 2 full time additional Special Education Teachers, which is a very significant allocation for a school of this size, which has a current enrolment of 169 pupils.

It is acknowledged and accepted that schools will have some additional pupils with special educational needs enrolling to their school subsequent to the profiles having been developed.

However, for the most part these will be balanced by the fact that some students who had additional teaching needs in the previous year will have left the school. The baseline is also designed to ensure that schools have some capacity to provide additional support to pupils.

The additional allocations made where schools qualify for developing mainstream teaching posts also take account of growing enrolments.

It is also acknowledged that there will be some schools where exceptional circumstances may arise.

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) will be available to support schools where schools have developed and implemented appropriate plans for the deployment of their special education needs teaching resources, but the school considers that further support may be required. This support may involve Continuing Professional Development or further training for school staff, advice in relation to the support plans that are in place, and possibly a review process once schools can clearly demonstrate that exceptional circumstances have arisen in the school.

The NCSE has now published details of how schools can seek a review of their allocations, including the utilisation of their allocations, in circumstances where a school considers that very exceptional circumstances have arisen subsequent to the development of the profile.

Should the school referred to in this question consider they fulfil the criteria for a review on the grounds of exceptional circumstances, they may request such a review at: .