Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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61. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her attention has been drawn to a situation in which a school (details supplied) is being forced to campaign again for additional SNA resources given its last campaign was in 2019. [39725/20]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The NCSE has responsibility for planning and coordinating school supports for children with special educational needs including the allocation of SNAs and reviews. My Department does not have a role in making individual school determinations. Accordingly, the question has been referred to the NCSE for direct reply.

The Special Needs Assistant (SNA) scheme is designed to provide schools with additional adult support staff who can assist children with special educational needs who also have additional and significant care needs. Such support is provided in order to facilitate the attendance of those pupils at school and also to minimise disruption to class or teaching time for the pupils concerned, or for their peers, and with a view to developing their independent living skills.

SNAs are not allocated to individual children but to schools as a school based resource. The deployment of SNAs within schools is a matter for the individual Principal/Board of Management of the school. SNAs should be deployed by the school in a manner which best meets the care support requirements of the children enrolled in the school for whom SNA support has been allocated.

It is a matter for schools to allocate support as required, and on the basis of individual need, which allows schools flexibility in how the SNA support is utilised.

Schools were notified of the arrangements for the allocation of SNA support in respect of students in mainstream classes for the current school year. The arrangements include the following provisions:

- 2019/20 mainstream class SNA allocations were frozen, from the date of issue of Circular 0030/2020, and have automatically rolled over into the current school year. This means that no school will receive an allocation less than that which they have on the date of issue of this Circular and existing SNAs currently in standard SNA posts were allowed to continue in these posts for the current school year in the normal way.

- A diagnosis of a disability, or a psychological or other professional report, is not necessary for this process.

- The role of the SNA to support the care needs of students in mainstream classes, as set out in Circular 0030/2014, remains unchanged.

It is expected that schools will review and reprioritise the deployment of SNAs within mainstream settings and allocate resources to ensure those with the greatest level of need receive the greatest level of support. Providing access to SNA support continues to be based on primary care needs as outlined in DES Circular 0030/2014.

Schools may apply to the NCSE for additionality where they can demonstrate that the current allocation does not meet additional care needs within the mainstream classes in the school. Applications for additionality arising from significant new or emerging additional care needs, which cannot be catered within existing allocations, are dealt with by way of the exceptional review process.

The exceptional review process for mainstream allocations is available to schools throughout the current school year.

Detailed information on the NCSE exceptional review process is published on the NCSE website www.ncse.ie.

A school can appeal the outcome of an exceptional review and details of how to do this are here

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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62. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the method used in the new SNA allocations model (details supplied). [40041/20]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Schools were notified of the arrangements for the allocation of SNA support in respect of students in mainstream classes for 2020/21 in April 2020.

The arrangements include the following provisions:

- 2019/20 mainstream class SNA allocations were frozen, from the date of issue of Circular 0030/2020 (published on 24 April 2020), and automatically rolled over into the 2020/21 school year. This meant that no school received an allocation less than that which they had on the date of issue of this Circular and existing SNAs who were in standard SNA posts continued in these posts for the 2020/21 school year in the normal way.

- Schools can apply to the NCSE for additionality where they could demonstrate that the current allocation does not meet additional care needs within the mainstream classes in the school. Applications for additionality arising from significant new or emerging additional care needs, which cannot be catered within existing allocations, will be dealt with by way of an exceptional review process.

- A diagnosis of a disability, or a psychological or other professional report, is not necessary for this process.

- The role of the SNA to support the care needs of students in mainstream classes, as set out in Circular 0030/2014, remained unchanged.

It was expected that schools would review and reprioritise the deployment of SNAs within mainstream settings and allocate resources to ensure those with the greatest level of need receive the greatest level of support. Providing access to SNA support continues to be based on primary care needs as outlined in DES Circular 0030/2014.

Following such a review and reprioritisation, it is expected that a small number of schools, for example, developing schools may not have a sufficient SNA allocation to meet the needs of their students. These schools can apply to the NCSE for an Exceptional Review of their allocation.

Detailed information on the NCSE exceptional review process is published on the NCSE website www.ncse.ie.

The exceptional review process for mainstream allocations will be available to schools throughout the 2020/21 school year.