Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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523. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the arrangements in place for assessments of needs for young persons who are transitioning from primary school to secondary school in circumstances in which provision has not been made for them to be assessed due to constrained resources and the Covid-19 restrictions where supports do not transfer from primary to secondary such as in a case (details supplied); the way in which she plans to deal with this gap in assessments of needs; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13047/21]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that Special Education teachers support the mainstream class teacher by providing additional teaching support for pupils with special educational needs, or additional learning needs, in schools.

DES Circular 007/2019 for primary schools and 008/2019 for post primary schools set out the details of the model for allocating special education teachers to schools.

The 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. This model has replaced the previous model of allocating resource teaching support and learning support to schools.

The Special Education Teacher allocation, allows 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.

It gives greater flexibility to schools as to how they can deploy their resources, to take account of the actual learning needs pupils have, as opposed to being guided by a particular diagnosis of disability, and schools are guided as to how they should make such allocation decisions.

The school will take account of learning needs of children as evidenced by performance in schools but also supported where relevant by information provided regarding the nature of a condition that a pupil may have.

The Department of Education and Skills has published guidelines for schools as to how they should utilise and deploy their resources under the new allocation model, which are available at .

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

Under the special education teacher allocation model schools are frontloaded with resources, based on each schools profile, to provide supports immediately to those pupils who need it without delay.

Children who need support can have that support provided immediately rather than having to wait for a diagnosis.

Children do not have to be labelled with a particular condition to qualify for extra teaching assistance.

The model gives greater freedom to schools to give extra teaching help to the pupils who most need it, regardless of their diagnosis.

Schools also do not have to give a set amount of time to pupils based on their disability category. They can give the most assistance to the pupils who need the support most and allocate resources based on needs.

Children who have additional learning needs in school, including those children who have ADHD, Dyslexia, or Dispraxia, can therefore receive additional teaching support in schools, without a requirement for them to have a formal assessment of need.

I can also advise that an Education Passport has been devised by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) which includes a suite of materials to support the reporting and transfer of pupil information from primary to post-primary schools.

An Education Passport, for each pupil, should be sent to the relevant post-primary school following confirmation of enrolment and, ideally, by the end of June. Since 2014/15, schools are required to use the NCCA Education Passport materials to support the reporting and transfer of pupil information at the end of sixth class. The materials are presented under the umbrella title of “Education Passport”

The ‘Education Passport' is a compulsory requirement for all 6th class pupils in their transition from Primary to Post-Primary School.

Details of the Education passport are available at: