Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

248. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if DEIS schools are mandated to provide reading recovery and the associated whole class programme literacy lift-off as a condition of accessing extra funds for DEIS and the DEIS scheme in general; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6065/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) is a key initiative of my Department to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level. My Department provides a wide range of supports to all schools, DEIS and non-DEIS, to support the inclusion of all students and address barriers to students achieving their potential. Supplementing these universal supports, the DEIS programme provides a targeted and equitable way to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level, that promotes equity across the primary and post-primary sector.

In March 2022 I was glad to be able to announce a major expansion of the DEIS programme. This means that, for the first time since 2017, the programme has been significantly expanded to include an additional 322 schools. This means that the DEIS programme now supports over 240,000 students in over 1,200 schools addressing educational disadvantage.

Inclusion in the DEIS programme provides schools with access to a wide range of additional supports including:

- HSCL supports to all DEIS Urban Primary and DEIS Post Primary schools. 

- Reduced pupil teacher ratio.   

- Curriculum supports and access to planning supports

- Priority access to continuing professional development

- Additional funding through the DEIS grant for schools to use to support the achievement of targets set in the schools' DEIS plan

- Access to the school completion and school meals programmes

Schools in the programme also have access to a range of literacy and numeracy supports such as Reading Recovery, Maths Recovery, First Steps and Ready Set Go Maths.

Reading Recovery is a school-based, short-term literacy programme designed for children in senior infants and first class identified as the lowest literacy achievers following one year at school. It is a thoroughly researched and evidence-based early literacy intervention.  Children are taught individually by a specially trained teacher for 30 minutes daily for 12-20 weeks. The goal is for children to become effective and efficient literacy learners able to work within an average range of classroom performance.  In Ireland, four out of five children consistently reach this goal.

Reading Recovery was chosen by the Department of Education as part of the multi-faceted support provided for schools in the DEIS programme.  Schools in the programme are asked to nominate one member of teaching staff to train as the specialist Reading Recovery teacher. These are trained by Reading Recovery Teacher Leaders who are seconded to PDST and operate from education centres throughout the country. Some schools have also decided to adapt aspects of Reading Recovery into the mainstream class teaching programmes through programmes such as Literacy Lift Off and the Power Hour. When implemented effectively this can have a positive impact on pupils’ literacy attainments. 

Literacy Lift Off is an intervention that gives children lots of opportunities to read books at their own level of competency and gradually lift the complexity of what they can do in both reading and writing.

The Primary Language Curriculum/Curaclam Teanga na Bunscoile was introduced on a phased basis in 2016 for junior infants to second class. In September 2019 the full curriculum was introduced which supports teaching and learning in Irish and English in all stages across our primary and special schools. The integrated nature of the Primary Languages Curriculum allows teachers to plan for and support children’s progression in Irish or English.

It is an integrated curriculum that makes connections across and within languages and that seeks to support the transfer of skills between languages. Integration between the two languages supports teachers to plan for and progress children’s learning in Language 1 and Language 2 of the school, whether English or Irish. This builds on the approaches to integration described in the 1999 curriculum, while supporting multi-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary approaches to language learning.

A sustained programme of professional development has been made available by the Department to support teachers in their implementation of the curriculum since 2016.

In the first cycle of School Self Evaluation (SSE), 2012-2016, all schools, including schools in the DEIS programme, were encouraged to develop and implement improvement plans for teaching and learning with a particular focus on literacy and numeracy. In the current SSE cycle, DEIS schools are required to continue to use the SSE process across key themes of DEIS, which includes literacy, to target their resources, specific interventions and supports for children and young people who are at risk of educational disadvantage.