Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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355. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of nurture rooms open and active in schools across the State. [31580/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The provision of appropriate accommodation for all pupils including pupils with special education needs is a priority for this department. This is in two respects: firstly, in ensuring that there is sufficient provision for pupils with special education needs and secondly in designing school accommodation that meets the needs of all users and enhances the learning experience.

Nurture Groups are short-term focused interventions for children and young people with social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties. They emphasise emotional literacy, language development, and positive relationships and are based on attachment theory and draw on trauma-informed practices. Nurture Groups involve small groups of children temporarily withdrawn from mainstream classes to develop specific skills. Many variations of Nurture interventions are used, and some schools also use Nurture principles and implement whole-school approaches to Nurture.

Nurture Groups are often referred to as Nurture Rooms possibly because of a confusion about the terminology but also possibly because many of them are part time and therefore the emphasis is sometimes on the room rather than the group dynamic.

In order to make accommodation provision to meet the needs of students, my department has close engagement with the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) which has responsibility for coordinating and advising on the education provision for children nationwide. When the NCSE sanction a special class in a school, the school can apply to my department for capital funding to re-configure existing spaces within the school building to accommodate the class or to construct additional accommodation. Similarly, where special schools wish to expand provision, the school can apply to my department for capital funding to accommodate additional placements.

Such classrooms for pupils with special educational needs are included as standard in the accommodation brief for new school buildings and major extension projects. The overall accommodation suite for students with special education needs also generally includes ancillary accommodation such as a Central Activities Space, a Multi Activity Room and Quiet Spaces as well as an outdoor Secure Play Area and Sensory Garden.

Because of the many variations of Nurture groups and ancillary accommodation that schools can avail of we do not have an accommodation type specifically defined as a nurture room and therefore do not have data on the number of nurture rooms open and active in schools.

As Nurture is a programme of support whose interventions need to be embedded in the school’s Continuum of Support process, there is advice for schools in Circulars 0042/2018 and 0043/2018 in the use of programmes and/or external facilitators in promoting wellbeing consistent with the Department of Education and Youth’s Wellbeing Policy Statement and Framework for Practice.