Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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321. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated first and full year cost of providing an additional nurture room to every DEIS school with a special educational class. [40347/25]

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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322. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated first and full year cost of providing an additional nurture room in one school. [40348/25]

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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323. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of nurture rooms there are in schools across the State. [40349/25]

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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324. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of providing a nurture room to all DEIS primary schools that do not currently have one. [40350/25]

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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325. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of providing a nurture room to all DEIS secondary schools that do not currently have one. [40351/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 321, 322, 323, 324 and 325 together.

As Minister, I am determined to close the performance gap between DEIS and non-DEIS schools and introduce more innovative solutions to tackle educational disadvantage. That is why I am committed to publishing a new DEIS Plan in 2025. Building on the expansion of the DEIS programme in 2022, the new DEIS plan will work towards a more flexible system of supports to ensure that a school can receive the right support at the right time. The focus will be on improving the opportunities and achievement levels of children and young people at risk of educational disadvantage.

Part of delivering this objective will be the introduction of a DEIS Plus scheme to support schools with the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage. The details of this scheme are currently in development.  To inform its development, I have established a design advisory group with principals, Home School Community Liaison and School Completion Programme coordinators who work every day with children from areas of high inter-generational disadvantage. This group, which I met in March, led by officials from my department are using a student-centred design approach to identify the resources needed to ensure the DEIS plus scheme will meet the needs of children and young people at acute risk of educational disadvantage.

My department is also intensifying its engagement with other government departments and agencies, education partners, and stakeholders across the education sector to develop the overall DEIS Plan, including the DEIS Plus scheme.

Any future expansion of the programme, and overall allocation of resources to schools to tackle educational disadvantage, will be considered within the context of the DEIS plan and availability of resources.

Additionally, the provision of appropriate accommodation for all pupils including pupils with special education needs is a priority for the 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 defined as a nurture room. Cost for ancillary accommodation from the overall accommodation suite can vary dependant on type, size, requirement, need and other additional needs specific to an individual school.

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.