Minister: ““It’s not about embarrassing schools or shaming schools but at the same time we have to put them in the spotlight because its just not acceptable anymore that a child with additional needs doesn’t have a special class place…”
It is about shaming them like, publicly calling them out. ~~It does sound like they deserve it though.~~
It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the four schools have psychopaths in charge who hate children with special needs, but I think there’s more to the story than “they refuse to engage with us”.
Most likely stuffing issues? Low supply and low pay probably?
‘member during covid there was the big twitter argument over how calling it special needs was wrong and needed to change to additional needs.
It might be the schools being dicks but I’m a teacher and in a previous school we were told to open a special class for children with autism and were promised everything. In the end we got 1 teacher, 2 snas and about half the money needed to furnish the room. No money for training, supplies or project type things that would really help those children and then on top of that, the occupational therapy and educational psychology budget stayed the same despite a much greater need for it. In the end, a HUGE amount of fundraising had to be done and even then, it didn’t cover it adequately.
I’ve worked in a school where the Dept wanted to place a unit. We had 8 mainstream classes but only 3 classrooms that I would call large enough to be fit for purpose, one of which was in a prefab.
The Dept wanted to knock the entire prefab and replace it with a unit, leaving us to turn a storeroom (25sqm) into a classroom in the main building. After a lot of back and forth the Dept agreed to replace the prefab with a building containing the unit AND a mainstream classroom. It was the right decision in the end, but imagine if we’d been publically named and shamed by the minister for asking for a more sensible solution?
And has the government provided enough money to this and indeed every other school in the country to provide such services?
Just wondering… ya know before they go pointing the finger at the school…
“Four schools have been used as a scapegoat by a government unwilling to provide places for special needs pupils”
Course it be the dubs
I’m actually surprised by this.
“Won’t provide” or “don’t have the necessary resources to provide places”? To be honest it could be either.
Schools have absolutely been thrown in the deep end being expected to cater for pupils with additional needs with little money for specialist books, IT, sensory rooms etc, and staff that might only be somewhat trained. But there is no denying that some schools just do the bare minimum when it comes to additional needs students as is, let alone making the effort to cater for students with a lot of needs.
The school I work in is quickly getting a name for itself as a good school for SEN, because we have put a lot of time and money into that department, but now we’ve become almost pigeon holed into being the “school for SEN” and as a consequence are losing more academic students who are going to nearby schools who are almost marketing themselves towards “high achieving” students (and their parents) by almost discouraging SEN pupils from enrolling.
All schools should have a responsibility to be as inclusive as possible, but it’s very difficult to judge to what extent they are taking their responsibility seriously when they may just not have the resources.
These school are most certainly trying to avoid having more special needs classes. Funding or not there is a different type of engagement from school that are prepared to open more special needs classes when compared to these four schools. These school aren’t engaging.
We should be listening to the parents also on this subject and going by all the previous RTE articles from disillusioned parents frustrated by the lack of special needs classes it’s clear that some school are not prepared to step up and add special needs classes.
Scoil Úna Noafa near me has had to close it’s assembly hall and convert it in to classrooms because they were ordered to provide special needs spaces. There was literally no other way they could accommodate the request given that the DoE refused to provide funding for an extension of prefab classrooms.
I am willing to bet the schools mentioned have found themselves in a similar predicament and were more resistant to being forced by the government.
honestly I’ll bite, the resources weren’t there. these schools are probably not well enough equipped or funded to provide places to special needs children. most schools would happily take them in exchange for extra funding
Pleasantly surprised by how the comments aren’t being taken in by the Department of Ed bullshit.
When these four schools already have special classes, it clearly isn’t an issue of not wanting to provide for children with additional needs.
My mum was a teacher in a school with a lot of. SEN kids in mainstream schooling and she found that a huge percentage of her teaching time ended up on the kids with SEN out of a class of 30 kids. It just wasn’t practical and you were the bad guy if you ever made a point of saying like…the SEN kids take more time and effort (through no fault of their own) but I can’t do this and teach everyone else too. A lot of the time the higher achieving kids were totally left to languish because no one had time for them. Its lovely having everyone in the same school together but unless it’s properly resourced, you’re just fucking everyone over.
Won’t provide places or don’t have the necessary resources to?
Every year jobs go up for the department and it is the SEN classes that have vacancies. You can teach in them without prior training in that specific domain. Mostly filled by new graduates who get a huge shock. It’s so fucked. SNAs in these classes should be on teacher money and SEN teachers should be on a different pay scale. It’s a joke.
Let’s not forget that useless pile of shite organization that is the NCSE, that while supposedly working for special needs is alaw unto themselves.
Simple as no school should be allowed to refuse if there is a need but there should be adequate resources for them to do it and in most case the NCSE totally fuck the schools over.
I’m tentatively inclined to believe the schools’ side of this, purely because putting the cart before the horse has been standard Irish government behaviour for decades, and in that context the idea that they’d do something like telling these schools to “just get on with it on your end” without providing the necessary resources seems entirely and completely on brand for how government in Ireland generally behaves.
If that is the case, shame on the department. If not, obviously, shame on the schools.
Teaching assistants and SEN support are some of the most valuable positions in schools yet the lowest paid. Schools often equate the number of students in their roster to what they pay them, not the amount of work they do. SEN teachers need to know every subject inside out. It’s shocking how undervalued they all are.
Josepha lies again! Haven’t seen her rat-faced smirk in the news lately, hadn’t missed her either.
22 comments
Headline: “…shamed by Government”
Minister: ““It’s not about embarrassing schools or shaming schools but at the same time we have to put them in the spotlight because its just not acceptable anymore that a child with additional needs doesn’t have a special class place…”
It is about shaming them like, publicly calling them out. ~~It does sound like they deserve it though.~~
Edit: [The plot thickens](https://old.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/vlzchc/dublin_schools_angry_and_upset_over_ministers/)
It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the four schools have psychopaths in charge who hate children with special needs, but I think there’s more to the story than “they refuse to engage with us”.
Most likely stuffing issues? Low supply and low pay probably?
‘member during covid there was the big twitter argument over how calling it special needs was wrong and needed to change to additional needs.
It might be the schools being dicks but I’m a teacher and in a previous school we were told to open a special class for children with autism and were promised everything. In the end we got 1 teacher, 2 snas and about half the money needed to furnish the room. No money for training, supplies or project type things that would really help those children and then on top of that, the occupational therapy and educational psychology budget stayed the same despite a much greater need for it. In the end, a HUGE amount of fundraising had to be done and even then, it didn’t cover it adequately.
I’ve worked in a school where the Dept wanted to place a unit. We had 8 mainstream classes but only 3 classrooms that I would call large enough to be fit for purpose, one of which was in a prefab.
The Dept wanted to knock the entire prefab and replace it with a unit, leaving us to turn a storeroom (25sqm) into a classroom in the main building. After a lot of back and forth the Dept agreed to replace the prefab with a building containing the unit AND a mainstream classroom. It was the right decision in the end, but imagine if we’d been publically named and shamed by the minister for asking for a more sensible solution?
And has the government provided enough money to this and indeed every other school in the country to provide such services?
Just wondering… ya know before they go pointing the finger at the school…
“Four schools have been used as a scapegoat by a government unwilling to provide places for special needs pupils”
Course it be the dubs
I’m actually surprised by this.
“Won’t provide” or “don’t have the necessary resources to provide places”? To be honest it could be either.
Schools have absolutely been thrown in the deep end being expected to cater for pupils with additional needs with little money for specialist books, IT, sensory rooms etc, and staff that might only be somewhat trained. But there is no denying that some schools just do the bare minimum when it comes to additional needs students as is, let alone making the effort to cater for students with a lot of needs.
The school I work in is quickly getting a name for itself as a good school for SEN, because we have put a lot of time and money into that department, but now we’ve become almost pigeon holed into being the “school for SEN” and as a consequence are losing more academic students who are going to nearby schools who are almost marketing themselves towards “high achieving” students (and their parents) by almost discouraging SEN pupils from enrolling.
All schools should have a responsibility to be as inclusive as possible, but it’s very difficult to judge to what extent they are taking their responsibility seriously when they may just not have the resources.
These school are most certainly trying to avoid having more special needs classes. Funding or not there is a different type of engagement from school that are prepared to open more special needs classes when compared to these four schools. These school aren’t engaging.
We should be listening to the parents also on this subject and going by all the previous RTE articles from disillusioned parents frustrated by the lack of special needs classes it’s clear that some school are not prepared to step up and add special needs classes.
Scoil Úna Noafa near me has had to close it’s assembly hall and convert it in to classrooms because they were ordered to provide special needs spaces. There was literally no other way they could accommodate the request given that the DoE refused to provide funding for an extension of prefab classrooms.
I am willing to bet the schools mentioned have found themselves in a similar predicament and were more resistant to being forced by the government.
honestly I’ll bite, the resources weren’t there. these schools are probably not well enough equipped or funded to provide places to special needs children. most schools would happily take them in exchange for extra funding
Pleasantly surprised by how the comments aren’t being taken in by the Department of Ed bullshit.
When these four schools already have special classes, it clearly isn’t an issue of not wanting to provide for children with additional needs.
My mum was a teacher in a school with a lot of. SEN kids in mainstream schooling and she found that a huge percentage of her teaching time ended up on the kids with SEN out of a class of 30 kids. It just wasn’t practical and you were the bad guy if you ever made a point of saying like…the SEN kids take more time and effort (through no fault of their own) but I can’t do this and teach everyone else too. A lot of the time the higher achieving kids were totally left to languish because no one had time for them. Its lovely having everyone in the same school together but unless it’s properly resourced, you’re just fucking everyone over.
Won’t provide places or don’t have the necessary resources to?
Every year jobs go up for the department and it is the SEN classes that have vacancies. You can teach in them without prior training in that specific domain. Mostly filled by new graduates who get a huge shock. It’s so fucked. SNAs in these classes should be on teacher money and SEN teachers should be on a different pay scale. It’s a joke.
Let’s not forget that useless pile of shite organization that is the NCSE, that while supposedly working for special needs is alaw unto themselves.
Simple as no school should be allowed to refuse if there is a need but there should be adequate resources for them to do it and in most case the NCSE totally fuck the schools over.
I’m tentatively inclined to believe the schools’ side of this, purely because putting the cart before the horse has been standard Irish government behaviour for decades, and in that context the idea that they’d do something like telling these schools to “just get on with it on your end” without providing the necessary resources seems entirely and completely on brand for how government in Ireland generally behaves.
If that is the case, shame on the department. If not, obviously, shame on the schools.
Teaching assistants and SEN support are some of the most valuable positions in schools yet the lowest paid. Schools often equate the number of students in their roster to what they pay them, not the amount of work they do. SEN teachers need to know every subject inside out. It’s shocking how undervalued they all are.
Josepha lies again! Haven’t seen her rat-faced smirk in the news lately, hadn’t missed her either.