October 28, 2024 • 27 mins
The AON Debacle and what it tells us
In this episode I cover the controversial Assessment of Need (AON) process which, to me, shows how the power of silence, supported by the illusion of partnership that representative bodies find themselves, brought us to a place where schools were forced to get the NCSE and the State out of a legal pickle.
This episode gives a single point in the scandal, which gives an example of how the State, supported by the corroboration of representative bodies and stakeholders, and with the silence of those in the service, ensures that services to children with additional needs continues to decline
Shownotes and Links:
01:45 The Assessment of Need Debacle
05:03 Schools' Struggles and NCSE's Response
10:21 Union Involvement and Teacher Reactions
12:39 Media Coverage and Public Outcry
21:07 The Aftermath and Lessons Learned
Dara Calleary Speech: https://twitter.com/Donnchadhol/status/1585234176412114945?t=8Fy3OyCIO9BCES035H7ygQ&s=19
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to access on done thecollapse of special education.
(00:05):
A special podcast from.
Unsharp dark.
Nash.
This is Simon Lewis, a teacherand principal for over 20 years.
In this series, I look back over theshort history of how children with
additional needs have slowly but surelybeen cast aside by the education system.
(00:26):
I argue that much like the crimesof the Catholic church on children,
where the scandal of the 20th century.
That how the state is treatingchildren with additional needs
will be the scandal of the 21st.
So far in this series, I've touchedon a number of things from the Savage
(00:49):
cuts to resources for children withadditional needs, to all sorts of
question marks over the NC SES.
Policies.
That's the national Tanselfor special education.
Which have seen a decreasein support for children.
But sometimes it takes onemoment to open up a can of worms.
(01:10):
And this is where we go today.
Unfortunately, like so many scandals ofour time, the N C S E were rescued by the
support of their friends and the silenceof those that could have done something.
And chose not to.
(01:30):
And like many scandals.
It all started off with the legal case.
If the start of thisepisode sounds familiar.
It's.
It's a shortened.
Version of my.
My full invested.
into.
Into the assessment ofneed debacle, the AOM.
Debacle that I airedtwo years ago in 2022.
(01:53):
On a one to start by settingthe scene in exactly the same
way I set the scene back then.
I've already mentioned onefamous Carlo Vion in this series.
That's Catherine Thomas.
And this time.
And I apologize in advance.
It's another of Carlos famous exports.
(02:15):
The singer.
And comedian Richie Carvana.
Now I never thought someonelike Richie cabinet would ever
feature in a podcast made by me.
He isn't exactly my cup of tea.
Anyway.
However, I couldn't resistusing his best known song as
(02:37):
inspiration for that episode.
But the assessment of need debacle andthe reaction to it from the NCSE might
have had me singing one of the lyricsfrom his song, a and vocal Allah, and
the word N a O N as my little pony.
And I guess the rest of the words,maybe I'm slightly more vulgar,
(03:00):
both the lyrics that I think.
Could have been sung after the NCSEis decisions that I might have song
would have been I'd sit down there inme, chair being treated like a fool.
As they basically try todirect schools to do the job.
A high court decision had placed on them.
(03:20):
Let's first traveled backa year or so before that.
I'm going to high court ruling in 2021stated that there was a legal requirement
on the education system to provide anassessment of education needs as part
of the assessment of need process.
This was in the what's known as theEpson act, which was made in 2003, but
(03:43):
it was never, ever fully implemented.
And to be honest, I thoughtthe assessment of need process
was completely HSE led one.
However, when it came to a child'seducational needs, it was actually
the responsibility of the nationalcouncil for special education.
The end seat S E.
(04:03):
This meant that when it came to providingthe assessment of need data for education,
the NCSE was supposed to provide at.data.
I that is the needs ofthe child in question.
Up until 2017.
That would have been possible.
They would have been able to do itbecause the NCSE's job before then
(04:27):
was to give children the resourcesthey required based on the data,
provided them by the schools, whichwere essentially psychological reports.
And as you probably know, by now,since 2017, the NCSE stopped taking in
any data about children from schools.
On effectively by 2021, they simplydidn't have any data on suedes of children
(04:53):
despite having the legal responsibilityto do so for the purposes of the
assessment of need under the apps and act.
No.
If that sounds like a bit of a quandaryfor the NCSE, it was because where were
they going to get the data now, afterspending so long, getting rid of it.
(05:16):
Since 2017 schools have beencomplaining that the resources have
been given to the schools didn'tmatch the needs of the children.
And the NCSE had responded by sayingthe schools were fully resourced, even
going as far as saying they were, thatschools were putting in soft barriers
to stop children with additionalneeds to come to their schools.
(05:38):
They turned on schools year after year.
They put in more and morebarriers, which downgraded the.
Number of supports available tochildren with additional needs.
And if schools wanted extra supportsor resources, they had to go
through a process that was almostdeliberately designed to fail.
This only about 8% ofapplications were successful.
(05:59):
8%.
All of the appeal systems werealmost deliberately designed.
to also fail.
As one couldn't appeal on certain grounds.
In fact, the NCSE.
Did it basically put in as systemswhere they decided what schools could
I could appeal on, and if it didn'tfit on their definition of appeals,
(06:21):
then schools couldn't appeal them.
Even if those grants were perfectlyjustified, the NCSE downgraded the
role of the S at the CNO who nolonger could make any decisions.
And most decisions were beingmade by people that never had
set foot in a school building.
And.
In the majority of cases, schools feltthey were not to be trusted in applying
(06:45):
for the resources that children required.
And that seemed to be thesort of narrative that.
Schools felt you can't be trustedto tell us what resources you need.
In fact, someone in an officesomewhere, we'll be doing that for you.
The trouble now was the NCSEneeded the information from
(07:05):
schools to support the AOM process.
And.
They needed schools to write.
A report on children explainingtheir educational needs, what they
required on this was going to be usedat to support an Aon application.
So in some ways, and in fact, not in someways, what does absolutely clear was this
(07:28):
information was going to be trusted by theNCSE as factual information on a child.
How were they going to figure outa way where they could on one hand,
not trust teachers, professionalopinion for the purposes.
Of getting resources.
For children with additional.
Needs.
And on the other hand, completelytrust their professional opinion on the
(07:49):
educational needs of the same children forthe purposes of the assessment of need.
They just didn't bother.
I was one of the first schoolsthat got a call to say that there
was a legal case and they neededme to provide the NCSE with some
information on a particular child.
If it does.
It was it was on the 9thof June 20, 22 to be exact.
(08:12):
And I was told that someone from thedepartment of education and someone
from the NCSE will be down to me thenext day to help me fill out the form.
And it was to.
Fulfill this legal obligation.
I didn't think much of it, tobe honest, because they didn't
actually explain the legal case.
They simply said the motherhad given her consent.
(08:32):
So I just thought it waspart of the Aon process now.
And anyway, Dan, they came and theform was filled out and I never
heard anything about it again.
Few months later.
By this stage, I realized that same form.
I filled out was due to this particularlegal case where the, from the app's
ANOC the NCSE and the high course.
(08:53):
And despite the fact I wasn't told,apparently I was part of a pilot.
I wasn't told once thatI was part of a pilot.
Bush.
I think what I'll do is our lash.
The TD Dara, Colleary explain.
Dara (09:11):
This process involves schools, advocacy groups,
management bodies and unions.
The department and the NCSC worked witha small number of schools on a draft
of the documents required as part ofthe HSE's assessment of need process.
The schools provided valuable feedbackon the form and guidance documents which
was then used to inform the documentswhich had been issued to schools.
(09:33):
The department and the NCSE haveput in place a suite of supports
to assist schools in completing theeducational component of the process.
Simon (09:44):
There are a couple of interesting things in this clip.
The first one that should strike you.
Is that.
Clear.
Cleary says.
Unions.
We're involved.
in.
The negotiations.
The second bit is a small numberof schools that gave feedback.
As one of those pilots, I wasonly asked about the form.
(10:07):
On how user-friendly itwas nothing more than that.
However, it's the first thing I justmentioned there that matters more than
whether the NCSE were pretending tobother, to listen to the likes of me.
It's the bit where ministered clearlysays that they also involve the union.
More importantly, why didn'tthe union stop this from
(10:31):
happening in the first place?
It seemed like such an obvious lead.
Wrong thing for it to allowtheir members to take part in.
What followed.
I was a bit of a juggernaut of a weekwithin a day or so of this memo being
released by the department of education,saying that schools would be responsible
(10:52):
for the education part of the Aon.
Teachers around the country came topiece the pieces together of this
bizarre and frankly, arrogant demandthat schools are now expected to not only
do the work, but to use a completelyinappropriate document to do so.
not only that there was no informationof how this information was going to be
(11:14):
used and whether schools would be liablefor the information that they wrote.
There was no acknowledgement ofthe extra workload it would bring.
And certainly no assurances thatthere would be resources given to
schools to support the children.
We were actually writing the document for.
Whatever we wrote didn'tmean that the child was going
to get any extra resources.
And one of the things we can't forgetis that the situation arose because
(11:38):
children with additional educationalneeds were not getting the service.
They were entitled to.
Why would any school want to help thevery agency that was starving them
and the children in their care of thesupports that they desperately needed.
I made a comparison in a way thatI think I feel was a good one.
(11:59):
I compared it to a restaurant, whereif you had a restaurant with a hundred
seats, but the chef had only cooked 40meals and basically forced the waiting
staff to feed everyone properly.
That's the reality of schools.
A school might have a hundred pupils withadditional educational needs, but they
might get enough support for 40 of them.
(12:20):
And the expectation is that youwould basically give the children
what they needed from the fractionof the resources they needed.
And despite many teachers beingmissionaries for the Catholic church by,
in their daily jobs, as I often argue,they are not Jesus and they can't perform
the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
A number of well-known teachers, such asTrina golden and Vicky Barron came out
(12:43):
with their own experience of this debacle,as well as parent bodies in particular,
Rachel Martin from F U S and within a dayor two, some decent media were covering
the story, the national principal's forum,a lobby group, which I often talk about.
And I'm part of, we're alsoadage of the trops very quickly
urgent principles to speak out onoffered solutions for this mess.
(13:06):
The Irish examiner, Ron, his story andtheir paper with the headline NCSE, trying
to bounce legal obligations to childrenwith disabilities on two principles.
And one interesting point aboutthe article is the journalist got
a comment from the department ofeducation rather than the NCSE.
This was the response from someown named department spokesperson.
(13:28):
The departments under.
NCSE have put in place a suiteof supports to assist schools
in completing the educationalcomponents of the HSEs Aon process.
These include detailed guidance, ashort video for use by schools setting
out how to comply with the process,email support, dedicated support line.
(13:48):
This line will be staffed by educationprofessionals who will assist
schools and completing the process.
Many people chuckled when they soldthe phrase suite of measures, as it
reminded them of the days of COVID-19when the minister for education,
Norma Foley used the phrase all thetime to describe what they did for
schools, which essentially imagined tocracking open a window and providing
(14:10):
a helpline that nobody seemed to man.
It seemed like things wereactually going to happen though.
For the very first time we had teachers,we had parents and we'd media all on the
same page, all speaking out about it.
It was as straightforwarda case as I'd ever seen.
And finally, we had people speaking.
(14:31):
We had voices, we didn't have silence.
You might wonder what the union wassaying at this point, a few days into
this given a couple of days at past.
But the answer.
Nothing.
Not a single word.
By the end of the weekend.
There was still nothing.
(14:53):
And ultimately it took the stakeholdersover a week to respond to the growing
discontent, which now included educationspokespeople from political parties,
like the social Democrats and shin Fein.
The IPPF finally came out with a statementon Wednesday, which kind of reminded
me of the Simpsons episode, where theyplayed back a video of Richard Nixon,
(15:14):
claiming to have a fondness for theparticular brand of beer in order to
try and gain a bit of credibility.
They were too late to the party.
And finally, after laborcame to the party very late.
There's always a bandwagonto jump on the I N T O.
A week after being asked again andagain, by their members as to what they
(15:35):
were going to do about the situation.
They came out with a statementsaying the following.
The IMCO has been aware ofthis issue since June on the
stakeholders are briefed by the NCSE.
Very recently, I N T O intend to raisethe issue of the workload associated
with this new requirements, ateacher's consultation council meeting.
(15:56):
And it went on withoutsaying very much else.
It turned out.
Yes.
That the, I N T O had known aboutthis since the June, before.
And they also didn't criticizethe NCSE's move to force.
Teachers on principles to fill out a formthat the NCSE should have filled out.
(16:17):
I guess I should probably mention.
One agency, most of you haven't heardof, which is NABSME and abs M E.
They are the body that representsboards of management of special schools
and schools with special classes.
And naturally you'd think they'dhave something to say, especially
in light of the fact that theirmembers were to be most affected
(16:39):
. Yes.
That's the sound of tumbleweed.
They said absolutely nothing.
You might think with all thepressure of people speaking out.
That's something might change.
We had advocacy groups, teachers,principals, even legal people,
all saying the same thing.
Schools should not be responsible forcompleting the assessment of need form.
(17:04):
And in some ways, It almost did, butthere was just one missing ingredient.
And to me that missing ingredients.
Where the schools in that pilot.
The ones that the department of educationhad tried to say, we're happy enough
(17:24):
to fill out the form because whilepeople like me and Trina golden and
Vicky Barron, And a couple of otherswere coming out publicly saying,
this is not on, this is not okay.
The department of educationon the I N T O as well.
We're trying to say.
There is a very small number of teachers.
Showing discontent.
(17:44):
Most people were quite happy to fillout the assessment of need for them.
So I thought the best ideawould be to ask the schools and
luckily I have access to them.
So I decided to write to every primaryschool in the country to feed back
their thoughts on the AOM process.
And according to the ISO, I might've beenone of 17 pilot schools, despite never
(18:08):
being told I was in a Polish, but therewere another 66 schools in this pilot.
Surely.
These schools would come backto me if I wrote to them.
And I spent over two monthstrying to get schools to come
on board and discuss the issue.
And of those.
15.
Dead.
(18:29):
And of those 15 schools.
This is what they told me.
The Aon process had not been apositive experience for any of
the schools that spoke to me.
The forum took considerably longer than20 minutes to fill in as the department
on the IMCO was saying on average, itwas taking two to three hours per child.
(18:52):
Every school that filled in theform was contacted by the NCSE.
So alter what the schoolhad entered into the form.
Most schools told me that after the NCSEhad intervened in their form, the contents
no longer represented the child's needs.
All agreed that this formwas a paper exercise and did
(19:14):
nothing to benefit children.
They agreed that we were doing thework to get the HSC and the NCSE off
the hook from the responsibilities.
Most schools reported that when issueswere raised to the iron toe, I N T
O they were downplayed and CEC repsinformed the complainants that they were
(19:34):
very much in the minority and feedbackhad been overwhelmingly positive.
With that level of feedback, you wouldthink it would have made a difference.
But the trouble for me is only15 schools came back to me.
None.
We're willing to go on the record.
Most importantly, over 70 of those pilots.
(19:58):
Didn't reply.
I remember my introductionto this podcast.
The effect of silence.
In the end, the IMCO had to cover forits tracks in my view, anyway, that there
their job was to cover their tracks,given that it was now common knowledge
that they had agreed to allow theirmembers to take part in the Aon process.
(20:20):
The department of education were onlytoo happy to take part in some pretend
protest where the ICO could say theydemanded 20 changes to the Avon process.
And varied.
Of those changes, verylittle had any impact.
The thing basically was pushedthrough with the IMCO claiming they
fought hard for their members whenthey didn't really do anything.
(20:41):
Effectively, instead of fighting fortheir members, they fought against them.
And then when they realized theywere all wrong, they went off
and claimed they were fighting onbehalf of their members all along.
And in the end, the Aon processcame through and all schools now
have to take part and nobody can doanything about it because when it
(21:02):
counted enough, people stayed silent.
Apart from how silenceallows bad things to happen.
The Aon debacle also taught usa few other lessons about how
special education in Ireland works.
On a positive.
We learned that there are certainnewspapers and certain politicians
(21:24):
that believe school staff and parentswhen they present them with an
issue and often they work quickly.
We learned that some media outlets.
Despite all this evidence.
I prefer to stay silent and often will.
Put out the, I suppose the departmentof education's official press
(21:45):
releases or, and so on and ignorethe protests of parents and schools.
We also learned that some politicians.
Also work quickly, but we learnedthat some politicians only jump on the
bandwagon when something becomes sexyenough, but don't do anything until then.
And then.
we learned that certain politicians thatactually have the power and most often do
(22:07):
have the power often say nothing at all.
We learned that representativebodies often don't understand what's
going on the ground and aren'tparticularly interested in finding out.
And then they miss the point when, and welearned that lobby groups and grassroots
groups do understand what's going on.
And that annoys the representativebodies and incentive talking
(22:29):
to the grassroots groups.
They completely ignore their existenceand continue to fail to understand
what's actually happening on.
the ground.
And we saw that in spadeswith the Aon debacle.
We also learned that when you'vebeen caught out doing something
wrong, Simply call what youwere doing, a pilot or a trial.
(22:50):
And that's certainly what Iconsider happens with my case.
One of 17 schools that.
We're, very quickly and desperatelytried to get us to do this legal
thing because they thought theywere going to be brought to court.
And when it turned out.
Wasn't they just called it a trial.
And we've also learned anyway,that although it takes very little
effort for an agency to introduce aninitiative or an extra layer of work
(23:12):
into the system, it takes massiveefforts for the people affected to
try and not only put a stop to it, butto convince those that are supposed
to be protecting them to intervene.
And in some ways that's the mostdisappointing part of this whole story.
So perhaps I've learned something by goingthrough this very specific scandal, within
a much larger scandal of how childrenwith additional needs are being treated.
(23:37):
Silence.
Is actually only part of the problem.
And perhaps there's a much bigger problem.
And it's the relationship that.
That the department of education seemto have built with the people that.
are supposed to represent schools.
This debacle was worn in a longseries of situations over the last
(23:58):
decade where the teacher's unionhas fought against its own members.
Some of, you might remember dread.
Probably being the mostfractious and infamous one.
And I have to say, I must revisitdat for a podcast series soon.
Although I did do a bit ofan investigation into it.
If you want to look back.
(24:18):
The Aon debacle for me, ended up being astory of how the entire education system
came together to let children down.
Everyone from schools to stakeholders,to the department of education,
collaborated and corroborated to pullthe wool over the eyes of families.
When some of us called it out.
(24:39):
We were told we were in theminority and we were wrong.
Nobody else was complaining.
Everyone was happy.
The saddest thing for me is thatmost principals shrugged their
shoulders and let it happen.
When I put the call out toschools to take less than one
minute to email me only 15 dead.
(25:02):
Once the whole thing was over the line.
As far as the NCSE were concerned,they could now contact whatever school
they needed to fill out those forms.
And only when it, when this affecteda few more principals or went to
schools that hadn't gotten touch.
All of a sudden when itlanded on their door.
That's when some principalsgot in touch with me.
(25:23):
It was way too late by then.
I have to admit difficult for me to take.
For my own sake, despitespending months on this.
I had to give up.
I know it could easily have been stopped.
However, there was one agencythat is barely hard mentioned.
(25:45):
In a way.
And when I say, I mentioned, I'vementioned them several times in
this episode, but didn't, basically.
Have much to say on this,and it's probably the most
important cog in the wheel.
And it's the NCSE themselves.
The agency that according to the highcourt case was responsible for gathering
the educational data for the AOM process.
(26:07):
And I've gone through quite anumber of people and organizations
that spoke out and bottled.
So it's probably only fair that I givethe last word to the NCSE themselves.
You won't be surprised to hear.
This is what they said.
(26:27):
they said.
absolutely nothing.
At all
the onshore podcast is writtenand produced by me, Simon Lewis.
If you'd like to hear more of my thoughtson primary education in Ireland, you
should subscribe to my mailing liston Shaw dot Nash slash subscribe.
And if you've enjoyed this podcast sofar, please consider reviewing it on
(26:50):
your favorite podcasting player as well.
Help other people find it more easily.
Until next time.
Thanks so much for listening.
Goodbye.
Welcome to access on done thecollapse of special education.
(00:05):
A special podcast from.
Unsharp dark.
Nash.
This is Simon Lewis, a teacherand principal for over 20 years.
In this series, I look back over theshort history of how children with
additional needs have slowly but surelybeen cast aside by the education system.
(00:26):
I argue that much like the crimesof the Catholic church on children,
where the scandal of the 20th century.
That how the state is treatingchildren with additional needs
will be the scandal of the 21st.
So far in this series, I've touchedon a number of things from the Savage
(00:49):
cuts to resources for children withadditional needs, to all sorts of
question marks over the NC SES.
Policies.
That's the national Tanselfor special education.
Which have seen a decreasein support for children.
But sometimes it takes onemoment to open up a can of worms.
(01:10):
And this is where we go today.
Unfortunately, like so many scandals ofour time, the N C S E were rescued by the
support of their friends and the silenceof those that could have done something.
And chose not to.
(01:30):
And like many scandals.
It all started off with the legal case.
If the start of thisepisode sounds familiar.
It's.
It's a shortened.
Version of my.
My full invested.
into.
Into the assessment ofneed debacle, the AOM.
Debacle that I airedtwo years ago in 2022.
(01:53):
On a one to start by settingthe scene in exactly the same
way I set the scene back then.
I've already mentioned onefamous Carlo Vion in this series.
That's Catherine Thomas.
And this time.
And I apologize in advance.
It's another of Carlos famous exports.
(02:15):
The singer.
And comedian Richie Carvana.
Now I never thought someonelike Richie cabinet would ever
feature in a podcast made by me.
He isn't exactly my cup of tea.
Anyway.
However, I couldn't resistusing his best known song as
(02:37):
inspiration for that episode.
But the assessment of need debacle andthe reaction to it from the NCSE might
have had me singing one of the lyricsfrom his song, a and vocal Allah, and
the word N a O N as my little pony.
And I guess the rest of the words,maybe I'm slightly more vulgar,
(03:00):
both the lyrics that I think.
Could have been sung after the NCSEis decisions that I might have song
would have been I'd sit down there inme, chair being treated like a fool.
As they basically try todirect schools to do the job.
A high court decision had placed on them.
(03:20):
Let's first traveled backa year or so before that.
I'm going to high court ruling in 2021stated that there was a legal requirement
on the education system to provide anassessment of education needs as part
of the assessment of need process.
This was in the what's known as theEpson act, which was made in 2003, but
(03:43):
it was never, ever fully implemented.
And to be honest, I thoughtthe assessment of need process
was completely HSE led one.
However, when it came to a child'seducational needs, it was actually
the responsibility of the nationalcouncil for special education.
The end seat S E.
(04:03):
This meant that when it came to providingthe assessment of need data for education,
the NCSE was supposed to provide at.data.
I that is the needs ofthe child in question.
Up until 2017.
That would have been possible.
They would have been able to do itbecause the NCSE's job before then
(04:27):
was to give children the resourcesthey required based on the data,
provided them by the schools, whichwere essentially psychological reports.
And as you probably know, by now,since 2017, the NCSE stopped taking in
any data about children from schools.
On effectively by 2021, they simplydidn't have any data on suedes of children
(04:53):
despite having the legal responsibilityto do so for the purposes of the
assessment of need under the apps and act.
No.
If that sounds like a bit of a quandaryfor the NCSE, it was because where were
they going to get the data now, afterspending so long, getting rid of it.
(05:16):
Since 2017 schools have beencomplaining that the resources have
been given to the schools didn'tmatch the needs of the children.
And the NCSE had responded by sayingthe schools were fully resourced, even
going as far as saying they were, thatschools were putting in soft barriers
to stop children with additionalneeds to come to their schools.
(05:38):
They turned on schools year after year.
They put in more and morebarriers, which downgraded the.
Number of supports available tochildren with additional needs.
And if schools wanted extra supportsor resources, they had to go
through a process that was almostdeliberately designed to fail.
This only about 8% ofapplications were successful.
(05:59):
8%.
All of the appeal systems werealmost deliberately designed.
to also fail.
As one couldn't appeal on certain grounds.
In fact, the NCSE.
Did it basically put in as systemswhere they decided what schools could
I could appeal on, and if it didn'tfit on their definition of appeals,
(06:21):
then schools couldn't appeal them.
Even if those grants were perfectlyjustified, the NCSE downgraded the
role of the S at the CNO who nolonger could make any decisions.
And most decisions were beingmade by people that never had
set foot in a school building.
And.
In the majority of cases, schools feltthey were not to be trusted in applying
(06:45):
for the resources that children required.
And that seemed to be thesort of narrative that.
Schools felt you can't be trustedto tell us what resources you need.
In fact, someone in an officesomewhere, we'll be doing that for you.
The trouble now was the NCSEneeded the information from
(07:05):
schools to support the AOM process.
And.
They needed schools to write.
A report on children explainingtheir educational needs, what they
required on this was going to be usedat to support an Aon application.
So in some ways, and in fact, not in someways, what does absolutely clear was this
(07:28):
information was going to be trusted by theNCSE as factual information on a child.
How were they going to figure outa way where they could on one hand,
not trust teachers, professionalopinion for the purposes.
Of getting resources.
For children with additional.
Needs.
And on the other hand, completelytrust their professional opinion on the
(07:49):
educational needs of the same children forthe purposes of the assessment of need.
They just didn't bother.
I was one of the first schoolsthat got a call to say that there
was a legal case and they neededme to provide the NCSE with some
information on a particular child.
If it does.
It was it was on the 9thof June 20, 22 to be exact.
(08:12):
And I was told that someone from thedepartment of education and someone
from the NCSE will be down to me thenext day to help me fill out the form.
And it was to.
Fulfill this legal obligation.
I didn't think much of it, tobe honest, because they didn't
actually explain the legal case.
They simply said the motherhad given her consent.
(08:32):
So I just thought it waspart of the Aon process now.
And anyway, Dan, they came and theform was filled out and I never
heard anything about it again.
Few months later.
By this stage, I realized that same form.
I filled out was due to this particularlegal case where the, from the app's
ANOC the NCSE and the high course.
(08:53):
And despite the fact I wasn't told,apparently I was part of a pilot.
I wasn't told once thatI was part of a pilot.
Bush.
I think what I'll do is our lash.
The TD Dara, Colleary explain.
Dara (09:11):
This process involves schools, advocacy groups,
management bodies and unions.
The department and the NCSC worked witha small number of schools on a draft
of the documents required as part ofthe HSE's assessment of need process.
The schools provided valuable feedbackon the form and guidance documents which
was then used to inform the documentswhich had been issued to schools.
(09:33):
The department and the NCSE haveput in place a suite of supports
to assist schools in completing theeducational component of the process.
Simon (09:44):
There are a couple of interesting things in this clip.
The first one that should strike you.
Is that.
Clear.
Cleary says.
Unions.
We're involved.
in.
The negotiations.
The second bit is a small numberof schools that gave feedback.
As one of those pilots, I wasonly asked about the form.
(10:07):
On how user-friendly itwas nothing more than that.
However, it's the first thing I justmentioned there that matters more than
whether the NCSE were pretending tobother, to listen to the likes of me.
It's the bit where ministered clearlysays that they also involve the union.
More importantly, why didn'tthe union stop this from
(10:31):
happening in the first place?
It seemed like such an obvious lead.
Wrong thing for it to allowtheir members to take part in.
What followed.
I was a bit of a juggernaut of a weekwithin a day or so of this memo being
released by the department of education,saying that schools would be responsible
(10:52):
for the education part of the Aon.
Teachers around the country came topiece the pieces together of this
bizarre and frankly, arrogant demandthat schools are now expected to not only
do the work, but to use a completelyinappropriate document to do so.
not only that there was no informationof how this information was going to be
(11:14):
used and whether schools would be liablefor the information that they wrote.
There was no acknowledgement ofthe extra workload it would bring.
And certainly no assurances thatthere would be resources given to
schools to support the children.
We were actually writing the document for.
Whatever we wrote didn'tmean that the child was going
to get any extra resources.
And one of the things we can't forgetis that the situation arose because
(11:38):
children with additional educationalneeds were not getting the service.
They were entitled to.
Why would any school want to help thevery agency that was starving them
and the children in their care of thesupports that they desperately needed.
I made a comparison in a way thatI think I feel was a good one.
(11:59):
I compared it to a restaurant, whereif you had a restaurant with a hundred
seats, but the chef had only cooked 40meals and basically forced the waiting
staff to feed everyone properly.
That's the reality of schools.
A school might have a hundred pupils withadditional educational needs, but they
might get enough support for 40 of them.
(12:20):
And the expectation is that youwould basically give the children
what they needed from the fractionof the resources they needed.
And despite many teachers beingmissionaries for the Catholic church by,
in their daily jobs, as I often argue,they are not Jesus and they can't perform
the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
A number of well-known teachers, such asTrina golden and Vicky Barron came out
(12:43):
with their own experience of this debacle,as well as parent bodies in particular,
Rachel Martin from F U S and within a dayor two, some decent media were covering
the story, the national principal's forum,a lobby group, which I often talk about.
And I'm part of, we're alsoadage of the trops very quickly
urgent principles to speak out onoffered solutions for this mess.
(13:06):
The Irish examiner, Ron, his story andtheir paper with the headline NCSE, trying
to bounce legal obligations to childrenwith disabilities on two principles.
And one interesting point aboutthe article is the journalist got
a comment from the department ofeducation rather than the NCSE.
This was the response from someown named department spokesperson.
(13:28):
The departments under.
NCSE have put in place a suiteof supports to assist schools
in completing the educationalcomponents of the HSEs Aon process.
These include detailed guidance, ashort video for use by schools setting
out how to comply with the process,email support, dedicated support line.
(13:48):
This line will be staffed by educationprofessionals who will assist
schools and completing the process.
Many people chuckled when they soldthe phrase suite of measures, as it
reminded them of the days of COVID-19when the minister for education,
Norma Foley used the phrase all thetime to describe what they did for
schools, which essentially imagined tocracking open a window and providing
(14:10):
a helpline that nobody seemed to man.
It seemed like things wereactually going to happen though.
For the very first time we had teachers,we had parents and we'd media all on the
same page, all speaking out about it.
It was as straightforwarda case as I'd ever seen.
And finally, we had people speaking.
(14:31):
We had voices, we didn't have silence.
You might wonder what the union wassaying at this point, a few days into
this given a couple of days at past.
But the answer.
Nothing.
Not a single word.
By the end of the weekend.
There was still nothing.
(14:53):
And ultimately it took the stakeholdersover a week to respond to the growing
discontent, which now included educationspokespeople from political parties,
like the social Democrats and shin Fein.
The IPPF finally came out with a statementon Wednesday, which kind of reminded
me of the Simpsons episode, where theyplayed back a video of Richard Nixon,
(15:14):
claiming to have a fondness for theparticular brand of beer in order to
try and gain a bit of credibility.
They were too late to the party.
And finally, after laborcame to the party very late.
There's always a bandwagonto jump on the I N T O.
A week after being asked again andagain, by their members as to what they
(15:35):
were going to do about the situation.
They came out with a statementsaying the following.
The IMCO has been aware ofthis issue since June on the
stakeholders are briefed by the NCSE.
Very recently, I N T O intend to raisethe issue of the workload associated
with this new requirements, ateacher's consultation council meeting.
(15:56):
And it went on withoutsaying very much else.
It turned out.
Yes.
That the, I N T O had known aboutthis since the June, before.
And they also didn't criticizethe NCSE's move to force.
Teachers on principles to fill out a formthat the NCSE should have filled out.
(16:17):
I guess I should probably mention.
One agency, most of you haven't heardof, which is NABSME and abs M E.
They are the body that representsboards of management of special schools
and schools with special classes.
And naturally you'd think they'dhave something to say, especially
in light of the fact that theirmembers were to be most affected
(16:39):
. Yes.
That's the sound of tumbleweed.
They said absolutely nothing.
You might think with all thepressure of people speaking out.
That's something might change.
We had advocacy groups, teachers,principals, even legal people,
all saying the same thing.
Schools should not be responsible forcompleting the assessment of need form.
(17:04):
And in some ways, It almost did, butthere was just one missing ingredient.
And to me that missing ingredients.
Where the schools in that pilot.
The ones that the department of educationhad tried to say, we're happy enough
(17:24):
to fill out the form because whilepeople like me and Trina golden and
Vicky Barron, And a couple of otherswere coming out publicly saying,
this is not on, this is not okay.
The department of educationon the I N T O as well.
We're trying to say.
There is a very small number of teachers.
Showing discontent.
(17:44):
Most people were quite happy to fillout the assessment of need for them.
So I thought the best ideawould be to ask the schools and
luckily I have access to them.
So I decided to write to every primaryschool in the country to feed back
their thoughts on the AOM process.
And according to the ISO, I might've beenone of 17 pilot schools, despite never
(18:08):
being told I was in a Polish, but therewere another 66 schools in this pilot.
Surely.
These schools would come backto me if I wrote to them.
And I spent over two monthstrying to get schools to come
on board and discuss the issue.
And of those.
15.
Dead.
(18:29):
And of those 15 schools.
This is what they told me.
The Aon process had not been apositive experience for any of
the schools that spoke to me.
The forum took considerably longer than20 minutes to fill in as the department
on the IMCO was saying on average, itwas taking two to three hours per child.
(18:52):
Every school that filled in theform was contacted by the NCSE.
So alter what the schoolhad entered into the form.
Most schools told me that after the NCSEhad intervened in their form, the contents
no longer represented the child's needs.
All agreed that this formwas a paper exercise and did
(19:14):
nothing to benefit children.
They agreed that we were doing thework to get the HSC and the NCSE off
the hook from the responsibilities.
Most schools reported that when issueswere raised to the iron toe, I N T
O they were downplayed and CEC repsinformed the complainants that they were
(19:34):
very much in the minority and feedbackhad been overwhelmingly positive.
With that level of feedback, you wouldthink it would have made a difference.
But the trouble for me is only15 schools came back to me.
None.
We're willing to go on the record.
Most importantly, over 70 of those pilots.
(19:58):
Didn't reply.
I remember my introductionto this podcast.
The effect of silence.
In the end, the IMCO had to cover forits tracks in my view, anyway, that there
their job was to cover their tracks,given that it was now common knowledge
that they had agreed to allow theirmembers to take part in the Aon process.
(20:20):
The department of education were onlytoo happy to take part in some pretend
protest where the ICO could say theydemanded 20 changes to the Avon process.
And varied.
Of those changes, verylittle had any impact.
The thing basically was pushedthrough with the IMCO claiming they
fought hard for their members whenthey didn't really do anything.
(20:41):
Effectively, instead of fighting fortheir members, they fought against them.
And then when they realized theywere all wrong, they went off
and claimed they were fighting onbehalf of their members all along.
And in the end, the Aon processcame through and all schools now
have to take part and nobody can doanything about it because when it
(21:02):
counted enough, people stayed silent.
Apart from how silenceallows bad things to happen.
The Aon debacle also taught usa few other lessons about how
special education in Ireland works.
On a positive.
We learned that there are certainnewspapers and certain politicians
(21:24):
that believe school staff and parentswhen they present them with an
issue and often they work quickly.
We learned that some media outlets.
Despite all this evidence.
I prefer to stay silent and often will.
Put out the, I suppose the departmentof education's official press
(21:45):
releases or, and so on and ignorethe protests of parents and schools.
We also learned that some politicians.
Also work quickly, but we learnedthat some politicians only jump on the
bandwagon when something becomes sexyenough, but don't do anything until then.
And then.
we learned that certain politicians thatactually have the power and most often do
(22:07):
have the power often say nothing at all.
We learned that representativebodies often don't understand what's
going on the ground and aren'tparticularly interested in finding out.
And then they miss the point when, and welearned that lobby groups and grassroots
groups do understand what's going on.
And that annoys the representativebodies and incentive talking
(22:29):
to the grassroots groups.
They completely ignore their existenceand continue to fail to understand
what's actually happening on.
the ground.
And we saw that in spadeswith the Aon debacle.
We also learned that when you'vebeen caught out doing something
wrong, Simply call what youwere doing, a pilot or a trial.
(22:50):
And that's certainly what Iconsider happens with my case.
One of 17 schools that.
We're, very quickly and desperatelytried to get us to do this legal
thing because they thought theywere going to be brought to court.
And when it turned out.
Wasn't they just called it a trial.
And we've also learned anyway,that although it takes very little
effort for an agency to introduce aninitiative or an extra layer of work
(23:12):
into the system, it takes massiveefforts for the people affected to
try and not only put a stop to it, butto convince those that are supposed
to be protecting them to intervene.
And in some ways that's the mostdisappointing part of this whole story.
So perhaps I've learned something by goingthrough this very specific scandal, within
a much larger scandal of how childrenwith additional needs are being treated.
(23:37):
Silence.
Is actually only part of the problem.
And perhaps there's a much bigger problem.
And it's the relationship that.
That the department of education seemto have built with the people that.
are supposed to represent schools.
This debacle was worn in a longseries of situations over the last
(23:58):
decade where the teacher's unionhas fought against its own members.
Some of, you might remember dread.
Probably being the mostfractious and infamous one.
And I have to say, I must revisitdat for a podcast series soon.
Although I did do a bit ofan investigation into it.
If you want to look back.
(24:18):
The Aon debacle for me, ended up being astory of how the entire education system
came together to let children down.
Everyone from schools to stakeholders,to the department of education,
collaborated and corroborated to pullthe wool over the eyes of families.
When some of us called it out.
(24:39):
We were told we were in theminority and we were wrong.
Nobody else was complaining.
Everyone was happy.
The saddest thing for me is thatmost principals shrugged their
shoulders and let it happen.
When I put the call out toschools to take less than one
minute to email me only 15 dead.
(25:02):
Once the whole thing was over the line.
As far as the NCSE were concerned,they could now contact whatever school
they needed to fill out those forms.
And only when it, when this affecteda few more principals or went to
schools that hadn't gotten touch.
All of a sudden when itlanded on their door.
That's when some principalsgot in touch with me.
(25:23):
It was way too late by then.
I have to admit difficult for me to take.
For my own sake, despitespending months on this.
I had to give up.
I know it could easily have been stopped.
However, there was one agencythat is barely hard mentioned.
(25:45):
In a way.
And when I say, I mentioned, I'vementioned them several times in
this episode, but didn't, basically.
Have much to say on this,and it's probably the most
important cog in the wheel.
And it's the NCSE themselves.
The agency that according to the highcourt case was responsible for gathering
the educational data for the AOM process.
(26:07):
And I've gone through quite anumber of people and organizations
that spoke out and bottled.
So it's probably only fair that I givethe last word to the NCSE themselves.
You won't be surprised to hear.
This is what they said.
(26:27):
they said.
absolutely nothing.
At all
the onshore podcast is writtenand produced by me, Simon Lewis.
If you'd like to hear more of my thoughtson primary education in Ireland, you
should subscribe to my mailing liston Shaw dot Nash slash subscribe.
And if you've enjoyed this podcast sofar, please consider reviewing it on
(26:50):
your favorite podcasting player as well.
Help other people find it more easily.
Until next time.
Thanks so much for listening.
Goodbye.
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