June 24, 2024 • 40 mins
This week, I focus on the significant challenges within special education. I cover recently published inspectorate findings, testimonies from school principals, and a detailed report by a group of parents on the deteriorating state of special education. I discuss the lack of adequate resources, bureaucratic hurdles, and the ineffectiveness of new initiatives, emphasizing the dire need for proper support and funding. I also and, finally, how a 13-year-old girl is most likely to be the one to save us.
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MacBook Pro Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera-4:
Hello? (00:00):
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Hello.
You're very welcome to if I were theminister for education from anseo.net, a
regular podcast, where I look at the Irishprimary education system and let you know
what I would do if I were the ministerfor education, this is Simon Lewis.
MacBook Pro Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera-6: On this week's show in a fortnight (00:16):
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where the inspectorate publishtheir findings on special education.
How a group of principals had to go tothe Dole to tell the politicians about
how it's crumbling and how a group ofparents have published a massive reports.
On the, a crumbling nature of comms.
(00:37):
I delve into the world of specialeducation with a special episode
on us and how we might all besaved by a 13 year old girl.
If you are interested in subscribingto this podcast and I would love you to
do so you can do so on Spotify, applepodcasts, Google podcasts, or your
favorite app, whatever that might be.
(00:59):
And you can also watch along onmy YouTube channel anseo.net and
you can click on subscribe and getreceived notifications for that.
It really helps otherpeople to find the podcast.
And I hope this one will be in particularof interest to any teacher, any parent
or anyone involved in education.
If we're looking at specialeducation, If you are also interested
(01:20):
in some of my other thoughts ineducation, I run a newsletter.
Where I talk about some other thoughtson the primary education system such
as this week, I'll be looking atDoreena Allen's quest for cooking.
In schools that she does every year.
I'll also be looking at some exceptionalposts on Twitter and there's some
mini CPD at the end of every episode.
(01:41):
And this week I will be looking at an endof year countdown game using chat GPT.
You can read all of my thoughts on theeducation system on my Feedly account,
where I have a number of stories I foundinteresting in the various media sources.
And as this is a specialepisode about special education.
I also want to alert you to an interviewthat I did in the last couple of weeks
(02:06):
with Debbie O'Neill, who is the principalof a special school that school owned
in Kremlin in Dublin, where I talkedto her about special education in
her school and her own thoughts aboutthe way special education is going.
I'm just going to play a very shortclip of that to set the scene.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
you know, it's the amazing staff that we have here,
but we are absolute experts inmild general learning disability.
We are excellent at the retentionthat we have here of children.
The achievements that we have,you know, the way that our kids
will do their leaving Certifiedand go on to the world of work.
(02:45):
I mean, mild schools in general,there was a survey done a little while
ago, and it's, it's 70 percent ofchildren who come from mild schools
have a job, whereas the average.
The national average of people whohold down the job with an intellectual
disability is six percent, you know,so we're doing things enormously
(03:08):
well and we need to be listened to.
You can listen to the entire interviewwith me on Debbie as a separate podcast
episode, which you can find on anseo.netor on your favorite podcasting platform.
MacBook Pro Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera-6: So without further ado, (03:24):
undefined
let's get on with things.
I'm going to start off with thisarticle that has nothing to do with
special education, but I want toset the scene and because after
spending millions on the school.
Miele scheme.
And I would where every child inthe country by 2030 is to be getting
(03:46):
a hot meal in school every day.
There are questions over there.
School lunches.
Nutritional value.
And.
Apart from the fact that Iknow I need to say this apart
from the fact that this scheme.
Is every other scheme, thedepartment of education.
Put in to schools where every schoolhas to source its own provider.
(04:09):
And we see this with everything thatcomes into school, whether it's your
insurance policy, whether it's nerdy,the bus transports, whether it's.
Nobody seems to organize anythingcentrally and everything is done
privately by every single school.
So every school, I don't know ifpeople know this and I'm sure they do.
If they hear this podcast,Our public education system.
(04:30):
Is really strange because everyschool is actually a private
school funded by public money.
And this is why we don't actually havea free education, technically a free
education system and the departmentof education provide for education.
And because of that, they can'thave these wide ranging initiatives.
(04:53):
So for example, with the schoollunch scheme, every school has to
try and find their own provider.
And those providers have toprovide to individual schools.
There's no sort of em systemwhere a lot of schools come
together to get their hot lunches.
It's all individual and the can'teven come together really on.
Unless there's someschemes I don't know about.
It's the same with everything.
(05:14):
School book scheme, forexample, every school has to
source their own school books.
There isn't a centralized version of that.
And no two schools are thesame, but anyway, The reason I
bring this up is not for that.
The reason is that the departmentof education has said after hearing
reports that the nutritional valuesin these lunches, aren't up to scratch
(05:34):
the responsibility for monitoring thatis the schools, because of course the
schools are sourcing these companiesto bride, and I'd like to start this
episode by thanking the departmentof education for adding the new.
Role that I have on top of allthe other roles that I have the
principle as a nutritionist.
(05:56):
So if you need any nutritional advice fromme, Ah, because I'm suitably qualified,
according to the department of education,you just come to me with your diet plan
and I'll let you know if it's any good,but the reason I'm starting the episode
with this is because the governmentnot only have provided me with this
wonderful title of being a nutritionist.
They've also bestowed a wonderful title.
(06:19):
On to teachers.
And S and A's and they haveannounced the establishment.
I have a support service andeducational therapy support service.
Now.
Just the important word hereis support, not therapy.
Because I think what the press releasefrom the government is that people will
think parents will think that schools willnow provide therapists and specifically
(06:43):
occupational therapy and speech andlanguage therapy to children, the school.
But no, remember the word is support.
And let me scroll down thisarticle, this press release.
She has provided, shehas managed to secure.
Two and a half million Euro.
In funding.
After 39 therapists and oh, they also havebehavior practitioners, five of those.
(07:08):
And what these people will do is thatthey will provide support to teachers
on destinies to provide occupationaltherapy, speech, and language therapy
and behavioral therapy to children.
Now, what they aren't doing isproviding any extra resources
to the schools for this.
(07:28):
And what these 39 peoplewill do for the five.
What is it?
550,000 children in the in the country.
Let's say 10% of them will need as speech,language therapy, occupational therapy,
which has probably so 39 therapistswould provide all this for 55,000 pupils.
They won't see them.
They won't even talk directly to them.
(07:49):
What they will do is theywill advise teachers and SNS.
Things to do and they willfocus mainly on movement breaks.
Because movement breaks are all thechildren with speech and language therapy.
Speech and language andoccupational needs we'll need all
they need is a bit of movement.
I'm sure schools wouldn'thave a clue how to do that.
(08:11):
Would they?
So ultimately.
Another initiative without anysubstance and teachers and SNS are
going to add occupational therapists,speech, and language therapists and
behavior therapists to their evergrowing role of in the costume.
There are no extra resourcesI said, which means that.
(08:33):
Essentially this isn'tgoing to work really?
Is it.
It's it's interesting how itwas reported in the media.
As a sort of Almost a copy ofthe press release in a way.
But in reality.
We can't expect.
We can't expect this to work.
If we don't fund these things properlythey're not going to work and we're
going to, we're just essentially puttinga sticky plaster over a situation.
(08:56):
That's just going to cost evenmore money if we don't solve it.
When I look at some of the countriesI've visited or I've had teachers
visiting where they have theseservices on site there's in Finland.
Almost every school has a S a site,a school psychologist on site.
In Valencia and Spain, where assome of my staff went to visit
(09:16):
to learn about what they don't.
They have.
It's funny.
I'm laughing because I can't believethese things have to be able to happen.
They have an on school psychologist andthey also have a senior psychologist
available when the onsite psychologistis, has a more complex case.
It's just.
It's amazing.
There's other countries are doing andit's these wraparound services that we're
(09:39):
lacking and we are absolutely piling on.
Piling on all this stuff.
Onto schools.
Who don't have the expertise.
We are really, I'll tell youwhat we're really good at.
We're really good at educating children.
We are really good at caringfor children and as much as we
can, but we aren't therapists.
We aren't specialists in occupationaltherapy in speech and language
(10:01):
therapy and behavioral supports in.
Dietician work, but it seemsthat all these things are
just being landed on schools.
And based on I think, and I couldbe wrong on this based on the public
perception that we've nothing bad likethat we're that this is an easy job.
This is just a job.
That we can land it onbecause we barely work.
This idea that sharp.
(10:23):
What are they doing all day?
They only work half days.
So they just pile on this sort of extrastuff that we're not qualified for.
And it's not.
It's not going to work.
And we can see why it'snot going to work because.
Parents are saying it's not working.
We're seeing a huge rise in mentalhealth issues with a young people.
(10:43):
And this group here, familiesfor the reform of comms have
essentially been working.
For the last few years, trying to insist.
That better services are given tochildren with mental health issues
and they have provided this wonderfulreport which is the experience
of comms, a family perspective.
And I'm just going to go throughand their executive summary.
(11:06):
It's a really bigdocument, 117 pages long.
And I just.
I don't have the time to go through itwith you on this podcast, because we have
so much to cover, but in their executivesummary, they've gone through the results.
And it basically says, some of the keyfacts here, 92% of all of the respondents
said that they have felt their child'smental health deteriorated during the
(11:27):
referral process to comms alone and 43%took additional steps to try and get
their child's referral to comms existed.
And steps included getting a privatediagnosis, seeking political support from
local politicians, going to AA and E andnot mentioning an existing diagnosis.
That's generally awesome.
Just for those of you who don't know.
One of the unwritten rules for parentswho need mental health support for
(11:52):
their child is not to mention autismbecause if you have, or if you have a
diagnosis for autism, You can forget.
Being supported by cons.
It's a bizarre kind of thing because mostchildren with a diagnosis of autism will,
at some point have mental health needs.
And comms is the only publicservice that will give that to you.
(12:12):
It's absolutely shocking.
And obviously the last thing they'regoing public with their experience at
the fight for services has to continuehot to continue in the time period
subsequently spent on the waiting listwhere 69% of people saw private support.
39% of respondents had tobring their child to AA.
It's just shocking.
It makes terrible reading.
And if you couldn't afford to go private.
(12:33):
You were in serious bother onthe article goes on and on.
I have a link to the entire article.
Which is on the newsletter or in,on the website on chart dot Nash.
But it's awful.
It's really awful.
And it's a shot.
It's a, it's an off suit.
It's a scandal.
Really?
I think this is special.
Education is going to be the scandalof our times in much the same way.
(12:55):
The scandal of the 20th century was theabuse of the Catholic church on children.
And I think the 21st century,we're going to look back at the
abuse we have that the services.
The lack of services for children withadditional needs and how we are failing.
So many our children.
With additional needs.
And no spin doctoring and no.
(13:19):
Press release is going to rescue.
The government from what they'vebeen doing for the last decade and
a half to children, traditionally,it's a service that started off.
Quite well.
Is being turned slowly, but surely.
Into this megaliths of bureaucracy, wherechildren, with addition to where they're
(13:39):
spending more money stopping servicesfor a dish for additional needs than they
are at on actually helping the children.
It's an absolute shambles and weknow this even at the very basics of
levels when children come to school.
They are already set up to failbecause let me move on to the
(14:00):
next article to show you this.
I remember when I started off in teaching.
Sorry.
As a principal, even that if you hada child coming into junior infants
who needed extra support, you couldget that support before they started.
You would guess that they wouldget their diagnosis from a
psychologist or from a service.
And if it recommended SNA or recommendedsupport hours, they would be in there.
(14:21):
They would be in place when thechild landed in junior infants, but
in 2017, This completely changed.
In fact, I'd go as far back as two times ayear before that, when it comes to special
ed special needs assistance, thingschanged that you didn't automatically.
I get a special needs assistant,but definitely in 2017 at the
very basic level for what we'reknown as resource hours A child.
(14:43):
A child would no longer be entitledto resource hours or support
hours at when the model changed.
The sat allocations modelchanged where school was given
a bulk of hours based on some.
Random algorithm, which nobody quiteunderstands and nobody quite gets
big, but we do know as schools.
That it certainly isn't enough hours.
(15:04):
And essentially, unless the hours arebased on data, that was to was in 2017.
So if you were a developing school youcertainly aren't getting enough hours.
Even now but even then you werestill, it was cementing a 15%
cost that was made in 2011.
So essentially 90, over 90% ofschools and probably more now are
(15:26):
not receiving enough support hoursfor children because of this model.
And this year it was exacerbated furtherdash a, the department of education.
Weren't getting data on complex needs ofchildren, whatever complex needs means.
It's a word that it's aterm that's coming to the.
Parlance at the moment.
And I'm not quite sureexactly what it means.
But my guess is it's children with thediagnosis of something, but children
(15:50):
are not getting are not getting thesupports if they have complex needs.
Certainly at least until second class.
And even then that's that's pretty shaky.
In terms of very shaky data, becausethat's just based on their scores of
their literacy and numeracy tests, whichagain are very shaky tests because they
only tell us they only tell a smallstory about where a child is at, but
(16:13):
effectively every child in this countryis now is now getting sorry, every
school in this country is getting the re.
What were known as the resourcehours or the support hours based
on really re not even shaky datajunk data is what I would say.
And it is no wonder not.
It took me a while to get to this,that hundreds of schools appealed their
(16:35):
cuts to their learning support hours.
And I don't understand why.
Is it Carla, Brian, I assume it's Carta.
Brian who's written yet.
Carla Brian who wrote this article.
Coats is in inverted commasbecause it's certainly was cots.
And of the hundreds and hundredsof schools that applied at appealed
for their coats and 120 of them.
120 to go to.
A thousand additional hours now.
(16:56):
Look at that.
That sounds oh that, that might,again, you have to look at spin.
You have to look at headlines.
You have to examine them a thousandadditional hours between 120 schools is
less than 10 hours a school on average.
That's not a lot.
At all, by any stretch of the not changingthat's not even two fifths of a post.
(17:18):
That doesn't mean that many teeth, that,that doesn't mean that many children are
getting very much as a result of that.
And it also does.
And.
How many schools appealed, especiallynow how many schools didn't appeal,
because they didn't see the point,because if you look at the data
and the data is out there because.
The national principal's forum havequestioned schools about this, and
they've got the dot on it and you canfind that on principal's forum.org.
(17:42):
Most schools didn't bother appealingbecause of the bureaucracy and
arduous nature of the appeals process.
And I'll tell you a little bitabout the appeals process, because
we know a little bit more about it.
And this is what you have to do.
If you want to appeal your cost.
In inverted commas, I don't even why I didthe quotation marks cause they are codes.
(18:02):
But I think it was 75% of schoolsdidn't bother because they didn't
think they'd be successful.
And they're good.
And they're very good.
Reason after that, becausestatistically less than 10%.
Of appeals are successful, but letme go through the process because we
know what it is now for these appeals.
So let's say your school, thatfeels they got caught and they.
(18:24):
Gotta cost or don't have adequate hoursfor the growing needs of their children.
You go onto this portal.
NCSC dot.
IE.
And you go to the portal andyou fill in a form and not form.
In my case was 26 pages long.
The bigger the school, the more, andthe more pages will be, but anything
between 10 and 35 pages where youhave to charge every single child.
(18:46):
Child's needs and how your schoolis trying to cover them in the
small amount of hours that you get.
And you feel like that form, ittook my school five days to do that.
Other schools reported, we took around thesame amount of time and you upload that.
To some portal.
At the NCSE.
Okay.
And.
Dash form.
(19:06):
Is examined by somebody.
We don't know who the somebody is.
They don't know your school.
They don't know the childrenbecause you're not allowed
to say who the children are.
You have to code those.
And they look at it and they, their jobis to try and find any reason to not.
Except your appeal.
Any reason whatsoever.
And it's really easy to find areason not to give that appeal.
(19:30):
And I won't go into all thereasons because there's so many
of them, it's set up to help.
It's set up to help you fail it.
Isn't there to help you.
It's set up to help them failor they don't know your school.
They don't care what your school is.
They're looking for any reason to say.
You have not provided sufficientevidence to support your appeal.
(19:50):
And that's what most schools, gosh.
And in some ways, They're reallylucky that they were told, off you go.
Because we're not bothered at looking atyour school ready because if you take,
if you were successful, What you then.
I got as a prize.
For being successfully.
Showing that you havebeen under resourced is.
(20:13):
You will get a full desk review.
So that would mean that you wouldhave to spend another five to 10 days.
Doing getting proving thatyou're under under resourced
and you would, might get it.
You.
I think you might get a visit.
I think you did get a visit fromsomeone in the NTSC who would re would
comb through your application and thendetermine that you might need a couple of.
(20:37):
A couple of extra hours a week.
It's almost like it's.
Not that it's almost that it isexactly what is happening here is
they're doing everything in theirpower to put people, to put schools
off from applying for additional.
Hours for the children and theirschool, they make it so difficult.
So as to make it.
(20:57):
To make it just, you don't have time.
We don't print schools do not havetime to spend 10 days of their
school year trying to prove thatthey don't have enough resources.
We know we should be trusted.
To be able to say, here's what we need.
And I, my, my.
Belief.
Is that these ad.
(21:18):
These things are being deliberatelypot in place to effectively
discourage schools from applying.
For the supports that are neededfor schools, because it's just.
It's just impossible.
To satisfy them.
And it's depressing.
For schools.
And as I said, car, Carla Brian's articlehere just goes through the information.
(21:40):
And it's interesting.
To see.
Dosh, car people like as I am,or they're saying that they are
they also are critical lavish.
But again, the department ofeducation, they just have the.
They just have the spin to say,Ah, there's no perfect model.
What can we do?
Do you know if they spentthe amount of time and money?
(22:02):
That they are spending on stoppingthese resources from coming in.
This is really easy.
Aren't it is a very small country.
They have over 3,200 membersof staff in the NCSC.
Now there are five sorry.
There's only 4,000 schools in the country.
And 3 8, 3, 3 and a half thousandof those are primary skills.
And they have 200 NTSCpeople who could gash.
(22:25):
I don't know, whatever 30, 40, 50schools each other, and they could.
Easily determine what needs are thereor they could trust that schools it's.
I mentioned this before Iwas on the hard shoulder.
With Kira and Coda, he and we talkedand he talked to, he said, he mentioned
the whole idea about tax returns.
You're trusted to put inyour tax returns properly.
(22:47):
And if something looks a bit funnya little red light will appear
in your tax office and someonewill come and do an audit on you.
The same could be done for specialeducation, but the truth is.
They know.
They know, they can't afford theamount of money that will be needed to
support children with additional needs.
And therefore it might be cheaper to runsystems like this that prevented children
(23:08):
from getting the support they need.
They're only fooling themselves becauseof course, as we know, if we don't.
Provide early intervention here.
The, this is going to come backat them when the children become
adults and require the supportsof adult therapeutic services.
And so on.
But anyway, I'll move on because.
What are we doing about it?
Some might say even theinspectors, RM aren't too happy.
(23:31):
And this article is actually, theheadline doesn't really tell you
much about the report, but eventhe inspectors are critical of
how we're doing special education.
This report is basically saying wedon't have enough special classes
which is which we have the perennialstory of the family who sit on
the cover of a newspaper of UGA.
Eh, one of the newspapers and withtheir child who's every day is saying,
(23:52):
when am I going to go to school?
When am I going to school?
Parents saying, oh, I, Y I wish.
I just dream of a day that I canput on my child's school uniform
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But he doesn't have a placeand I'm trying to explain it
to him and all the rest of it.
And we hear this story every singleyear and we get the same results where
a local politician will come to therescue of that particular family.
And.
(24:12):
Last minute things are done.
Children are thrown onto buses totravel for hours every day to get into
a special school or a special class.
And it's just a mess every single year.
And that's just warden mess.
Really.
And then we have to look at theidea of special classes and are they
the solution that we're supposed tobe doing is this is a very kind of
Irish solution to an Irish problemwhere we pretend to have an inclusive
(24:37):
education system, because we allowchildren into the same school building.
But don't provide any supports that areneeded for children with additional needs.
And then who's to blame only theschools, because obviously they
can't add, they can't work miracles.
Either, if we're going to be doingthings, we need to do things properly.
And unfortunately.
We're not doing things properly,getting a diagnosis as this parent
(25:02):
says is only half the battle andthe inspectors are quite critical of
how we're doing special education.
And, it's just not great.
It's not great at all.
And not only are the inspectorate claimingthat special education is falling apart.
A group of principals went to thedoll and they spoke to what I hear
was the largest group of politiciansto ever grace, the AAV room.
(25:25):
And what they did was they outlined anumber of issues, including funding,
including the workload of teachingprincipals and principals in general.
But I'm going to go to focuson the briefing document.
They provided here on specialeducation because we're focusing on
special education, but basically Ijust wanted to go through the points
here and it's the Chronicle underresourcing of special education needs.
(25:45):
I'll be a bit of repetition here.
The number of children withspecial needs in primary level
has increased by 56% since 2017.
That's shocking.
And yet very few.
I would say fewer than 10% of schoolshave increased their special education.
Provision in their schools.
Special needs assistance and satallocation has been frozen since then.
(26:05):
Before 2011 resource allocationfor special education was
based on individual need.
Since 2017, Don Iceland, the case.
In 2010, 15% of special educationteaching resources where coach
they've never, ever been restored.
In 2022.
A new allocation model was introduced.
And essentially it got ridof complex needs as a model.
(26:28):
Sorry, that should be 20, 24.
I think.
From this year.
And.
It effectively.
The only measure of a child's needis how they perform in a very.
Niche test the just the English andmaths ability on a particular day.
And it doesn't, it'sjust as it's junk data.
(26:49):
It's now a requirement that childrenwith diagnosed needs are obliged
to be given support from thoseallocations, which has a say.
May they may not even fall underjust because you have an additional
need doesn't mean you're notgood at literacy and numeracy.
And I've said.
This.
I know some of the support groups wouldagree that just because you have a complex
(27:09):
need or an additional need doesn't meanthat you're not good at English and maths.
In some ways, I just feel it's reallydisrespectful that the that's the
way they're measuring these things.
There's a chronic lack ofavailability of professional staff
to undertake testing and diagnoses.
And I just, at the moment, if you want aprivate assessment, you could be waiting
up to a year for a private assessment.
(27:31):
These.
That's how bad things will become.
The department is claims that cannotmeasure current need requirements
because they don't have any of thedata they're refusing to take the
data because you don't have the data.
If you don't have the information.
How are you supposed to provide for us?
You can't, you can claim ignorance.
We didn't know.
We don't have the data.
It's very clever in some ways.
However school leaders do know theneeds in their school, but access
(27:53):
the resources required we could, andschools could report these needs on
the department for the departmentsare using the primary online database
system, but the departments areunwilling to collect data in that manner.
The purpose of the allocation models todistribute special education teaching
hours across mainstream classes in4,000 schools, to ensure that resources
are allocated at the right time to theright place so that these hours are
(28:16):
available to schools to match theiridentified, need to support their pupils.
We know that's not happening.
The allocation criteria is havechanged from the five criteria,
which one of those was complex needs.
One of those is gender, whichis a good thing at that.
They've got rid of that, but there'sa, but it's down to three under.
Which is Baffling.
And none of the mainstream.
Special education and as pupils can berecognized until at least second class,
(28:39):
because that's the first time that youput in their literacy and numeracy scores.
To seek additional support.
I've said this to you, thisexceptional appeal or a whole school.
SNA review their arduous and largelyon successful schools are obliged to
request a review of their set allocationin light of exceptional circumstances.
So you have to, you ha essentially, if youwant an increase in your resources, which
(29:01):
every school I would argue probably needs.
They have the data here.
360 schools applied for an exceptionalreview in 2022 only 60 were put
forward for review and 39 wereactually application for an increase.
So by 10% of schools were successfuland I would guarantee you that
99% it needed it of the 78 specialneeds appeals that were made.
(29:23):
And the reason why.
By the way some of youmight go, why aren't he 78?
Because schools are petrified.
Petrified that they willactually be decreased.
And if they apply for a specialneeds assistance appeal and that
that Petra fication is very realbecause schools are already working.
(29:44):
An absolute skeletal staff staffing.
And I know that before you make an appeal,you can request the scene as to coming.
Coming to your school to see.
Should you go for an appeal.
So before you even put the appeal in,you go in and from personal experience
and I'm from listening to other people'sexperiences, you're pretty much told.
(30:06):
Yeah.
There's not a hope in hell.
So that's why 70 H is the low number.
But even though 78 peopleas schools that did appeal.
Only 16 of those were old pals.
A tiny percentage.
And the reality is that schools inschools as a case, loads are fluid.
So you don't, nothing is ever solid here.
And teachers do prioritize and theneeds as they need as they're needed.
(30:31):
There isn't a child that comes inevery day with exactly the same needs.
You're constantly shifting and flowing.
Around the needs thatare there at the time.
And it's just, it's hugely problematic.
And this is going on.
I feel it's worth carrying on with this.
This is possibly the most importantbriefing documents that has it.
That is in any politician'shands right now.
(30:52):
So I am going to carry on with it, eventhough I've gone over the 30 minutes,
the government don't have the data toquantify the scale or store shortage.
Of Sam provision in primaryschools, it could easily be
rectified by using this pod system.
And I, if nothing elsehappens, I think this is it.
This is a solution naps whichis a psychological service.
Remember I said in Finland, everyschool has access to a psychologist.
(31:15):
Even the smallest schools havea psychologist, one to two
days a week, bigger skills.
And when I say big schools, I'mlooking at 300 pupil schools, have
an onsite psychologist, an onsitesocial worker, an onsite nurse to deal
with with these wraparound services.
And this goes into a bit of detail on us.
In January, 2024.
It's only a few months ago, schoolprincipals are still being charged
(31:38):
with completing the sole educationcomponent of the assessment of me
process, which we are absolutely not.
Qualified to do.
And it makes.
It really is questionable about howlegal it is for us to be determining.
The needs, the educationalneeds of children to the HSE.
We are not psychologists.
We are not psychiatrists.
(31:59):
We are teachers and we have absolutelyno qualifications to say what the we
work from the Advice of psychologists,if we can even get them and very
few of the children go drawing.
Phew.
Number of children who presentto us in special education in
schools do not have a diagnosis.
(32:20):
In fact, we have the system the continuumof support, where we have costumes
support at the first level, whichdoesn't require anything other than
that, this child needs a little bit ofextra help in the costume school support,
which is when a child might need theinput of a special education teacher.
They definitely don't need an.
A diagnosis for thatagain, most children don't.
And then you have the school supportpulse, which is where external
(32:42):
agencies are involved in the child.
And given that most of thoseservices don't exist, essentially.
It's not really very muchdifferent to school support.
And effectively, most of thechildren that are getting support
in schools aren't are being.
Are being done through Goodwilland gastric, as I always say.
And once the data isgathered and quantified.
(33:02):
They say here.
If we gave them the data, you wouldhave an accurate Sam profile for
each school where the HSC and NCSCprovide the support strategically at.
For those children and it could bedone without, and unfortunately all the
money is being put into the NCSC whohave no data on children on affect you.
(33:23):
What they're just basically a bunch of.
I don't know, consultants.
Yeah, for want of a better word.
As I said, at the very start they putin these tertiary nine therapy support,
people who won't even look at thechildren won't even see the children.
They're just going to advise teachers howto do random movement breaks on children.
They're pumping the money into thewrong places, and it's really terrible.
(33:44):
This act comes from a briefingdocument that was given to
all the politicians that went.
Two.
The to, to the room and.
I think.
I'd like to hope thatsomething will come from us.
It's that the politicianshave the information now.
And that's every party.
And in fairness, Holly, Karen's theleader of the social Democrats as
(34:05):
spoke in the doll about watch whather advisor had learned from this.
And, it was terribly depressing.
And to hear the response fromme, whole Martin, the Tanisha.
Who I would argue is still probablythe best minister for education
we've hired in the last 20 odd years.
But as the response was reallydepressing, he decided, rather
than actually, tackle the issues,he decided to play it political
(34:29):
football with it and start slaggingoff Holly Karen's for being doomsday.
And yet.
Do you know?
Sure.
You don't see the other side of the coinand started listing school lunches as
I don't know how great everything is.
It's really depressing.
We have a massive problem.
Every body recognizes it.
We've seen it from the parents.
We've seen it from the inspectors.
(34:49):
We've seen it from the principlesand we even see it from.
A 13 year old girl, Kara Dermody,who has been campaigning for
the last couple of years.
For better services for autistic children,she has two brothers who are autistic.
And her family have been fighting.
(35:09):
For services for her brothers, butnot only for her brothers for all
children with additional needs.
And I know the focus for Kara andher family is autism, but I think
they've expanded that to childrenwith additional needs in general and.
Look.
Is it going to be the case?
(35:30):
That.
Kara Dermody.
A 13 year old girl who I'm surehas enough to be doing in her life.
Being a 13 year old girl without havingto go to the trouble of being the face.
Of saving the education systemof saving special education.
(35:52):
I don't, I think she'sa wonderful young woman.
Who.
I would imagine it doesn't wantto be standing outside the door.
Doesn't want to be going on the radio.
Talking to very kind I've listenedto some of the interviews and
people are very kind to her.
I sure she doesn't want to berepeating herself over and over again.
(36:12):
I'm sure.
At some point, it's going to getdepressing for her, where she's going in.
Where all these politicians wantto have a photo with Carra Darmody.
Who have had her Assurant.
great.
Aren't you wonderful.
Effectively patronize the thepatronized her and say, oh, we will.
I don't give tokenistic stuff.
I'm very interestingly, oneof the tokenistic stuff.
Things that we're doing on it though,actually in fairness to car's dad.
(36:35):
He called it out.
The family were actually privatelygiven money by the HSE for the
two the two brothers there.
And he called it out saying that I didn'tknow that I was getting a privilege
here, and this is essentially to get meand my family to shut off essentially.
And he's called it outand it was reported.
But Is it.
(36:56):
Is it, that is it the fact that ourspecial education system rests on the
protests of a 13 year old girl, insteadof the principals who have very well.
At outlining the solutions to thisissue, to the inspectors who have
shown the shortcomings of the systemto the parents who are talking
about the mental health supports.
(37:16):
And these are only three things thathave just come in the last fortnight.
There are so many other groupsout there who have gone in to
talk about special education.
I didn't include inclusion Irelandwho had who had a meeting or briefing
as well in the last couple of weeks.
I do.
You know what?
I, wasn't going to mention thembecause it nearly feels pointless
because it was pointless.
(37:36):
I know the representative bodiesalso went in the IPP and the ITO.
Probably part of each otheron the back for a job.
Well done.
It, they've, they're not seeing what'sgoing on Kara and her family and the
principals and the inspectors and thefamilies who are out there who have to
fight this every single day on the ground.
And do we have to, asI say, Is Cara Darmody.
(37:58):
Somebody's going to be the equivalentof the gratitude Thornburg for the
climate catastrophe or the Malalause of, for the for the plight
of Muslim girls in education.
Do we have, does it, do wehave to have a poster child?
To save us.
At to save special education Ahrens.
I don't think it's fairthat's going to be the case.
(38:20):
And what I salute Kara foreverything that she's doing.
I just wish.
I wish it didn't have to be that way.
It's not right.
That all rests on a 13 year old girl.
And for children with additionalneeds to gash what they require
and what they're entitled to.
Because.
(38:41):
If we don't.
We know what the issues are.
We know.
What the solutions are.
And it shouldn't take something like this.
To solve it.
And if I were the minutes foreducation, And even fives the T shock.
I would I be very happy to meet thiswonderful 13 year old girl and shake
(39:01):
her hands and have a photo with her andtell her how wonderful she is and how.
And my aunt, all thethings are going to do.
I'd be doing it.
I'd be actually listening toall the voices that have been
talking to you for the last fewweeks, for the last few years.
And solve the problem.
It's as simple as that.
I just don't understand why they won't.
(39:21):
That's all I'm going to say thisweek, and this is we're coming to
the summer holidays for most people.
It's ironically in the, in July weare moving into the summer provision,
which was set up in a way after COVID.
It used to be just forspecial classes in schools.
It's now expanded.
To children with complex needs, asa number of children will be getting
an extra few weeks of scootingas ironically as a reward for
(39:45):
that, the department of education.
In their wisdom decided to makea cot to the funding for that.
It just tells its own storyand sums everything up.
Anyway.
I hope you've enjoyed I don'tknow how you've enjoyed this one.
Ah, but I hope you've enjoyed listeningto this and sort of summary of the
last two weeks in special education.
And as I said, please subscribeto the podcast on your favorite
(40:09):
podcast, please tell a teacher about.
And do you know, what wouldyou mind reviewing it as well?
Look, thanks so much for listening.
All the very best take care.
Bye bye.
undefined
Hello.
You're very welcome to if I were theminister for education from anseo.net, a
regular podcast, where I look at the Irishprimary education system and let you know
what I would do if I were the ministerfor education, this is Simon Lewis.
MacBook Pro Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera-6: On this week's show in a fortnight (00:16):
undefined
where the inspectorate publishtheir findings on special education.
How a group of principals had to go tothe Dole to tell the politicians about
how it's crumbling and how a group ofparents have published a massive reports.
On the, a crumbling nature of comms.
(00:37):
I delve into the world of specialeducation with a special episode
on us and how we might all besaved by a 13 year old girl.
If you are interested in subscribingto this podcast and I would love you to
do so you can do so on Spotify, applepodcasts, Google podcasts, or your
favorite app, whatever that might be.
(00:59):
And you can also watch along onmy YouTube channel anseo.net and
you can click on subscribe and getreceived notifications for that.
It really helps otherpeople to find the podcast.
And I hope this one will be in particularof interest to any teacher, any parent
or anyone involved in education.
If we're looking at specialeducation, If you are also interested
(01:20):
in some of my other thoughts ineducation, I run a newsletter.
Where I talk about some other thoughtson the primary education system such
as this week, I'll be looking atDoreena Allen's quest for cooking.
In schools that she does every year.
I'll also be looking at some exceptionalposts on Twitter and there's some
mini CPD at the end of every episode.
(01:41):
And this week I will be looking at an endof year countdown game using chat GPT.
You can read all of my thoughts on theeducation system on my Feedly account,
where I have a number of stories I foundinteresting in the various media sources.
And as this is a specialepisode about special education.
I also want to alert you to an interviewthat I did in the last couple of weeks
(02:06):
with Debbie O'Neill, who is the principalof a special school that school owned
in Kremlin in Dublin, where I talkedto her about special education in
her school and her own thoughts aboutthe way special education is going.
I'm just going to play a very shortclip of that to set the scene.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
you know, it's the amazing staff that we have here,
but we are absolute experts inmild general learning disability.
We are excellent at the retentionthat we have here of children.
The achievements that we have,you know, the way that our kids
will do their leaving Certifiedand go on to the world of work.
(02:45):
I mean, mild schools in general,there was a survey done a little while
ago, and it's, it's 70 percent ofchildren who come from mild schools
have a job, whereas the average.
The national average of people whohold down the job with an intellectual
disability is six percent, you know,so we're doing things enormously
(03:08):
well and we need to be listened to.
You can listen to the entire interviewwith me on Debbie as a separate podcast
episode, which you can find on anseo.netor on your favorite podcasting platform.
MacBook Pro Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera-6: So without further ado, (03:24):
undefined
let's get on with things.
I'm going to start off with thisarticle that has nothing to do with
special education, but I want toset the scene and because after
spending millions on the school.
Miele scheme.
And I would where every child inthe country by 2030 is to be getting
(03:46):
a hot meal in school every day.
There are questions over there.
School lunches.
Nutritional value.
And.
Apart from the fact that Iknow I need to say this apart
from the fact that this scheme.
Is every other scheme, thedepartment of education.
Put in to schools where every schoolhas to source its own provider.
(04:09):
And we see this with everything thatcomes into school, whether it's your
insurance policy, whether it's nerdy,the bus transports, whether it's.
Nobody seems to organize anythingcentrally and everything is done
privately by every single school.
So every school, I don't know ifpeople know this and I'm sure they do.
If they hear this podcast,Our public education system.
(04:30):
Is really strange because everyschool is actually a private
school funded by public money.
And this is why we don't actually havea free education, technically a free
education system and the departmentof education provide for education.
And because of that, they can'thave these wide ranging initiatives.
(04:53):
So for example, with the schoollunch scheme, every school has to
try and find their own provider.
And those providers have toprovide to individual schools.
There's no sort of em systemwhere a lot of schools come
together to get their hot lunches.
It's all individual and the can'teven come together really on.
Unless there's someschemes I don't know about.
It's the same with everything.
(05:14):
School book scheme, forexample, every school has to
source their own school books.
There isn't a centralized version of that.
And no two schools are thesame, but anyway, The reason I
bring this up is not for that.
The reason is that the departmentof education has said after hearing
reports that the nutritional valuesin these lunches, aren't up to scratch
(05:34):
the responsibility for monitoring thatis the schools, because of course the
schools are sourcing these companiesto bride, and I'd like to start this
episode by thanking the departmentof education for adding the new.
Role that I have on top of allthe other roles that I have the
principle as a nutritionist.
(05:56):
So if you need any nutritional advice fromme, Ah, because I'm suitably qualified,
according to the department of education,you just come to me with your diet plan
and I'll let you know if it's any good,but the reason I'm starting the episode
with this is because the governmentnot only have provided me with this
wonderful title of being a nutritionist.
They've also bestowed a wonderful title.
(06:19):
On to teachers.
And S and A's and they haveannounced the establishment.
I have a support service andeducational therapy support service.
Now.
Just the important word hereis support, not therapy.
Because I think what the press releasefrom the government is that people will
think parents will think that schools willnow provide therapists and specifically
(06:43):
occupational therapy and speech andlanguage therapy to children, the school.
But no, remember the word is support.
And let me scroll down thisarticle, this press release.
She has provided, shehas managed to secure.
Two and a half million Euro.
In funding.
After 39 therapists and oh, they also havebehavior practitioners, five of those.
(07:08):
And what these people will do is thatthey will provide support to teachers
on destinies to provide occupationaltherapy, speech, and language therapy
and behavioral therapy to children.
Now, what they aren't doing isproviding any extra resources
to the schools for this.
(07:28):
And what these 39 peoplewill do for the five.
What is it?
550,000 children in the in the country.
Let's say 10% of them will need as speech,language therapy, occupational therapy,
which has probably so 39 therapistswould provide all this for 55,000 pupils.
They won't see them.
They won't even talk directly to them.
(07:49):
What they will do is theywill advise teachers and SNS.
Things to do and they willfocus mainly on movement breaks.
Because movement breaks are all thechildren with speech and language therapy.
Speech and language andoccupational needs we'll need all
they need is a bit of movement.
I'm sure schools wouldn'thave a clue how to do that.
(08:11):
Would they?
So ultimately.
Another initiative without anysubstance and teachers and SNS are
going to add occupational therapists,speech, and language therapists and
behavior therapists to their evergrowing role of in the costume.
There are no extra resourcesI said, which means that.
(08:33):
Essentially this isn'tgoing to work really?
Is it.
It's it's interesting how itwas reported in the media.
As a sort of Almost a copy ofthe press release in a way.
But in reality.
We can't expect.
We can't expect this to work.
If we don't fund these things properlythey're not going to work and we're
going to, we're just essentially puttinga sticky plaster over a situation.
(08:56):
That's just going to cost evenmore money if we don't solve it.
When I look at some of the countriesI've visited or I've had teachers
visiting where they have theseservices on site there's in Finland.
Almost every school has a S a site,a school psychologist on site.
In Valencia and Spain, where assome of my staff went to visit
(09:16):
to learn about what they don't.
They have.
It's funny.
I'm laughing because I can't believethese things have to be able to happen.
They have an on school psychologist andthey also have a senior psychologist
available when the onsite psychologistis, has a more complex case.
It's just.
It's amazing.
There's other countries are doing andit's these wraparound services that we're
(09:39):
lacking and we are absolutely piling on.
Piling on all this stuff.
Onto schools.
Who don't have the expertise.
We are really, I'll tell youwhat we're really good at.
We're really good at educating children.
We are really good at caringfor children and as much as we
can, but we aren't therapists.
We aren't specialists in occupationaltherapy in speech and language
(10:01):
therapy and behavioral supports in.
Dietician work, but it seemsthat all these things are
just being landed on schools.
And based on I think, and I couldbe wrong on this based on the public
perception that we've nothing bad likethat we're that this is an easy job.
This is just a job.
That we can land it onbecause we barely work.
This idea that sharp.
(10:23):
What are they doing all day?
They only work half days.
So they just pile on this sort of extrastuff that we're not qualified for.
And it's not.
It's not going to work.
And we can see why it'snot going to work because.
Parents are saying it's not working.
We're seeing a huge rise in mentalhealth issues with a young people.
(10:43):
And this group here, familiesfor the reform of comms have
essentially been working.
For the last few years, trying to insist.
That better services are given tochildren with mental health issues
and they have provided this wonderfulreport which is the experience
of comms, a family perspective.
And I'm just going to go throughand their executive summary.
(11:06):
It's a really bigdocument, 117 pages long.
And I just.
I don't have the time to go through itwith you on this podcast, because we have
so much to cover, but in their executivesummary, they've gone through the results.
And it basically says, some of the keyfacts here, 92% of all of the respondents
said that they have felt their child'smental health deteriorated during the
(11:27):
referral process to comms alone and 43%took additional steps to try and get
their child's referral to comms existed.
And steps included getting a privatediagnosis, seeking political support from
local politicians, going to AA and E andnot mentioning an existing diagnosis.
That's generally awesome.
Just for those of you who don't know.
One of the unwritten rules for parentswho need mental health support for
(11:52):
their child is not to mention autismbecause if you have, or if you have a
diagnosis for autism, You can forget.
Being supported by cons.
It's a bizarre kind of thing because mostchildren with a diagnosis of autism will,
at some point have mental health needs.
And comms is the only publicservice that will give that to you.
(12:12):
It's absolutely shocking.
And obviously the last thing they'regoing public with their experience at
the fight for services has to continuehot to continue in the time period
subsequently spent on the waiting listwhere 69% of people saw private support.
39% of respondents had tobring their child to AA.
It's just shocking.
It makes terrible reading.
And if you couldn't afford to go private.
(12:33):
You were in serious bother onthe article goes on and on.
I have a link to the entire article.
Which is on the newsletter or in,on the website on chart dot Nash.
But it's awful.
It's really awful.
And it's a shot.
It's a, it's an off suit.
It's a scandal.
Really?
I think this is special.
Education is going to be the scandalof our times in much the same way.
(12:55):
The scandal of the 20th century was theabuse of the Catholic church on children.
And I think the 21st century,we're going to look back at the
abuse we have that the services.
The lack of services for children withadditional needs and how we are failing.
So many our children.
With additional needs.
And no spin doctoring and no.
(13:19):
Press release is going to rescue.
The government from what they'vebeen doing for the last decade and
a half to children, traditionally,it's a service that started off.
Quite well.
Is being turned slowly, but surely.
Into this megaliths of bureaucracy, wherechildren, with addition to where they're
(13:39):
spending more money stopping servicesfor a dish for additional needs than they
are at on actually helping the children.
It's an absolute shambles and weknow this even at the very basics of
levels when children come to school.
They are already set up to failbecause let me move on to the
(14:00):
next article to show you this.
I remember when I started off in teaching.
Sorry.
As a principal, even that if you hada child coming into junior infants
who needed extra support, you couldget that support before they started.
You would guess that they wouldget their diagnosis from a
psychologist or from a service.
And if it recommended SNA or recommendedsupport hours, they would be in there.
(14:21):
They would be in place when thechild landed in junior infants, but
in 2017, This completely changed.
In fact, I'd go as far back as two times ayear before that, when it comes to special
ed special needs assistance, thingschanged that you didn't automatically.
I get a special needs assistant,but definitely in 2017 at the
very basic level for what we'reknown as resource hours A child.
(14:43):
A child would no longer be entitledto resource hours or support
hours at when the model changed.
The sat allocations modelchanged where school was given
a bulk of hours based on some.
Random algorithm, which nobody quiteunderstands and nobody quite gets
big, but we do know as schools.
That it certainly isn't enough hours.
(15:04):
And essentially, unless the hours arebased on data, that was to was in 2017.
So if you were a developing school youcertainly aren't getting enough hours.
Even now but even then you werestill, it was cementing a 15%
cost that was made in 2011.
So essentially 90, over 90% ofschools and probably more now are
(15:26):
not receiving enough support hoursfor children because of this model.
And this year it was exacerbated furtherdash a, the department of education.
Weren't getting data on complex needs ofchildren, whatever complex needs means.
It's a word that it's aterm that's coming to the.
Parlance at the moment.
And I'm not quite sureexactly what it means.
But my guess is it's children with thediagnosis of something, but children
(15:50):
are not getting are not getting thesupports if they have complex needs.
Certainly at least until second class.
And even then that's that's pretty shaky.
In terms of very shaky data, becausethat's just based on their scores of
their literacy and numeracy tests, whichagain are very shaky tests because they
only tell us they only tell a smallstory about where a child is at, but
(16:13):
effectively every child in this countryis now is now getting sorry, every
school in this country is getting the re.
What were known as the resourcehours or the support hours based
on really re not even shaky datajunk data is what I would say.
And it is no wonder not.
It took me a while to get to this,that hundreds of schools appealed their
(16:35):
cuts to their learning support hours.
And I don't understand why.
Is it Carla, Brian, I assume it's Carta.
Brian who's written yet.
Carla Brian who wrote this article.
Coats is in inverted commasbecause it's certainly was cots.
And of the hundreds and hundredsof schools that applied at appealed
for their coats and 120 of them.
120 to go to.
A thousand additional hours now.
(16:56):
Look at that.
That sounds oh that, that might,again, you have to look at spin.
You have to look at headlines.
You have to examine them a thousandadditional hours between 120 schools is
less than 10 hours a school on average.
That's not a lot.
At all, by any stretch of the not changingthat's not even two fifths of a post.
(17:18):
That doesn't mean that many teeth, that,that doesn't mean that many children are
getting very much as a result of that.
And it also does.
And.
How many schools appealed, especiallynow how many schools didn't appeal,
because they didn't see the point,because if you look at the data
and the data is out there because.
The national principal's forum havequestioned schools about this, and
they've got the dot on it and you canfind that on principal's forum.org.
(17:42):
Most schools didn't bother appealingbecause of the bureaucracy and
arduous nature of the appeals process.
And I'll tell you a little bitabout the appeals process, because
we know a little bit more about it.
And this is what you have to do.
If you want to appeal your cost.
In inverted commas, I don't even why I didthe quotation marks cause they are codes.
(18:02):
But I think it was 75% of schoolsdidn't bother because they didn't
think they'd be successful.
And they're good.
And they're very good.
Reason after that, becausestatistically less than 10%.
Of appeals are successful, but letme go through the process because we
know what it is now for these appeals.
So let's say your school, thatfeels they got caught and they.
(18:24):
Gotta cost or don't have adequate hoursfor the growing needs of their children.
You go onto this portal.
NCSC dot.
IE.
And you go to the portal andyou fill in a form and not form.
In my case was 26 pages long.
The bigger the school, the more, andthe more pages will be, but anything
between 10 and 35 pages where youhave to charge every single child.
(18:46):
Child's needs and how your schoolis trying to cover them in the
small amount of hours that you get.
And you feel like that form, ittook my school five days to do that.
Other schools reported, we took around thesame amount of time and you upload that.
To some portal.
At the NCSE.
Okay.
And.
Dash form.
(19:06):
Is examined by somebody.
We don't know who the somebody is.
They don't know your school.
They don't know the childrenbecause you're not allowed
to say who the children are.
You have to code those.
And they look at it and they, their jobis to try and find any reason to not.
Except your appeal.
Any reason whatsoever.
And it's really easy to find areason not to give that appeal.
(19:30):
And I won't go into all thereasons because there's so many
of them, it's set up to help.
It's set up to help you fail it.
Isn't there to help you.
It's set up to help them failor they don't know your school.
They don't care what your school is.
They're looking for any reason to say.
You have not provided sufficientevidence to support your appeal.
(19:50):
And that's what most schools, gosh.
And in some ways, They're reallylucky that they were told, off you go.
Because we're not bothered at looking atyour school ready because if you take,
if you were successful, What you then.
I got as a prize.
For being successfully.
Showing that you havebeen under resourced is.
(20:13):
You will get a full desk review.
So that would mean that you wouldhave to spend another five to 10 days.
Doing getting proving thatyou're under under resourced
and you would, might get it.
You.
I think you might get a visit.
I think you did get a visit fromsomeone in the NTSC who would re would
comb through your application and thendetermine that you might need a couple of.
(20:37):
A couple of extra hours a week.
It's almost like it's.
Not that it's almost that it isexactly what is happening here is
they're doing everything in theirpower to put people, to put schools
off from applying for additional.
Hours for the children and theirschool, they make it so difficult.
So as to make it.
(20:57):
To make it just, you don't have time.
We don't print schools do not havetime to spend 10 days of their
school year trying to prove thatthey don't have enough resources.
We know we should be trusted.
To be able to say, here's what we need.
And I, my, my.
Belief.
Is that these ad.
(21:18):
These things are being deliberatelypot in place to effectively
discourage schools from applying.
For the supports that are neededfor schools, because it's just.
It's just impossible.
To satisfy them.
And it's depressing.
For schools.
And as I said, car, Carla Brian's articlehere just goes through the information.
(21:40):
And it's interesting.
To see.
Dosh, car people like as I am,or they're saying that they are
they also are critical lavish.
But again, the department ofeducation, they just have the.
They just have the spin to say,Ah, there's no perfect model.
What can we do?
Do you know if they spentthe amount of time and money?
(22:02):
That they are spending on stoppingthese resources from coming in.
This is really easy.
Aren't it is a very small country.
They have over 3,200 membersof staff in the NCSC.
Now there are five sorry.
There's only 4,000 schools in the country.
And 3 8, 3, 3 and a half thousandof those are primary skills.
And they have 200 NTSCpeople who could gash.
(22:25):
I don't know, whatever 30, 40, 50schools each other, and they could.
Easily determine what needs are thereor they could trust that schools it's.
I mentioned this before Iwas on the hard shoulder.
With Kira and Coda, he and we talkedand he talked to, he said, he mentioned
the whole idea about tax returns.
You're trusted to put inyour tax returns properly.
(22:47):
And if something looks a bit funnya little red light will appear
in your tax office and someonewill come and do an audit on you.
The same could be done for specialeducation, but the truth is.
They know.
They know, they can't afford theamount of money that will be needed to
support children with additional needs.
And therefore it might be cheaper to runsystems like this that prevented children
(23:08):
from getting the support they need.
They're only fooling themselves becauseof course, as we know, if we don't.
Provide early intervention here.
The, this is going to come backat them when the children become
adults and require the supportsof adult therapeutic services.
And so on.
But anyway, I'll move on because.
What are we doing about it?
Some might say even theinspectors, RM aren't too happy.
(23:31):
And this article is actually, theheadline doesn't really tell you
much about the report, but eventhe inspectors are critical of
how we're doing special education.
This report is basically saying wedon't have enough special classes
which is which we have the perennialstory of the family who sit on
the cover of a newspaper of UGA.
Eh, one of the newspapers and withtheir child who's every day is saying,
(23:52):
when am I going to go to school?
When am I going to school?
Parents saying, oh, I, Y I wish.
I just dream of a day that I canput on my child's school uniform
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But he doesn't have a placeand I'm trying to explain it
to him and all the rest of it.
And we hear this story every singleyear and we get the same results where
a local politician will come to therescue of that particular family.
And.
(24:12):
Last minute things are done.
Children are thrown onto buses totravel for hours every day to get into
a special school or a special class.
And it's just a mess every single year.
And that's just warden mess.
Really.
And then we have to look at theidea of special classes and are they
the solution that we're supposed tobe doing is this is a very kind of
Irish solution to an Irish problemwhere we pretend to have an inclusive
(24:37):
education system, because we allowchildren into the same school building.
But don't provide any supports that areneeded for children with additional needs.
And then who's to blame only theschools, because obviously they
can't add, they can't work miracles.
Either, if we're going to be doingthings, we need to do things properly.
And unfortunately.
We're not doing things properly,getting a diagnosis as this parent
(25:02):
says is only half the battle andthe inspectors are quite critical of
how we're doing special education.
And, it's just not great.
It's not great at all.
And not only are the inspectorate claimingthat special education is falling apart.
A group of principals went to thedoll and they spoke to what I hear
was the largest group of politiciansto ever grace, the AAV room.
(25:25):
And what they did was they outlined anumber of issues, including funding,
including the workload of teachingprincipals and principals in general.
But I'm going to go to focuson the briefing document.
They provided here on specialeducation because we're focusing on
special education, but basically Ijust wanted to go through the points
here and it's the Chronicle underresourcing of special education needs.
(25:45):
I'll be a bit of repetition here.
The number of children withspecial needs in primary level
has increased by 56% since 2017.
That's shocking.
And yet very few.
I would say fewer than 10% of schoolshave increased their special education.
Provision in their schools.
Special needs assistance and satallocation has been frozen since then.
(26:05):
Before 2011 resource allocationfor special education was
based on individual need.
Since 2017, Don Iceland, the case.
In 2010, 15% of special educationteaching resources where coach
they've never, ever been restored.
In 2022.
A new allocation model was introduced.
And essentially it got ridof complex needs as a model.
(26:28):
Sorry, that should be 20, 24.
I think.
From this year.
And.
It effectively.
The only measure of a child's needis how they perform in a very.
Niche test the just the English andmaths ability on a particular day.
And it doesn't, it'sjust as it's junk data.
(26:49):
It's now a requirement that childrenwith diagnosed needs are obliged
to be given support from thoseallocations, which has a say.
May they may not even fall underjust because you have an additional
need doesn't mean you're notgood at literacy and numeracy.
And I've said.
This.
I know some of the support groups wouldagree that just because you have a complex
(27:09):
need or an additional need doesn't meanthat you're not good at English and maths.
In some ways, I just feel it's reallydisrespectful that the that's the
way they're measuring these things.
There's a chronic lack ofavailability of professional staff
to undertake testing and diagnoses.
And I just, at the moment, if you want aprivate assessment, you could be waiting
up to a year for a private assessment.
(27:31):
These.
That's how bad things will become.
The department is claims that cannotmeasure current need requirements
because they don't have any of thedata they're refusing to take the
data because you don't have the data.
If you don't have the information.
How are you supposed to provide for us?
You can't, you can claim ignorance.
We didn't know.
We don't have the data.
It's very clever in some ways.
However school leaders do know theneeds in their school, but access
(27:53):
the resources required we could, andschools could report these needs on
the department for the departmentsare using the primary online database
system, but the departments areunwilling to collect data in that manner.
The purpose of the allocation models todistribute special education teaching
hours across mainstream classes in4,000 schools, to ensure that resources
are allocated at the right time to theright place so that these hours are
(28:16):
available to schools to match theiridentified, need to support their pupils.
We know that's not happening.
The allocation criteria is havechanged from the five criteria,
which one of those was complex needs.
One of those is gender, whichis a good thing at that.
They've got rid of that, but there'sa, but it's down to three under.
Which is Baffling.
And none of the mainstream.
Special education and as pupils can berecognized until at least second class,
(28:39):
because that's the first time that youput in their literacy and numeracy scores.
To seek additional support.
I've said this to you, thisexceptional appeal or a whole school.
SNA review their arduous and largelyon successful schools are obliged to
request a review of their set allocationin light of exceptional circumstances.
So you have to, you ha essentially, if youwant an increase in your resources, which
(29:01):
every school I would argue probably needs.
They have the data here.
360 schools applied for an exceptionalreview in 2022 only 60 were put
forward for review and 39 wereactually application for an increase.
So by 10% of schools were successfuland I would guarantee you that
99% it needed it of the 78 specialneeds appeals that were made.
(29:23):
And the reason why.
By the way some of youmight go, why aren't he 78?
Because schools are petrified.
Petrified that they willactually be decreased.
And if they apply for a specialneeds assistance appeal and that
that Petra fication is very realbecause schools are already working.
(29:44):
An absolute skeletal staff staffing.
And I know that before you make an appeal,you can request the scene as to coming.
Coming to your school to see.
Should you go for an appeal.
So before you even put the appeal in,you go in and from personal experience
and I'm from listening to other people'sexperiences, you're pretty much told.
(30:06):
Yeah.
There's not a hope in hell.
So that's why 70 H is the low number.
But even though 78 peopleas schools that did appeal.
Only 16 of those were old pals.
A tiny percentage.
And the reality is that schools inschools as a case, loads are fluid.
So you don't, nothing is ever solid here.
And teachers do prioritize and theneeds as they need as they're needed.
(30:31):
There isn't a child that comes inevery day with exactly the same needs.
You're constantly shifting and flowing.
Around the needs thatare there at the time.
And it's just, it's hugely problematic.
And this is going on.
I feel it's worth carrying on with this.
This is possibly the most importantbriefing documents that has it.
That is in any politician'shands right now.
(30:52):
So I am going to carry on with it, eventhough I've gone over the 30 minutes,
the government don't have the data toquantify the scale or store shortage.
Of Sam provision in primaryschools, it could easily be
rectified by using this pod system.
And I, if nothing elsehappens, I think this is it.
This is a solution naps whichis a psychological service.
Remember I said in Finland, everyschool has access to a psychologist.
(31:15):
Even the smallest schools havea psychologist, one to two
days a week, bigger skills.
And when I say big schools, I'mlooking at 300 pupil schools, have
an onsite psychologist, an onsitesocial worker, an onsite nurse to deal
with with these wraparound services.
And this goes into a bit of detail on us.
In January, 2024.
It's only a few months ago, schoolprincipals are still being charged
(31:38):
with completing the sole educationcomponent of the assessment of me
process, which we are absolutely not.
Qualified to do.
And it makes.
It really is questionable about howlegal it is for us to be determining.
The needs, the educationalneeds of children to the HSE.
We are not psychologists.
We are not psychiatrists.
(31:59):
We are teachers and we have absolutelyno qualifications to say what the we
work from the Advice of psychologists,if we can even get them and very
few of the children go drawing.
Phew.
Number of children who presentto us in special education in
schools do not have a diagnosis.
(32:20):
In fact, we have the system the continuumof support, where we have costumes
support at the first level, whichdoesn't require anything other than
that, this child needs a little bit ofextra help in the costume school support,
which is when a child might need theinput of a special education teacher.
They definitely don't need an.
A diagnosis for thatagain, most children don't.
And then you have the school supportpulse, which is where external
(32:42):
agencies are involved in the child.
And given that most of thoseservices don't exist, essentially.
It's not really very muchdifferent to school support.
And effectively, most of thechildren that are getting support
in schools aren't are being.
Are being done through Goodwilland gastric, as I always say.
And once the data isgathered and quantified.
(33:02):
They say here.
If we gave them the data, you wouldhave an accurate Sam profile for
each school where the HSC and NCSCprovide the support strategically at.
For those children and it could bedone without, and unfortunately all the
money is being put into the NCSC whohave no data on children on affect you.
(33:23):
What they're just basically a bunch of.
I don't know, consultants.
Yeah, for want of a better word.
As I said, at the very start they putin these tertiary nine therapy support,
people who won't even look at thechildren won't even see the children.
They're just going to advise teachers howto do random movement breaks on children.
They're pumping the money into thewrong places, and it's really terrible.
(33:44):
This act comes from a briefingdocument that was given to
all the politicians that went.
Two.
The to, to the room and.
I think.
I'd like to hope thatsomething will come from us.
It's that the politicianshave the information now.
And that's every party.
And in fairness, Holly, Karen's theleader of the social Democrats as
(34:05):
spoke in the doll about watch whather advisor had learned from this.
And, it was terribly depressing.
And to hear the response fromme, whole Martin, the Tanisha.
Who I would argue is still probablythe best minister for education
we've hired in the last 20 odd years.
But as the response was reallydepressing, he decided, rather
than actually, tackle the issues,he decided to play it political
(34:29):
football with it and start slaggingoff Holly Karen's for being doomsday.
And yet.
Do you know?
Sure.
You don't see the other side of the coinand started listing school lunches as
I don't know how great everything is.
It's really depressing.
We have a massive problem.
Every body recognizes it.
We've seen it from the parents.
We've seen it from the inspectors.
(34:49):
We've seen it from the principlesand we even see it from.
A 13 year old girl, Kara Dermody,who has been campaigning for
the last couple of years.
For better services for autistic children,she has two brothers who are autistic.
And her family have been fighting.
(35:09):
For services for her brothers, butnot only for her brothers for all
children with additional needs.
And I know the focus for Kara andher family is autism, but I think
they've expanded that to childrenwith additional needs in general and.
Look.
Is it going to be the case?
(35:30):
That.
Kara Dermody.
A 13 year old girl who I'm surehas enough to be doing in her life.
Being a 13 year old girl without havingto go to the trouble of being the face.
Of saving the education systemof saving special education.
(35:52):
I don't, I think she'sa wonderful young woman.
Who.
I would imagine it doesn't wantto be standing outside the door.
Doesn't want to be going on the radio.
Talking to very kind I've listenedto some of the interviews and
people are very kind to her.
I sure she doesn't want to berepeating herself over and over again.
(36:12):
I'm sure.
At some point, it's going to getdepressing for her, where she's going in.
Where all these politicians wantto have a photo with Carra Darmody.
Who have had her Assurant.
great.
Aren't you wonderful.
Effectively patronize the thepatronized her and say, oh, we will.
I don't give tokenistic stuff.
I'm very interestingly, oneof the tokenistic stuff.
Things that we're doing on it though,actually in fairness to car's dad.
(36:35):
He called it out.
The family were actually privatelygiven money by the HSE for the
two the two brothers there.
And he called it out saying that I didn'tknow that I was getting a privilege
here, and this is essentially to get meand my family to shut off essentially.
And he's called it outand it was reported.
But Is it.
(36:56):
Is it, that is it the fact that ourspecial education system rests on the
protests of a 13 year old girl, insteadof the principals who have very well.
At outlining the solutions to thisissue, to the inspectors who have
shown the shortcomings of the systemto the parents who are talking
about the mental health supports.
(37:16):
And these are only three things thathave just come in the last fortnight.
There are so many other groupsout there who have gone in to
talk about special education.
I didn't include inclusion Irelandwho had who had a meeting or briefing
as well in the last couple of weeks.
I do.
You know what?
I, wasn't going to mention thembecause it nearly feels pointless
because it was pointless.
(37:36):
I know the representative bodiesalso went in the IPP and the ITO.
Probably part of each otheron the back for a job.
Well done.
It, they've, they're not seeing what'sgoing on Kara and her family and the
principals and the inspectors and thefamilies who are out there who have to
fight this every single day on the ground.
And do we have to, asI say, Is Cara Darmody.
(37:58):
Somebody's going to be the equivalentof the gratitude Thornburg for the
climate catastrophe or the Malalause of, for the for the plight
of Muslim girls in education.
Do we have, does it, do wehave to have a poster child?
To save us.
At to save special education Ahrens.
I don't think it's fairthat's going to be the case.
(38:20):
And what I salute Kara foreverything that she's doing.
I just wish.
I wish it didn't have to be that way.
It's not right.
That all rests on a 13 year old girl.
And for children with additionalneeds to gash what they require
and what they're entitled to.
Because.
(38:41):
If we don't.
We know what the issues are.
We know.
What the solutions are.
And it shouldn't take something like this.
To solve it.
And if I were the minutes foreducation, And even fives the T shock.
I would I be very happy to meet thiswonderful 13 year old girl and shake
(39:01):
her hands and have a photo with her andtell her how wonderful she is and how.
And my aunt, all thethings are going to do.
I'd be doing it.
I'd be actually listening toall the voices that have been
talking to you for the last fewweeks, for the last few years.
And solve the problem.
It's as simple as that.
I just don't understand why they won't.
(39:21):
That's all I'm going to say thisweek, and this is we're coming to
the summer holidays for most people.
It's ironically in the, in July weare moving into the summer provision,
which was set up in a way after COVID.
It used to be just forspecial classes in schools.
It's now expanded.
To children with complex needs, asa number of children will be getting
an extra few weeks of scootingas ironically as a reward for
(39:45):
that, the department of education.
In their wisdom decided to makea cot to the funding for that.
It just tells its own storyand sums everything up.
Anyway.
I hope you've enjoyed I don'tknow how you've enjoyed this one.
Ah, but I hope you've enjoyed listeningto this and sort of summary of the
last two weeks in special education.
And as I said, please subscribeto the podcast on your favorite
(40:09):
podcast, please tell a teacher about.
And do you know, what wouldyou mind reviewing it as well?
Look, thanks so much for listening.
All the very best take care.
Bye bye.
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