George Lawlor: NCSE refused SNA rationale for St Aidan's

I want to raise this issue of the appeals process in the allocation of SNAs in the context of the treatment meted out to St Aidan's Primary School in Aiscorthy in Wexford. St Aidan's is one of the largest vertical band 1 primary schools in Ireland. It's an exceptional school in scale. It has 861 pupils for a primary school, 7 special classes, 36 mainstream classes, 76 teachers and has been awarded 15.75 SNAs. The school currently has 54 pupils attending 7 special classes, all operating at level 3 support. The vast majority of the pupils here have care need plans and require regular access to SNA. 38 of these pupils have a single diagnosis and 17 of the pupils have multiple diagnoses. A number of various different diagnoses including general learning disability, autism spectrum disorder, speech and language disorder, severe intellectual disorder. They have 5 type 1 diabetics within the school. They have children who suffer from social emotional behaviour difficulties. They have children with anaphylaxis, epilepsy, physical disabilities. They also have 36 pupils in mainstream classes with a diagnosis of ASD at different levels. And as of yet the SNA allocation covers both the special classes and mainstream settings remains unchanged at 15.75 SNAs. And there in lies the difficulty. The school appealed the outcome of the SNA review that they requested and they were told that there would be no change to the SNA allocation and that the whole school SNA allocation for 25-26 would continue at 15.75 SNAs. And in the letter that they received from a principal officer in the NCSE it states this decision can be appealed. The details of the appeals process can be found at www.ncse.org and the NCSE advises schools to seek a rationale for the outcome prior to the submission of any appeal. And there in lies the problem. The school tried up and down, back and forward. They went to the local SINO, they went to the regional manager of the NCSE, they went to the NCSE themselves. Nobody could give the school the rationale and they were told, they were encouraged to seek the rationale to add to their submission of their appeal. And you get a 10-day period to appeal. So the school went numerous times to the regional manager, to the SINO, to the NCSE themselves. The NCSE came back with basically no clarity, no advice, no direction, no guidance could be provided by the staff there as to how they would access the rationale for the SNA review. And in the end the school had to submit its appeal without any access to the rationale that they were encouraged by the very same NCSE to acquire, to submit the appeal. And so this is a major school with massive support requirements and teachers and staff and SNAs who are put to the pin of their collar to provide a decent atmosphere and a decent schooling for the myriad of children in the school who have additional needs. And it simply isn't good enough. Now I will acknowledge that I contacted the head of NCSE and he came back to me after a couple of days to say that they would be investigating the matter. But to put the staff through the ringer on this and not supply the rationale that they requested that they would seek is simply not good enough in the context of the stress that already exists within these schools. Thank you Deputy Minister. Thank you very much Deputy and thank you for raising this important issue on behalf of St. Aidan's school community in Enniscorthy, not just on behalf of the students or the students attending school in special classes but indeed the entire school community, the teachers, parents, special education teachers and SNAs. I hear your frustration and I know that your frustration was mirrored earlier on by one of your constituency colleagues who raised this earlier today on the floor of the House with the Tánaiste and just in case you missed that, just to say that the Tánaiste committed to raising this with the Minister for Education directly and to asking her to arrange that either the Minister directly or the NCSE make contact with that deputy and I will certainly add you to that list to ensure that you get that same information and that same contact. I'm very glad to hear that you have been in contact directly with the head of the NCSE and that he is working proactively to help resolve this from a rationale perspective, to give you the information that the school wants and should have gotten much easier than this but I appreciate the issue here isn't just for St Aidan's, the issue is with the process so I will absolutely provide that feedback to the Minister for Education. The NCSE, the National Council for Special Education as you're aware has responsibility for coordinating and advising on the education provision and care support for children and young people with special educational needs in our schools including the allocation of SNA support to schools. Just to say in relation to the appeals process itself, on completion of an SNA review the NCSE communicates the outcome to a school and the school if not satisfied may submit an appeal of the outcome of the NCSE. As you said they have about 10 days to do so and information including guidance on the appeals process is available through the website. The NCSE are currently processing a number of appeals and the outcome of these will be communicated to schools shortly. The department and the NCSE are committed to delivering an education system that is of the highest quality where every child and every young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach the full potential. So what I will do Deputy is provide that specific feedback that you have in relation to the rationale. I note that that was what was advised in the information on the website for when it comes to the information to show this is how you should you should submit your appeal. So to be told that that's the correct way to be able to gain the information and then to be frustrated through the process and not get it, I can understand that that's neither efficient for the school nor for the NCSE and it doesn't set them up for success in terms of being able to put forward a coherent and comprehensive appeal. So I appreciate what you're saying that that information should have been made available in a timely fashion to the school. Deputy Lawlor. Thank you Councillor Corlew and thank you Minister for your response and obviously it's not your core area so I understand the difficulty you find yourself in. I mean this was a letter that was sent to say that your appeal there'll be no change. This is a letter from the Principal Officer and within the letter it says we advise you to seek the rationale. Now whilst I appreciate and you've said it yourself, this just doesn't apply to St Aidan's School in Enniscorthy which is a huge school in terms of primary schools with all the supports that are required. But the whole notion that you would actually send out a letter saying seek the rationale and nobody within that organisation from the bottom up to the top can tell you where to get that rationale. It sounded from the conversations that I had and the Deputy Principal and the head of SET within the school visited me in my constituency office in Wexford to say that nobody, they had tried everything multiple times and nobody within the organisation could provide them with the rationale which seems to be a key component of your appeals process. So what does this say about the entire appeals process from the start? Are all schools advised to seek the rationale? The fact that they couldn't even tell them where to get it, the fact that the Regional Manager said he was seeking guidance on it would indicate to me that there's a bit of chaos within the NCSE when it comes to processing the appeals system. It really does throw somewhat of a blanket over the appeals process and would suggest that there's a matter of just ticking a box in the appeals process to say a computer says no because we don't happen to have any rationale available despite the fact that we tell you to look for it. The notion that nobody within the organisation would know where to go and find it is quite baffling, I'm sure you'll agree. Thank you very much Deputy for raising this issue and for giving us the opportunity to discuss it on the floor of the House. The NCSE allocation and review process are essential to ensure that SNA support is provided where it's most needed. An appropriate appeal mechanism is an important part of the review process and this has always been the case and I fully appreciate that schools need to be given whatever information should be made available to them in order to put forward a thorough appeal. If schools are not satisfied with the outcome of an SNA review they can then submit the appeal and details as I said on how to do that are online. The NCSE is available to support schools and to discuss with them the deployment of SNA resources allocated to support their students. In terms of the appeal itself, perhaps it might be helpful if I just outlined some of what is taken into account in terms of the rationale. So special education needs organisers engage with schools including school leaders, teachers and SNAs and a national review panel reviews decisions then to ensure consistency across the country and among the factors that are taken into account are changes in student numbers, changes in individual care needs or students moving from primary to post-primary school. So sometimes that forms part of the rationale. Obviously I don't know the specific case in terms of St Aidan's and the specific information should have been made available to St Aidan's in a timely fashion.