Within weeks of starting secondary school in September 2024, Emer Cobbe could see her son’s confidence begin to drain away.
“He was sitting in a classroom with other kids who were just firing ahead of him academically. By the second term, he had hit rock bottom. Really, looking back, he was drowning,” she recalls.
Conor had been diagnosed with a mild general learning disability at the start of primary school. Most children with this type of diagnosis have a lower IQ and may struggle to understand concepts and can struggle to make friends as they grow older.
While they may start out in mainstream schools, many fall behind as they get older.
By chance, Cobbe heard of Scoil Eoin in Crumlin in south Dublin, a special school that caters to children with mild general learning disabilities aged between nine and 18 years.
While speaking to the school principal Debbie O’Neill on a visit with her son, she burst into tears.
“She just got him; she understood and described him to a tee ... Children like Conor, they don’t step above the parapet, they don’t have behavioural problems. They sit there quietly and you’d never know anything was going wrong.”
Since he enrolled last September, Cobbe says her son is like a different child.
“He loves not having a uniform; talking with his friends on the bus; having the same teacher for all classes. He’s good with his hands and loves woodwork and cooking, which he was wasn’t able to do before ... He’s happy and feels a huge sense of achievement,” she says.
O’Neill says she sees success stories like Conor’s all the time: most of its students go on to complete the Leaving Cert Applied and progress into further education courses or employment.
Now, however, the principal worries that much of this work is under threat.
She says special schools such as Scoil Eoin, which cater to children with mild general learning disabilities, are being put under pressure by the Government to change their classification and cater instead to pupils with more complex needs.
This, she says, means children with mild disabilities will be “pushed back into mainstream schools that have already failed them”.
In all, there are 30 special schools that cater to children with mild general learning disabilities, serving more than 3,000 pupils in 30 schools across 19 counties.
A circular issued by the Department of Education in recent weeks states that the work is due to begin on “reviewing the designation of existing special schools”.
The department says many special schools originally established to cater to students with a mild general learning disability have “diversified” and now respond to a “broader range of students’ needs from within their respective catchment areas”.
It says this is in keeping with the department’s policy on inclusive education, and facilitates students with more complex needs to be educated in their local special school.
O’Neill, however, says the proposed redesignation of schools represents not just a policy shift, but a “direct threat to the quality and integrity of education provided to our students”.
“Their educational futures – and their fundamental right to appropriate, specialised support – are now at serious risk,” she says. “These students are some of the most misunderstood and overlooked in the education system and they are now left with an uncertain future.”
It may, on the face of it, seem like a technical reclassification, O’Neill says.
In reality, she says, it would “fundamentally alter who we are and who we serve”.
“These children learn differently but they are every bit as capable of growth, success and joy when given the right environment. This is what our schools provide,” she says.
“Many of our students have experienced years of struggle in mainstream, facing school refusal, anxiety, or deep feelings of failure. In our schools, they find stability, dignity, and hope. They are not just surviving; they are thriving.”
These special schools deliver the full primary curriculum, junior cycle and the Leaving Certificate Applied.
Instead of creating new special school places, she says the department’s plan “simply reallocates existing ones”. This, she says, will end up pushing children with mild general learning disabilities back into mainstream environments that have already failed them.
“This is not inclusive education. It is reactive, rushed, and deeply unfair.”
Minister for Education Helen McEntee has said her department is committed to delivering an education system where “every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach their full potential”.
Her department says that as more special classes are provided, particularly at post-primary level, this provides more options for children with complex special needs to attend local schools.
“It is essential that special schools work to support children with the most complex needs and that children are not required to pass one or more special schools to access a special school place, because of the narrow designation of some special schools. It is essential that we work to ensure more children requiring a special school place can access their nearest special school.”
Cobbe, meanwhile, is convinced that the Government move is a retrograde step.
“I think those in authority don’t understand; they don’t see the spectrum of need ... It could be the difference between a child working in a job they thrive in or being on supports for the rest of their life.”
Her son Conor, now 15, has thrived in sports, in particular, and is thinking of becoming a carpenter.
“Last week he won a football match in Portlaoise, an All-Ireland for children with mild disabilities, and felt a huge sense of achievement. He was made to feel hugely valued. These are kids who have other talents than academic ones. We really need to value them.”
