Lessons in hardship at your local school

The cap on the number of special needs assistants is every parent's concern, writes SHEILA WAYMAN

IT IS the time of year when parents are getting good – or bad – news about where their child is starting primary school in September. Once a place is confirmed, thoughts turn to buying the uniform, the books, the bag and the lunch-box.

But for parents of children with special needs, there are more serious matters to worry about. One of these is the effect a cap on the number of special needs assistants (SNAs), introduced last December, is going to have in the new school year.

Fellow parents, while sympathetic, may be just grateful it is not their concern. But it is.

Aside from the moral and legal imperatives of inclusive education, if children with special needs are not supported sufficiently in mainstream schools, the detrimental effects are felt by all the other pupils. Through no fault of their own, children with special needs may be disruptive or take up an inordinate amount of a teacher’s time if there is not a “shadow” there to assist and restrain where required.

As part of the National Recovery Programme, it was announced last December that the number of SNAs was being capped at the existing level of 10,575 whole-time equivalent posts. This has caused individual problems since but the real test of how the cap is going to be managed will come in September.

Last month, the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) advised schools in a circular that new applications for support in the 2011/12 school year could be considered only in the context of the SNA posts freed up primarily as a result of:

Children leaving the school at the end of the 2010/11 school year;

Children whose requirement to access SNA support is diminishing because they are developing a greater level of independence.

What’s more, the cut-off date for applications for SNAs was brought forward to March 18th (it was May 21st last year), which sent parents and schools scrambling to try to get the necessary assessments and paperwork completed. Only from June 20th onwards will they be told what level of SNA cover is being granted for September.

Even if healthcare professionals recommend that a child needs a full-time SNA to be in a mainstream school, it does not mean one will be provided.

The biggest problem for schools is the uncertainty, says the president of the Irish Primary Principals Network, Pat Goff.

“Gone will be the day where you said that child will have an SNA; what they are saying now is access to an SNA,” he says.

In the wake of the NCSE circular, the Special Needs Parents’ Association had a “flood of e-mails”, says its spokeswoman, Lorraine Dempsey, from panicked parents who were being told by various schools that they could not take their children in September.

Legally, schools cannot deviate from their enrolment policies to discriminate in this way so the rebuffs were coming in the form of verbal “advice” that it might not be the best place for their child or that another school down the road had more resources.

“I cannot prove that I cannot cater for your child until I take your child in,” explains Goff, even if the issues are well flagged. “If I refuse to take your child until resources are in place, you are entitled to take a Section 29.”

That would involve challenging the decision under the relevant part of the Education Act. However, parents may not always know their rights, nor, indeed, want to send their child somewhere he or she is not welcome.

“I would hate to think a school would rule out a child because he has a disability,” says Goff. But if a school does not get sufficient SNA support for a child being enrolled in September, he is concerned about the impact this could have on all its junior infants.

“When they are starting off, they take time to settle. You could do without them being afraid to come to school because of another child’s behaviour.” Likewise, a child with special needs should have the best possible start too.

Where care needs relate to behaviour, schools have to prove that they took steps to deal with the child’s behaviour and that these measures failed – there must be clear evidence that the student’s behaviour is a danger to themselves or others – before they can even apply for SNA support.

The question of SNAs is only one of many complex issues surrounding the support of children with special needs through education. Observers argue that a blunt measure like this hastily introduced cap is only storing up long-term and much more costly problems – what is required is reform of the system.

Debbie had presumed that her only child, who has Down syndrome and is starting school in south Dublin in September, would get a full-time SNA.

Having met the principal and the local special education needs organiser (SENO), she says it looks like her daughter will only have access to “half” an SNA. What’s more, they can’t say if that SNA will be in the same classroom or another classroom for the other half of the time.

Although Debbie has been told there will be no way to appeal, she is determined to fight for what she believes is necessary for her daughter in moving from a Montessori where there are only six children and three teachers, to a class of 24 – plus a whole school.

“I foolishly thought that we would get a full-time SNA for the first year and then they would assess us. Once she had been there a year and knew the routine, well then they might say half was good enough.”

The implications of the cap have not been worked out, says Peter Mullan of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation. “There is no system in place to ensure that available resources can be moved to where they are needed.”

The NCSE has the right to redeploy the numbers of SNAs but not the people, as each SNA is contracted by a school board of management. Unlike teachers, there is no panel available for reassignment.

Schools, says Goff, have to give notice to SNAs who are freed up by children leaving before they know whether they will be needed for children coming in.

“Many of these will qualify for redundancy and then the school will have to hire new ones for September. It could happen where the person who gets redundancy will be re-employed,” he adds.

Paul Rowe, chief executive of Educate Together, says the cap on SNA appointments is having a “disproportionate effect” on new and developing schools and on the most marginalised and needy children in the system.

“We have concrete evidence of children arriving in schools this year being deprived of support and children changing schools are being denied SNAs – even when they have had an SNA in their previous school.”

Children being left unsupported in classes results in a diminished educational experience not only for them but all their classmates, he says.

Stephen*, whose eight-year-old daughter is in the same class as a very troubled boy at a Dublin Gaelscoil, says she and her classmates are upset sometimes by incidents. But at least the child usually has an SNA at his side now. When he started in junior infants without any support, a huge amount of the teacher’s time was taken up dealing with him.

“He is a lovely kid and I think it is great that he can be in a mainstream school,” Stephen says, “but without that special needs assistant it would be impossible for him to be there.”

It would not just be the parents of that particular child who would complain if his support was cut, he adds. “We would have to reconsider our daughter’s options.”

Rowe fears that the “crude, discriminatory” measures being implemented in relation to SNAs will result in “another national scandal relating to the State’s attitude to the needs of children”. This may happen, he suggests, when affected children take cases against schools that have been unable to meet their clearly defined and diagnosed needs.

“It is for this reason,” he adds, “that Educate Together is seeking a specific indemnity from the State to ensure that it is the State that will answer any such case in the future.”

*Name has been changed

SUPPORT SHOULD BE BASED ON NEEDS OF THE CHILDREN, NOT ON FINANCE’

Karen Halpin’s main concern as she dropped her son Luke off to school each day used to be whether he would behave himself and cope with what the class was learning. Now she worries about his safety.

Seven-year-old Luke has Down syndrome and is inclined to run off. Until last January he had a special needs assistant at St Mary’s Convent Primary School in Trim, Co Meath to look after his care and supervise him at all times.

Then another child with special needs came into the school and the SNA had to be shared between the two of them.

“Straight away we could see a problem,” says Halpin, who is at pains to stress how good staff at the school are. “Luke is a flight risk. We knew there would be issues for the SNA looking after two children and there was nothing the school could do.”

The second child with Down syndrome was given a place after the school had got approval last November for an additional 16 hours SNA cover, explains the principal, Cóilín Ó Coigligh.

Then the cap was announced in December and so, although the need for support for this child had been acknowledged, it could not be provided. The school had no option but to put the new child into Luke’s class under the supervision of the one SNA.

“Support should be based on the needs of the children, not on finance,” says Ó Coigligh. “In the past we could appeal the decision or take a child in with a certain amount of support and then as the year progressed apply for more if we did not feel it was sufficient. We can’t do that anymore.”

He questions where the rights of the child are in this – not only the rights of the child with special needs but also the rights of other children in the classroom.

Four years ago his school had 14 SNAs to look after 16 children with special needs; now it has 4.7 to look after 10 children. The result is that where it used not to have more than one child with special needs in a class (the school has three and a half classes for each age level), it now has to group them together, as it is not satisfactory having a SNA covering more than one classroom.

“The children cannot suspend their needs while they are waiting for the SNA to come back,” he says.

When Karen Halpin and her husband Ger decided in 2009 to send Luke to a mainstream school, it was on advice at his psychological assessment that it would be a good option for him – provided he got full support. Otherwise he would have to go to a special school.

They were “thrilled” when he got a place at St Mary’s with a full-time SNA and have been delighted with his progress and the way the other children accept him.

“I can see where the child gets proper support, how doors are opened,” says Halpin. “I am not looking for Luke to have an SNA for all of his life. I want him to have the foundation so that we can start reducing the hours. At the moment it is not working.”

With no way to appeal the decision, all she can do, she says, is “to pray to God” that her child will be okay.

Meanwhile in Cork, a mother of two children on the autistic spectrum is also seeing the effect of the cap. Her son, who is in fourth class, was diagnosed with high-functioning autism two years ago but an SNA was not deemed necessary.

There were many times he would have gone into “sensory overload”, she explains and because he is a quiet child, it would have been difficult for a teacher with a class of 30 to have spotted this. Since December, he has been refusing to go to school.

A psychologist has advised that he needs a full-time SNA to reintegrate him in school, and part-time access to one after that. But the only way he could get that support would be from one of the two SNAs currently in the school for four other children – one of whom is his own sister in senior infants.

DUTIES OF A SPECIAL NEEDS ASSISTANT

The role of special needs assistants is to provide the necessary non-teaching services to pupils with assessed educational needs. Their duties include:

Helping with clothing, feeding, toileting and general hygiene and looking out for the health and safety needs of the pupil.

Assisting children with particular difficulties, such as typing, writing or using computers or other equipment.

Accompanying individuals or small groups who may have to be withdrawn temporarily from the classroom from a particular reason.

Engaging with parents of special needs pupils in both formal and informal structures as required and directed by school management.

Preparing and tidying up classrooms.