Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
EDUCATION MINISTER RICHARD Bruton has announced there will be an extra 430 resource teachers brought into the Irish school system.
The announcement bring to 7,429 the number of these teachers who will be working with children with special needs.
The Minister said the announcement represents a 9% increase in the number of teachers available.
Resource teachers are dedicated posts that support students with special educational needs and are additional to the mainstream class teacher.
The newly announced posts will provide support to over 47,000 pupils.
Bruton said: “This Government’s basic aim is to use our economic progress to deliver a fair society. Our supports for children with special educational needs is at the very heart of this effort.
Resource teachers play a vital role in providing for the educational needs of students with special educational needs.
“This substantial additional allocation of resources will meet the needs of students with Special Educational Needs who have been enrolled in schools, or who have been assessed as having additional needs, since the first round of allocations which was made in May of this year.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Are these full time posts with full time hours?..or is it more spin..
How many times have these jobs been announced??
Announcements are easy to make, actually putting them in place is what really matters.
This is good news.I hope it happens very quickly.
Good news, badly needed. Hopefully happens this time
@littleone..hurry up on everything
Over the next 10 yrs .
What’s needed are different schools to cater for kids with special needs such as dyslexia, dyspraxia etc.
At the moment these kids are too good for the special needs schools that currently exist and are falling behind in mainstream schools. One or two hours a week with a resource teacher just isn’t good enough to develop these kids to their full potential.
@Finbarr Barry: There is, but not enough of them. One of my kids went to the Catherine McAuley School in Dublin for two years. Helped a lot.
There is no need for children who have dyslexia or dyslexia to be in a different school at all .. with early intervention , the right recourses in place and kids can do well in mainstream school .. it’s forward we should be going … not backwards ..
Finbarr the range of children that come under the umbrella of ‘special needs’ is vast. Most will progress absolutely fine in mainstream schools with the proper interventions and support from teachers and parents. Special schools are only suitable for a small cohort of children with SEN. Placing children with mild difficulties in special schools with children with more profound learning or behavioural challenges can actually be quite detrimental.
I have a kid with dyspraxia and dyslexia and is a mainstream primary school, has access to a resource teacher for a few hours a week, has a shared SNA and is falling so far behind it is unreal. School doesnt give a damn as he wont be their problem in two years.
So dont tell me what i can see is happening with my own two eyes, the state is failling these kids, they dont need to be learning irish spellings and religion They need help with English, Maths, Reading and writing and be as ready for mainstream secondary. the best place is to put these mild learning needs children together in an environment suitable for their learning needs.
I disagree and all of the evidence suggests a mainstream inclusive approach is the best way forward for children with mild special needs. Have you looked into whether or not your child qualifies for an Irish exemption? Also you have the right to withdraw your child from religious education if you dont want them to take part. Im sure that time could be spent focusing on their literacy needs. Having worked in numerous primary schools both as a mainstream class teacher and resource teacher I’ve seen very few children with mild difficulties not make significant progress when everyone is pulling their weight and focusing on the needs of the child. Your issue seems to be with one particular school.
Sorcha , fully agree with you ..
Finbarr your child has obviously been let down by their current provision, which is horrible. It’s particularly upsetting that the school don’t seem to be supporting you. As others have said though, all the evidence suggests that mainstream school (with additional supports) should be able to support your child’s needs.
What happened to the top comments of the week article. Has it been scrapped now or what?
Why do we have so many children in 2016 who are special needs? compared to some years ago.
Increased awareness by parents and greater access to educational psyologists. Once upon a time, some kids who were under achieving or struggling were labelled “slow”, “clumsy”, “disorganised”, “lazy” or even “stupid”. Now we know that in a lot of these cases, it could be an underlying learning difficulty like dyslexia, dyspraxia, discalculia, ASD etc..
It’s ‘have’ special needs not ‘are’ special needs.
I’ve heard from s and a teachers who have had their hours reduced to pay for the extra teachers. So nothing added really.
There’s a typo in the headline that you might want to fix (‘teaches’).
Wally? Oh Waaaalllyyy?! Where’s Wally?
Government deserves credit for this well done
It does on its boll1x deserve credit. This government does the minimum and needs a massive kick up the hole.
You obviously don’t know anything about special needs provision . Have a look at the hours lost to schools on the NCSE site and read up on the new model of provision that will be foisted on schools next September .
How many SNA’s have been cut ? Lost of kids struggling in school that need an Sna but parents are still fighting to get their kids hours ..
Crazy. Why didn’t they reduce pupil teacher ratios instead? Would benefit all children
More good news.
On the face of it , but don’t be fooled . Look at hours lost in so many schools . And schools applied for these hours last Feb. The allocations were released just before mid terms so by the time clusters are formed , interviews held it and people appointed ( and then wait for Garda clearance ) it could be the start of December before these children get the time that is only a lick and a promise towards what they need anyhow . Come next September , many Sen posts will be lost anyhow .
Does that even bring the numbers up to what is was in the past? There has been so many cuts over the years for this much needed service!
special resource teachers i’m sure mean well but have no educational training and should not be near the classroom or staff room eps in secondary school
Lukey..what are you on about? Do you know the difference between a Special Needs Assistant (SNA) and a Resource Teacher?
“These new posts will give support to 47000 students” . 430 posts supposed to do this? We’ll I suppose if each special needs teacher worked with two students per day per year over a fifty year period they may just achieve this.
have your say