A Co Armagh councillor has criticised the Education Minster’s for saying that no children with special educational needs (SEN) are currently without a school place in the ABC Council area.
Speaking at last Monday’s ABC monthly meeting, Councillor Julie Flaherty said she was “unimpressed” to hear that all children with SENin the ABC area have been allocated a school place – as she believes many are not where they should be.
Health Minister Paul Givan had been asked to outline current provision for children with SEN.
He wrote in correspondence to the local authority, dated September 26: “I can assure you that meeting the needs of children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) is a priority for me, my Department and the Executive, as reflected in the new draft Programme for Government.
“Children and young people with a statement of SEN are not placed via open enrolment processes, but through a statutory process of consultation between the Education Authority (EA), parents and schools, based on an assessment of their individual needs by an educational psychologist.
“There has been a significant increase in the number of children requiring specialist education provision since 2020, particularly in pre-school and Primary 1.
“The process to secure appropriate placements for all children with SEN unfortunately has been extremely challenging again this year.
“The EA, supported by my Department, has delivered a significant programme of work to create the additional capacity required to meet demand across the education system.
“A total of 183 new specialist provision classes have been established for the new academic year, creating over 1,450 new places in both special schools and specialist provision classes.
“As of September 23, 4,416 of 4,422 (99.86%) of children with a statement of SEN at key transition years have a confirmed school place.
“Six children remain without a confirmed school place, and the EA is working to secure appropriate places as a matter of urgency.
“There are no children without a confirmed place in the ABC Council area.”
Responding to the Minister’s correspondence, the UUP representative for Portadown DEA stated at the council meeting: “I just want to make reference to a response from the Department of Education.
“I’m quite unimpressed by it, I have to say, in particular where it says there are no children without a confirmed place in the ABC Council area.
“I agree, there’s no children without a confirmed place, there’s just a lot of children in the wrong place.
“Having discussions with a lot of principals, there’s growing concerns about the placement and how this is being managed with our SEN children, particularly in mainstream schools, so I think we need to have further discussions about this.
“I am getting principal after principal that are really concerned about how this is panning out, and the priority here should be the children.”
At a previous monthly meeting, held on August 27, Cllr Flaherty had also expressed very strong views on this issue, stating: “ I’ve said this many times, these children aren’t numbers, they’re not statistics.
“We know there’s simply not enough places and many – such as I and many other parents – are just sick and tired of children being educated in school corridors, converted cloakrooms, or by teachers in full classrooms who aren’t equipped for some of these children.
“That is entirely unfair on both parties. The Department must find the money. This is really urgent for these children.”
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