Educational apartheid in Irish schools - I don’t blame them one little bit!
An audit by the teachers’ friend, Mary Hanafin, has found that a lot of secondary schools are using selective/restrictive policies to exclude special needs, immigrant children and Traveller children.
Provision for special needs pupils, immigrant children and Traveller children is largely left to vocational and community schools.
Other schools are opting out.
Speaking as a Principal who has had to deal with the reams of paperwork involved with special needs pupils and immigrant children I don’t blame schools one little bit for not encouraging such enrolments. (I’m not saying that they are right in what they are doing ….. i’m just saying I don’t blame them).
I’m not biased …. I’m not for restricting access to anyone.
What I am against is the ‘unequal’ amounts of paperwork that eminates from such enrolments and the lack of support that’s required:
- I had three large folders of correspondence on one special needs child alone. And that’s not unusual!
- The external support services were unsupportive.
- All the help they offered us never materialised.
- The standard curriculum is fine for the standard child but not for the non-standard child.
- We mainstream teachers aren’t trained to deal with/teach special needs children
- All we can offer is a slighly adapted form of the curriculum …. no talks of developing social skills that may be required.
- Physical therapy is a big part of some special needs pupils requirements …. without external support it doesn’t happen in schools.
Immigrant and Traveller children appear and disappear on a regular basis …. some aren’t in the school long enough to learn anything and sometimes the required support service isn’t available.
Secondary schools are now seeing the impact that special needs enrolment had on our sector a few years back and they haven’t got a clue how to respond to it.
They are also getting applications from children who aren’t suited to full integration in mainstream education, yet have a right to enrol in their local school whether it can cater for their needs or not.
I recollect one special needs pupil in our school who needed social skills development far beyond what the school was able to offer, we offered to liaise with the external clinic so the child could access the tuition …. never happened …. child needed physical therapy daily …. we offered to facilitate …. never happened.
The child was allocated resource hours …. but never progressed …
We tried our best …. I asked for help …. it never arrived … the child is in secondary school now …. in trouble with teachers because work isn’t being done …. even though the child is still at lower primary level in some areas …. latest I hear is that the child may be dropping out of the system … full stop.
Rights are all and well good but if a child needs specialist teaching then he/she should be in a specialist school or at least split the time.
I’ve done my penance with special needs pupils …. and I have the paperwork and minutes of countless meetings to prove it!
We are an ordinary mainstream school ….. we cannot work miracles ….. I learned that the hard way! We do our best ….
It’s just a pity that parents don’t think of the child rather than their rights when enroling children with special needs or requirements!
The ordinary primary/secondary school hasn’t been educated or equipped to deal with anything other than a pupil who slots into a mainstream class.
Another thing that gets me annoyed is the special reference to ‘Traveller’ children …. pointing traveller children out for special attention is by its definition discriminatory.
Equal Opportunity and Access for all ….. should be just that …. no reference to ’special’ or ‘traveller’ or any other word that single out children as being difficult.
If we all worked on what the child needed we’d achieve more in a lot less time.
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If a Minister of State had a child with Special needs I am sure the chosen school would suddenly have all the support needed.
I’m all for integration …. where feasible!
But I’ve seen special needs children in situations where it wasn’t any help to them and any help to those around them.
I see nothing wrong with special schools and ordinary national schools working a dual enrolment system so that the child could get the best of both worlds.
More often than not a special needs child will be assigned to a clinical service such as Enable Ireland and they can often have their own agenda.
The system is reactionary rather than being proactionary. Responding to special needs because of litigation hasn’t helped anyone … least of all the child.
I’ve noticed that statements and language from the powers that be are suddenly all geared towards the bad stuff being our fault, not theirs. Bit of a change from thier taking responsibility for the big furry celtic thing with teeth. Be warey of this, I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of “Yes we know, but really, at the end of it all, it’s your fault, not the government’s now isn’t it?”
Lip service….next to over legislation and minimal funding the bain of the Educators’ lives. Not to mention the educatee…
The 21st Century and we still,in these Islands, cannot provide an education “suited to the needs and abilities of each child”.
I’m an Urban teacher and it is hard enough for us, what it must be like for rural schools I cannot imagine.
Years ago I had experience with Traveller Children…we had a council site up the road… The prejudice of the local parents and thus their kids was horrendous… If a traveller child decide to defend his/herself anf reputation then they were always blamed. As a child I often played with travelling/gipsy children who camped down the road…Kent in the 1950s.. so I had a soft spot for these children and was thus all but ostracised by colleagues and local parents (this in outer London)
Of course the local council solved the “problems” by closing the site Cheaper than providing a decent service for them.
TC
As for things being “our fault” I assume you mean teachers’ fault? Of course it is..we’re society’s whipping boys aren’t we?
Lip service …. exactly!
I see it every day.
To go beyond lip service means that little extra effort … people want the pay and the perks but aren’t too willing to do the work anymore.
It’s 8.40 p.m. here and I’m in the middle of an English policy …. then it’s onto a Visual Arts policy …. I have an bits and pieces to put into an Irish policy too and if time allows a total of 12 policies to proof read.
And my eyes are falling out of my head …
But if I want to do my job right I have to have material that is of use to us in school.
O … forgot … I have standardised mathematical procedures to type up as well.
No early night tonight … and back to class in the morning!