Episode 3

Education News: Late February 2024

In this podcast episode, I discuss the challenges in special education, specifically the issues with school allocations and the ineffectiveness of the current system. I also delve into the expansion of the school transport system and the complications arising due to patronage. Lastly, I touch on the topic of Irish exemptions and the audit of schools with high exemption rates. Additionally, I reflect on the ownership of newly built schools by religious bodies despite being funded by the state.

Transcript
Speaker:

MacBook Pro Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera:

Hello.

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I know you're very welcome to if

I were the minister for education

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regular podcasts where I delve into

the world of Irish primary education

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and let you know what I would do if

I were the minister for education.

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This is Simon Lewis on this week's show.

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I am going to be exploring the

further collapse of special

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education in our system.

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I'm going to be asking whether

we should be re-examining both

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transport rather than expanding it.

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I know they'll also be wondering

why schools are to blame for

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granting Irish exemptions.

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When it was the department of education

who made the rules up in the first place.

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If you are interested in subscribing

to this podcast, you can do so on

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your favorite podcasting platform,

whether that's Spotify, apple

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podcasts, or any of the rest of them.

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And you can also watch

this live on YouTube.

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Where I have been broadcasting

for the last while.

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Let us start very straight away in

special education because I, as you may

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or may not be aware, the set allocations

fiasco, the cluster games, the.

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Are still on the agenda with schools,

still struggling to make a full-time

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post from the fractions of posts

that they were given the the cuts to

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many schools who weren't expecting

the cut to complex needs, which.

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Inclusion Ireland as I am and a

dancer debarment managed to get

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a meeting with Josefa Madigan.

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And the risk and not only that lobby

groups, such as the national principal's

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forum of which I'm part of have gathered

a huge amount of data, which states that

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nobody on the ground is happy at all.

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So neither parents nor teachers,

nor the pupils are happy about the

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special educations that have were

doled out for this coming September.

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And yet the representative

bodies have said not a word.

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And the department of education

are essentially making a

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blatant spin doctoring.

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Blatantly false.

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Claims about the system

and the biggest stat.

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I can probably say that, there's lots

and lots of big stats, but the big staff,

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the national principal's forum basically

found was 76% of school principals.

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Are not, I do not believe that the

allocations fulfilled the needs of

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the pupils within their schools.

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And that is a big status.

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So I guess the question

I always ask really is.

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Could a head spreads principles Skinner

from that, the problem from the Simpsons.

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Could put the children BA.

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I can't remember.

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I'm paraphrasing here, but

he's pondering in his office.

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Do you know, could it be at,

could it be that I am wrong or is

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it the children that are wrong?

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No, no nonsense.

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It's clearly that clearly

everybody else's wrong.

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I can't be wrong kind of thing.

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So essentially I'm saying to the

department, I could just, the

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principals on the ground could 76%.

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Our principles be

completely wrong on this.

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I don't think so.

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We really need this to be sorted.

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I don't think, I think the story

is going to rumble on a special

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education continues to collapse as,

ce it has been doing so since:

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When cuts were made to as, as

good to services for children

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from traveler communities.

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There were cuts to EAL, which

now becomes special education

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issues because the services to.

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Students with the AAL have weren't

recovered and we have children

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who are struggling with the use of

English language plus other needs,

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maybe not exactly, always resulting

from the lack of English education.

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English as an additional language

education, but it's unbelievable

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to see how things have fallen.

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We continue on in 2012 to 15% cross

cuts to special education hours.

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The better fairer way of 2017, where 91%

of schools, it would have been better off

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with the old system compared to the change

that happens in:

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going as developing schools were hardest.

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Hit children were not

get additional hours.

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Weren't being given to children.

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Their schools are given

an algorithm and in.

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2024, for whatever reason.

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We are now relying on a very small

amount of data to Dola allocations.

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And the algorithm is a nonsense

and we have proved as time and time

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again, over the last couple of months.

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And over the last few years, really.

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And it's and yet the

department of education.

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Tenue to dig their heels in saying

that what they're doing is correct,

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and the children are being supported

and their big sale item, though.

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That is that because

class sizes are smaller.

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Obviously teachers can deal

with the needs, add themselves.

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And yet they're trying to

get a fully inclusive model.

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Under the radar this week.

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I found myself on the media talking

about this a little bit based on an

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article that came along from the journal.

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And the journal.

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Basically approached me after someone

in naps contacted this journalist.

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And sorry, I need to find out

the name of the journalist

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here because I've forgotten it.

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It's oh, Dalton here.

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And Owen Dalton was approached.

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I don't know whether it was a friend or

anyway, it was a NEPs psychologist who

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basically said naps is falling apart.

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He, the psychologist said to Owen

that there are surfaces on a countable

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and said that they cannot feel Mo a

lot of the positions are 20% down.

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And oh rang me because he

said, I see about on the online

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talking about special education.

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Is what I'm hearing true.

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So I asked him to explain.

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What he meant by, on accountable, because

for me, that's a very loaded word.

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And clearly.

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I'm not quoted as saying their own

accountable, but this is what their

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own accountable for when the next

psychologist comes into the school.

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I think this is the thing

that really shocked.

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Oh.

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And more than anybody else.

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I, and lots of people and

actually on the radio.

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Most journalists isn't naps.

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Doesn't operate a waiting list.

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Okay.

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And this is what they mean by on a

countable, essentially what happens is at.

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Naps, like I'll just comes into a school.

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If you're lucky enough to have a nap,

psychologist says, this is when you have

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an app psychologist, lots of schools

do not have access to naps by the way.

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And did they ask you to prioritize

your highest needs dot year?

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And then next we'll have a look at

those children that do not get onto the

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priority list are not on a waiting list.

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There is no way to miss.

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So that looks like, on paper

that naps fulfills all the needs

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that schools bring to them.

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But it's the stuff that

happens before that.

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I think that's where they

want to countable means.

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So essentially what you're already

asked to do and just the, no, I just

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hate the statement and it seems to be

like this kind of thing that's used

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all the time, by all the different

services, the NCSC will have set.

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Actually I had a, I had an NCSE meeting.

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And in the whole meeting, I don't

know how many times the net.

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The CNO set.

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You're prioritizing to the

highest needs within your school.

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This is the school's chance.

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This is what they do.

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The school has to prioritize

the needs of the highest needs

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or whatever, the kind of.

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I'm paraphrasing here a little bit.

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But, essentially, when you hear

that people go, oh yeah, you have to

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prioritize the highest needs all the time.

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What that means is you're saying which

children aren't getting a service.

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It's not that the children

who are don't have the highest

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needs don't have any needs.

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We have, I think they've calculated.

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And I think the department of education

have said 25% of children in primary

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schools have additional needs.

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And we are not able with the hours

that we get on that naps are given.

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And then any of these bases are given.

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You're not given an allocation

to cover all 25% of these needs,

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these children these children.

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So what you're basically

covering is probably maybe 10%.

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I don't know, I'm putting

a random figure on it.

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So 15% of children get nothing.

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By prioritizing to the highest need.

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So I guess that's what I'm talking about.

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The next do the same thing.

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When they come in, you use, you

have to prioritize the, to the

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highest needs within the school.

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So the highest needs are

children that are out of school.

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That's that's children

who are on shortened days.

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Now you're talking in that context,

you're talking about less than

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2% of children, far less than

2% of children in any school.

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And that's through the prioritory.

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You're also looking at children who

need it, who aren't getting resources.

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Because they don't have an assessment.

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So there's the.

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The department will say, oh, people don't

need assessments for anything anymore,

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but if you want to go into a special

cost for autism, In a secondary school.

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You can't get that

without a full assessment.

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So you've got dozens of children,

sorry, dozens, hundreds, and hundreds

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of children every year who have to

have a reassessment from naps or

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privately from, but mainly from naps.

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To say that they are allowed to go to

an autism task in a secondary school.

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So you're looking at.

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But by the time they get to that,

You can forget about any other

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service and that's not good enough.

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It's not good enough.

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So this is what we're talking

about when we're talking about on

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accountability, because there no

one can say that there's no way.

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Essentially, this is what

I think this comes from.

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And whether it's on the verge of collapse.

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Now I argue it's already

collapsed collapse.

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A while ago, naps is one and I've

already did this in the podcast.

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You can listen back.

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The naps is the one good service

we had left in the education system

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for children with additional needs.

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If you were lucky enough to have a net

service, you could be guaranteed to get a

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very good assessment of where you're at.

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They give good advice.

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And I'm very fond of

naps as an organization.

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The trouble is there.

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Isn't enough.

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At all.

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And unfortunately, as a result

of that, They're not being

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asked to do more for less.

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And they can't do that.

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So they're doing all these pilots,

they're doing all these consultations.

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They're doing all these things

like passing on their luck.

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They're getting involved

in literacy schemes.

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Now for some reason, And they're

getting involved in all sorts of areas.

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But they're not able to do their core

work because there aren't enough of them.

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This is the problem.

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And what I was saying on the

media is that if you went to

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another country, so I'd been.

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And I know everyone says,

oh Finland is different.

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It's not really, if you got to Spain,

even we'd be, we were in I was, I had

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a member of staff who went to Valencia.

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In most schools have access.

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And good access to a psychologist.

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A social worker is at a nurse onsite.

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There isn't very many primary

schools that have a social worker,

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a psychologist, and a nurse on site.

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And the thing is they're

all, a lot of people that are

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working in these organizations.

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Do you know where they're working?

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They're working in offices,

away from children.

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If you ask the NCSE, for example,

they have the service where they.

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They come in and they give you a,

if you have children that are, you

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have a child that you're not able

to work with, because they're not

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that you're not able to work with.

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They're just unable to monitor themselves.

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That could be violence.

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That could be.

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And you just don't know what to do.

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You can ring the NCSE for an advisor.

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Now that advisor comes to your school.

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But they will not see that child.

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They are not allowed

to look at that chart.

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If you do one of those

pilots they've been doing.

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They're bringing in speech and language

therapists, occupational therapists, and

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they come and advise us skills on how to

deal with occupational therapy and speech

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and language therapy in this guess what?

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They don't see the children.

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This is the kind of stuff it's madness.

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And what we need is a system where

all schools have onsite access to

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psychologist, a social worker, and under.

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The nurse.

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And if you had these services

in schools, you wouldn't have

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the problems that we have.

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We have to wait until children

are absolute crisis mode

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before we actually see them.

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I, it's a funny thing after this.

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Ah, article was was I knew this I, this.

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This always happens in Arnett.

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Okay.

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Basically some NEPs psychologist

has sounded the alarm to privately.

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There are whistleblowing,

for want of a better word.

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I was wrong to see if this is true.

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I am now basically

talking about my sister.

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I talked about actually, how I got

a decent service at J D compare

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in comparison to most schools.

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Based on the status.

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Of my school.

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But fully enough why.

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And I find this, I find it.

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I don't find it humorous at all.

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It's sad.

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Is that rather than nap psychologists.

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At.

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Coming up, coming on board.

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And I'm saying, yeah.

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What time and saying

here is probably right.

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Is I had someone on Twitter, lovely guy.

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I presume, I don't know.

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I've never met him basically

saying we work hard.

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We're really proud of the work we do.

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I'm.

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We're.

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Th this thing that we're

unaccountable and we don't, and

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it's on the verge of collapse.

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This is what I did.

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And you're like no.

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This isn't personal.

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This isn't perfect.

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This isn't about you.

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I know every neck psychologist,

I know does a good job.

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In fact, every per most people

I know working in education work

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really hard, but we just don't have

the level of service we all need.

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And that's the problem.

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It's not that the service itself

is bad because the service itself

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is really good when you get it.

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But the problem is we don't get it.

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And then I keep moving on.

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Like he was saying, like I

helped 56 children in a week.

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But the thing was.

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You maybe, but what

happened after you left?

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Who what new thing happened?

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No kickin service was there, those 56.

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I don't know who the 56 children

were, but I can absolutely.

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I can nearly guarantee you

that they didn't get us.

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They didn't get anything

that actually helped them.

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They might've got some advice.

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They might've got a little bit

of Tanya, but we didn't sort

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out the root of the problem.

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And the root of the problem is our

health services is fallen to pieces.

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There is no mental health

supports for children.

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There's no occupational therapy,

there's no speech and language therapy.

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There's no dieticians.

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There's no if you, the CDN.

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T I can't remember that's collapsed.

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It's not, it doesn't,

it just doesn't exist.

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You have all these services that don't

exist and everything is falling back.

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On service.

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Overloaded service, like naps, who

can only do so much rather than

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basically saying, this is the reality

of the situation I even heard.

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I won't mention any names that some

friend of mine was by saying, oh, I

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heard you were on the radio about naps.

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My friend's a NEPs psychologist,

and she's not happy with you.

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And I was like, Don't shoot the messenger.

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I don't know.

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The fact is, if naps

as a service is great.

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If it was supported better, it's not.

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I treat the education system very

similar to the time I'm going to do.

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If you're watching me on YouTube.

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Basically all these services are, but

like in this kind of rising tide of

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Pooh and essentially naps is now in

that pain, they're sinking and sinking

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and sinking, and we're just sinking all

the time and everything is falling back

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on parents and families and schools.

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And, people are just throwing the

cans, do the work they need to do.

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So they just try and fire

it off on someone else.

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We've seen it in every other service

that EWO, for example, back in my

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day, when I started, if a child

missed 22 days, I was on the radio

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about this actually as well with.

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On our T drive time that basically

if a child missed 20 days, I'd ring

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up my EWO and I'd say, oh yeah, we've

got someone here missing 20 days.

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She'd take over and ring the family and

say, why are you doing missing 20 days?

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They don't have enough people.

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So what happened was it was turned

back to schools to do all that stuff.

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And it's only when something's

in a chronic state.

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Because it's an absolute

crisis that EDW comes in.

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You can see.

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I really, I suppose what I'm saying

is everything is sinking and sinking.

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The department of education have, do

you know, if they put as much African

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to solving the problems as they do to

spend doctoring would be doing a hell

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of a lot of good, but anyway, I could

go on about this for long or left for

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ages and ages and who would do no.

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Good.

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So that's to move on to story number

two, which is school transporters.

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Yes.

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The minister of education, not

learning from her past foibles.

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Mistakes of expanding school transport

system without making sure they

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didn't have buses and bus drivers

is further expanding the service.

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And at this time, she's making sure

that over a hundred times a more pupils,

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they're going to be able to access the

service because they're scrapping some of

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the rules, which are, you don't have to go

to your nearest school at your, the bus.

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Doesn't bring you to your

nearest school anymore.

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If you don't want it to.

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And oh, something around.

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The distances from schools.

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I think that's more for secondary

schools and primary schools.

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But I could be wrong on that.

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But the thing.

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Why aren't children going

to their nearest school.

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And the answer to that question of

course, is tied up in patronage.

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I don't send my kid to his nearest

school because if I did, I would have to.

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On teach him a lot of what has

been taught in school, because

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it would be faith formation.

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And I don't want him to go to, I would

prefer him to go to his nearest school

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because he will be within his community.

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I am sick of the fact that he,

when he goes to his local football

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club or his local lab, It's local

swimming club or whatever it might be.

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He's doesn't really know

that many kids there.

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Because he has to go to a different

school because I just don't want him to

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be, I don't want them to be indoctrinated

into a religion that we don't buy into.

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And this is where the it's

funny, how bus transport, and

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even insurance ties into this.

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I go on about this in the PA in

previous episodes of the podcast.

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I don't want to go on about it

too much, but the way, the reason

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bus transport is so convoluted.

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Is because children are not

going to their nearest school.

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We also have far too many schools,

so we have far too many buses.

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And if we simplified the system.

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It would be so much easier.

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My kid, I don't, my kid could

go on a bus in the morning.

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I'd go to his nearest school and he would

be brought back home after that, along

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with his neighbors and all the rest of it.

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And if we just re-examined the way

we do bus transport, but we can't

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do that until reexamined patronage.

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And ultimately the answer is very simple.

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We have to look at patronage.

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All the stuff that it does to complicate

the system, because when we have this.

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S idea of school choice.

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And have that choice along

religious lines in the main.

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It's not going to work.

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We have to make sure that schools

are welcome to all children.

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Not just, I know schools will say,

oh, you always Simon, all children.

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I've loads of Muslim kids at my school.

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I've lo the blah, blah, blah.

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80th and my school.

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And so there wa I get that.

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I know they're welcome to a point.

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We've taken down the baptism barrier,

but we've simply moved it under the March

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in thing, because what happens is when

you welcome those children, it's good.

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That's very much, they're nice.

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They're able to come into the school, but

when it comes to teaching your religion

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they sit at the back of the class.

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That's not welcome.

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That's fully welcome.

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And I'm, I see all this things.

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What am I.

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I love looking at comments that principals

make in the media, if they do or.

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We're on Twitter or wherever it might be.

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And I love the new thing now isn't to

say that we're an inclusive school.

401

:

I'm noticing now that people are

saying we're a very inclusive school.

402

:

Very inclusive.

403

:

I find that very interesting.

404

:

Why do they have to use

the word very there?

405

:

It seems like without protest

too much, a lot of the time,

406

:

and I'm not blaming the schools.

407

:

But what I'm saying is, you, we have

to look at the Patriot system so

408

:

that we can actually, Dan examine the

hopeless transport's going to work.

409

:

Otherwise you have to weirdly on

wielding system where buses are passing

410

:

each other in times to go to totally

different schools on necessarily.

411

:

I'm in a school where there's

an 11 buses serving our school.

412

:

It's madness.

413

:

It's not.

414

:

And the reason there's so many is because

we're the only, and multi-denominational

415

:

school in the entire county.

416

:

Children should be going

to their nearest school.

417

:

My kid should be going to his nearest

school, but they can't because of

418

:

this patronage system, which basically

doesn't allow for it to happen.

419

:

So what are we saying?

420

:

The only thing I'd be saying at,

instead of expanding the service, I

421

:

think the minister needs to be looking.

422

:

At.

423

:

Why we have such.

424

:

A convoluted boss service and

how we actually can fix that.

425

:

Bye.

426

:

Fixing the human rights of all children.

427

:

It's as simple as that really.

428

:

I don't think there's any

much more to say on it.

429

:

Let's move on.

430

:

To Irish exemptions.

431

:

Yes, schools with high rates of Irish

exemptions are now going to be audited

432

:

by the department of education,

because, and let me tell you, I took,

433

:

put this down as a story are them.

434

:

On Twitter, which seemed to get

a bit of a reaction and people

435

:

thought it was quite funny.

436

:

Despite it being a bit mad, really,

it's a, basically a number of years ago.

437

:

And if he wants to get an Irish

exemption, you have to have a

438

:

psychological assessment going back to

naps, been over Being over overwhelmed.

439

:

So because it's overwhelmed nap such

when the, I don't know if nap setup.

440

:

Satish but basically naps

couldn't basically do these

441

:

assessments, just fryers exemption.

442

:

So the suggestion was made that

school principals, it would

443

:

be thrown back onto schools.

444

:

As most things are on schools would

be able to add, give Irish exemptions.

445

:

And we were given clear rules and

those rules that children would have

446

:

to fail in our reading or spelling

test or, and be under the 10th

447

:

percentile on a standardized test.

448

:

It, and there was a couple of rules

about ages, whether you were the son

449

:

or daughter of someone in a concert.

450

:

No last.

451

:

But most children who fell under

that either were to age or at,

452

:

through under 10 percentile in the.

453

:

Tests and it's very easy.

454

:

And in fairness to fall onto the 10th

percentile in reading or spelling

455

:

tests, If you're a child whose parent

tells you whatever you don't try and

456

:

the tasks get all the answers wrong.

457

:

I know.

458

:

I don't think that happened because

children, people are not like that.

459

:

Of course, but any.

460

:

There are a lot of children do fall

under the 10th percentile in, at

461

:

single reading or spelling test.

462

:

And that makes them.

463

:

Eligible for being exempt.

464

:

However that wasn't enough for some

families, because some families

465

:

argued that Irish get it's traumatic

experience for their children.

466

:

So they argued.

467

:

They argued that it was too hard for

their child to get an Irish exemption.

468

:

So we then have to prove that

over a period of time, I think

469

:

two years that Irish is causing

undue stress to children and that.

470

:

Would make them eligible for an

Irish exemption on the other side,

471

:

the glory mainly, or may people

who are fond of the Irish language.

472

:

And defending the Irish

language, our arguments too

473

:

easy to get an Irish exemption.

474

:

So they argued that this was the that

they needed to change all that to.

475

:

I put the department of education,

listen to the people who said it was

476

:

too hard and they put in this new

room fast forward a couple of years.

477

:

And more, lots and lots of children are

being are getting exemptions from Irish.

478

:

And.

479

:

The people who saying who were saying it

was too easy or back saying, we need to

480

:

scrap the sat, this whole exemption thing.

481

:

It's wrong.

482

:

We need to stop it.

483

:

So the department education went

to them, said, oh yeah, I know what

484

:

we'll do, but blame the schools.

485

:

They're given far too many

Archie exemptions at therefore

486

:

they're going to be audited now.

487

:

And do you know, what's going

to happen to be a Frank what's

488

:

going to happen is schools.

489

:

Aren't going to be audited.

490

:

And if they are audited

anyway, We'll show them.

491

:

Look, we did all this tick, tick, tick,

tick would have ticked all the boxes.

492

:

And they'll come back with a

report saying, yeah, the schools

493

:

are doing what they're saying.

494

:

The grail glory will be grumbling again.

495

:

And who knows where we'll

go, but essentially.

496

:

In summary, it's all those

awful schools fault for granting

497

:

all those Irish exemptions.

498

:

I don't know.

499

:

So there we go.

500

:

Finally if you I've lots and

lots of stories that I add.

501

:

I look at.

502

:

Every couple of weeks and I

save them onto my feet before.

503

:

This week, if you subscribe to the

newsletter, you'll find that I have been

504

:

scouring Britain and the U S for stories.

505

:

And I've shared them in the

newsletter, but I also looked at

506

:

my local county Cal count to go.

507

:

Kenny had a visit from the

minister for education.

508

:

Nor have a phony who turned the sods.

509

:

On on three different schools, she

visited four, three of them have got

510

:

some turns, sodding and and had a visit.

511

:

Where is she?

512

:

It spoke to all the children, all that

it's all of us right now used to be

513

:

visited by the minister for education.

514

:

I get that.

515

:

You have to make a bit of a thing.

516

:

I get there's politics at

play and all the rest of it.

517

:

And you have to be calling to

nice and do all these dances and.

518

:

All the rest of it.

519

:

And I'm sure she was treated very

well in the cook county schools.

520

:

What I'm more interested in is the

fact that when she turns the sod

521

:

in those schools are built guests,

who's going to own those schools.

522

:

Despite the department of education,

funding them for millions, this

523

:

will be millions of Euro and

cash being spent by the state.

524

:

And those buildings will be a

nicely gifted to the churches

525

:

that they add that where.

526

:

With the skills set.

527

:

And of course we add, move onto county

meet where there is a school list.

528

:

His mother nationals go to be

waiting 17 years for the minister

529

:

to gift their school, rebuild their

school and give it to their church.

530

:

I don't know if it's the

church of Ireland school.

531

:

Eh, it's funny.

532

:

It looks like one Bush.

533

:

It may not be.

534

:

I actually don't know.

535

:

Anyway, it doesn't really matter

because whatever the religion, cause

536

:

I'm not all about the conflict church

here it's any religious body or any

537

:

private body that owns a building.

538

:

Ah, I find it really distasteful

that when the department.

539

:

The state funds, these buildings

that the state no longer owns.

540

:

After such a huge amount of investment.

541

:

But that is the system that we have.

542

:

Anyway, I could go on about that for

ages, but I am running out of time.

543

:

We're coming up to the half hour

mark and I try to make these new

544

:

episodes less than half an hour long.

545

:

As I said, if you are interested

in any further of those news

546

:

stories, I've loads of them.

547

:

Ad that I found on everything

from children in the UK,

548

:

having to wait a whole year.

549

:

The hundreds of children in

the UK are waiting a whole year

550

:

for psychological assessments.

551

:

Oh my gosh.

552

:

Wait till they, if they came

over here, what they'd see.

553

:

And there's some really nice side.

554

:

There's a really cool article.

555

:

I love it.

556

:

Written by the secret teacher.

557

:

And I think it's in the Irish

times and like the Irish times or

558

:

the Irish examiner, where at they

talk about a apparent, is that.

559

:

I gave this, my child has got the

worst teacher in the school doesn't

560

:

ever got higher level, whatever it

is, it's secondary school story, but

561

:

it's brilliant because it's written

from the parent's perspective and

562

:

then absolutely torn to pieces by

the school and the child themselves.

563

:

As a teacher at it's a very good article.

564

:

It's actually worth subscribing to my

newsletter for that a news article alone.

565

:

I also go through a number of tweets

that I thought were really good.

566

:

I'm very.

567

:

Useful for you.

568

:

I'm really good at analysis

and in certain areas.

569

:

And also if you want, I'm doing what I

do in an ICT, a tech tip every two weeks.

570

:

And this time I'm looking at

sending electronic newsletters on

571

:

the options that are available.

572

:

And so have a look at that.

573

:

If you want, you can find out by going

to onshore dot Nash slash subscribe.

574

:

If you haven't done so already.

575

:

And I published those and about a

week after the podcast is published.

576

:

So if you aren't a subscriber.

577

:

Anyway.

578

:

I know from me.

579

:

I hope you enjoyed this episode.

580

:

Thanks so much for listening.

581

:

We'll chat to you again very soon.

582

:

All the very best.

583

:

Bye bye.

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Show artwork for Anseo.net - If I were the Minister for Education
Anseo.net - If I were the Minister for Education
An Irish Primary Education Podcast

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Simon Lewis