Diary of a Schoolteacher: The spiralling human cost of axing Special Needs Assistants [Independent.ie]
- Published: 28 September 2011
It's been a hard slog for some in this school since our Special Needs Assistant was let go. Take, for example, Harry O'Hooligan from my Transition Year class. At the beginning of last year Harry was ''asked to leave'' by the boys' school down the road. They had never had an SNA and we did the kind thing and accepted him in our school.
Harry and his mother were confident that this would signal a brand new chapter in his career of mayhem creation in our town and they were counting on us to provide him with an SNA to take him out of class until he was old enough to work in his very wealthy dad's paving company.
Only it didn't work out that way and now I find myself stuck with Harry in my class, unwilling to pick up a pen or open a book and mouthing off his mantra, ''My future's secure with FU Paving Systems''.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
