29th January - New Proposed Resources for Special Needs Children will hurt schools
- Last Updated: Thursday, 29 January 2015 00:00
New Proposed Resources for Special Needs Children Will Hurt Schools: IPPN President.
According to the President of the Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN), Mr Brendan McCabe, a new model being designed to allocate resources to children with special needs in mainstream schools has the potential to discriminate against so called ‘high performing schools’.
“Mainstream schools have always been welcoming of special needs pupils, but such pupils, to be properly integrated in a mainstream setting need a lot of support. Otherwise such integration can have negative consequences for all the children in a classroom.”
Addressing over 1,100 principals at the organisation’s annual conference in Dublin on Thursday, January 29th, Mr McCabe called on the Minister to announce whether or not she intends to introduce the new model, and if so when.
“If the minister decides to introduce it, it is essential that any school which may have to face losing resources should only do so over an adequate period of time adjustment.”
Mr McCabe said it was, “unthinkable”, to think that resources would be lost overnight and principals were forced to arbitrarily withdraw help from children who have it and need it.
