16th January 2024
Members of the National Principals’ Forum wish to express our sincere thanks to all involved in the recent case in the High Court Case [2024] IEHC 11, [Record No. 2022/1032 JR & Record No. 2023/146 JR], challenging the legality of the NCSE (National Council for Special Education)’s devolving of their legislative responsibility for the Assessment of Children with Additional Needs on to schools. This is an issue we challenged with little support from the Education Partners or Representative Bodies, who shepherded AON into schools alongside the NCSE, without any consideration for the grave issues this presents.
The NPF has consistently highlighted that schools should not have been asked to participate in this aspect of the AON process. As early as October 2022, we released a statement explaining the reasons and urging the stakeholders and partners to step up to defend children’s rights. It also formed part of our Budget 2023 and 2024 submissions.
The Educational Component of the Assessment of Need Process was foisted onto schools, despite our objections that we are not qualified to assess children’s educational needs, nor would this serve our pupils as they would be left shortchanged by the process, without the involvement of relevant professionals in this process, most significantly educational psychologists. As it has become so difficult for children to receive adequate or timely assessment of their educational needs (the AON process has not been fit for purpose for a very long time and the ratio of NEPs (National Educational Psychologists) available to Irish Primary School Children currently stands at 1:5000), they are consistently being left in limbo and without the resources they need in schools to best support their needs. Schools depend on the NCSE for the allocation of much of these resources – not least SET (Special Education Teaching) time and SNAs (Special Needs Assistants). We have documented the huge deficiencies in the education system repeatedly over the past seven years and consistently lobby for change in this regard.*
We very much welcome the judgement of Ms. Justice Marguerite Bolger delivered on the 12th of January 2024, which asserts that the NCSE’s demands of schools in the AON process “is not and could not suffice for the unique, resources blind, gold standard assessment of needs processes” of children in need of such assessment. It was determined that when an Assessment of Need Officer invokes the process and engages the NCSE, that it is indeed their legal responsibility to ensure that they “nominate a person with appropriate expertise, to assist in the carrying out of an assessment of the child’s educational needs, without regard to the ’cost of, or the capacity to provide, any service identified in the assessment as being appropriate to meet the needs of the applicant concerned’”.
We have always hugely participated in assisting qualified educational and clinical psychologists, and other specialists, in their assessment of our pupils, and welcome being involved in the process within the remit of our own professional capacity, but having sole responsibility for the educational component of the Assessment of Need (AON) Process foisted onto schools is detrimental to our students, as we do not have the ‘appropriate expertise” to assess their educational needs. It was clarified in this case that our role should indeed be one of assistance only for the Assessment officer to carry out the assessment.
The NCSE is failing in its remit to support Children with Additional Needs and is failing to support schools in our endeavours to best meet our pupils’ needs. The stakeholders that purport to represent school leaders and education staff need to step up to their remit. This AON debacle is just one example, and it is truly disgraceful that the families involved in this case, had to go to the great lengths they went to, to prove this. We are extremely grateful for these efforts and for their immense integrity.
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* NPF lobbyists wish to once again direct Government Ministers, Education Stakeholders and the public to our lobbying work since our establishment in 2018 – most especially with regards to highlighting the chronic lack of Special Educational Needs (SEN) supports schools receive from the Department of Education, NCSE and HSE.
In our role as advocates for our pupils, and day to day school managers, our research from practicing primary school principals, produced many reports including –
- ‘The Inclusion Illusion’ (2019)
- ‘A Critical Analysis of Supports for Pupils With Additional Needs And Their School Leaders In Irish Primary Schools’(2020)
In publishing these reports, we not only tried to expose these critical issues, but also put forth practical recommendations to address them in a timely, solution-focused and effective manner. We remain committed to lobbying for Educational reform.