PARENTS of intellectually disabled children on the
Southside have claimed their education will suffer if classes in mainstream
secondary schools are not provided.
At least 16 intellectually disabled children in the
Dun Laoghaire area have been turned down for places in special classes for the
September 2012 school term.
All of the children in question have been educated at
local primary schools. As their learning disabilities are mild to moderate,
their parents feel that secondary education in a local school would be the most
appropriate setting for them.
Gerry Harvey, from Dun Laoghaire, is the father of
13-year-old Jamie, who has moderate learning difficulties and is still in sixth
class at the Harold National School in Glasthule.
He feels that his son and other moderately
intellectually disabled children would benefit the most by attending a special
class in a mainstream school with a specially tailored “applied
curriculum” to cater for their particular educational needs.
Mr Harvey has applied to several local secondary
schools for a place for his son for the coming school term but he has been turned
down by most of them. Consequently he has not yet secured a place in a
secondary school for Jamie for next year.
He said the only other option is for Jamie to be
educated at a special school but he believes that this would be detrimental to
both his education and his general well being.
“I don’t have an alternative for my son if he
can’t get a place in a special class in a mainstream school,
? he stated.
“Then
we have to look at sending him to a special school.
“He is very much socially involved with mainstream
society and to take him out and put him into a school where everyone else there
will be severely or profoundly intellectually disabled would be traumatic for
him. If he was put into a special needs school he wouldn’t be stimulated by
what was going on around him at all.”
According to Mr Harvey, there is at least one local
secondary school that has two extra classes for children with learning
difficulties. However, when he applied for a place for his son earlier this year
he said the school told him they could not offer him one until 2016.
The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is a
branch of the Department of Education that deals with the allocation of special
needs teachers in various geographical areas.
Mr Harvey wants the NCSE to provide at least one of
the local secondary schools with the resources to enable them to open an
additional class to accommodate the intellectually disabled children who
currently do not have a secondary place for the coming school term.
“I want the department to turn around to say to some
of the schools in the Dun Laoghaire area that they are going to set up a class
to accommodate these special needs pupils.
“We have a particular school in mind and in that case
the school is well disposed towards opening up a special class for eight
students. I suspect this class will take only boys, which is another problem.
But the department has to make the funding available.
?
Dun Laoghaire TD Mary Mitchell O’Connor (FG) has
worked as the principal of the Harold National School in Glasthule.
She has called on the Department of Education and the
NCSE to allocate the resources necessary to establish the secondary places
required to accommodate the children in a special class next year.
“There is a number of children with special needs
who have almost finished primary school in Dun Laoghaire that must be catered
for,
? she said.
“It is very unfair that children with special needs who are
finished their primary education still do not know if they will able to have a
secondary education next year.
?
Southside People contacted the Department of Education
and the NCSE on the matter but there was no one available for comment.