Jess Casey: Summer provision problems leave families in limbo

Her daughter Kate, 17, has Down Syndrome, autism, and a moderate intellectual disability. 

Summer holidays at her special school begin at the end of next month.  

“Hopefully I’ll be able to get a tutor to work with her this summer, but that’s only going to be two hours a day. 

From 8 o’clock in the morning until 10 o’clock when she goes to bed, it’s a long day of nothingness for her apart from those two hours.

Funding for summer education programmes for children with special educational needs, and for those at risk of disadvantage, doubled this year to €40m due to the pandemic. 

For the first time, all schools can take part. This year, schools can run the programmes any time over the summer and split the hours to suit students and staff. 

Home tuition is also an option offered through the scheme provided a family can find an appropriate tutor.

But even with the expansion of plans this year, many families, schools, and advocacy groups are worried that the programme is heading for “complete failure”, as highlighted by Inclusion Ireland earlier this week. 

Staff are paid for their work on these programmes but sign-up is voluntary. 

This summer, Kate Kiernan’s special school can only offer in-school provision to less than half of its pupils for just one week as it cannot staff the programme. 

“The problem is we don’t know if we get that one week, will we then be able to avail of home tuition,” Deirdre said.

The announcement sounded great but we’re actually getting less because, in other years, all the children got a week. 

Deirdre believes that children with very complex needs should be offered respite instead of tuition during the summer. 

“We live in permanent lockdown, it hasn’t lifted for us.”

Anne Laure McDermott, from Dublin, said school is the only chance her son Morgan, 12, gets to socialise. 

At the moment, Morgan, who has a physical and mental disability, does not have access to his two activities; swimming and therapeutic horse riding, which have not yet resumed following lockdown. 

“He needs 24-hour care, and by that, I mean someone has to be beside him," she said. 

The family does not know yet if Morgan’s school will run a summer programme.

“To be fair, they are still assessing." 

There are basic things that could be done with the scheme to make it a bit easier, she added. "Such as putting together an appropriate database of all the staff that could be volunteering including using trainee teachers. 

Staffing is a major issue. The pay is really bad, I can understand why SNAs do not want to volunteer.

Rates of pay for the scheme differ between teachers and SNAs and varies again based on whether they were hired before or after 2011. SNAs are paid roughly €16 an hour for summer provision, compared to roughly €40 for a secondary school teacher.

Nicola Phelan, from Cork, said there seems to have been no communication on how to make sure the programme worked for parents and their children. 

Her daughter Caroline attends a special school in Cork city. The school has told parents it will not be running a summer programme this year because they cannot staff it. 

It’s very frustrating. Caroline adores school and this year, and last year, has just been disastrous.

While home tuition is an option for Caroline, it's not for many other children. “Nobody seems to be working together to say ‘right, how can we work together to make this happen for parents and students?’”

Graham Manning, an ASD class coordinator in Cork, points to several aspects of the programme he believes contribute to its issues: Discrepancies in rates of pay, late communications on logistics, a lack of tutors, and “zero goodwill” towards the Department of Education. 

 “There should be massive flexibility with this scheme. The approach needs to be ‘here is 40 hours that belong to this child and it is up to their parent and their tutors' discretion to decide how they are used in the best interest of that child’.”

Lorraine Dempsey, the interim chief executive of Inclusion Ireland, agrees that flexibility is key.  

“The department needs to pull out all the stops to do everything that it can do to drive the programme forward. 

"If the department took absolute control of this now and actively contacted school principals to engage with them directly, whether it's through the department or through the National Council for Special Education, and be flexible in terms of local problem-solving with each individual school to make sure we can maximise in-school provision, that's one clear thing that could happen.” 

A central database of available tutors so parents would be another. Schools can sign up until June 10. 

A Department of Education spokesman confirmed a home-based programme is available when schools do not offer the programme,  or where not all children in a special school are offered a placement. 

“The department will continue to work with all of the stakeholders to support parents in accessing summer provision and with schools to ensure that they have the resources and supports necessary to successfully run these programmes.”