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The electricity bill for November/December was €3,000 even though that included the midterm break and part of the Christmas holidays. Her staff were still on a strict no-spend regime even though programmes were being introduced that needed new materials. When asked what the worst aspect was, she said: “I know I could change lives, if I only had the money for counselling and all the other supports they need.
I could change the trajectory of children’s lives and potentially, of generations.” Last October her school was included in a pilot for a small number of pupils involving six counselling sessions. It still has not commenced due to the inability to recruit enough counsellors.
Six sessions would have been completely inadequate for most of her students. However, if she were not forced to pare costs to the bone, she could have re-employed the excellent counsellor she once had. But she has no money, just bills.
Although education is allegedly free, in the absence of proper State funding, most schools are forced to appeal to parents and the community. There is no money in this principal’s community that can be tapped. What the school receives in Deis funding leaves it running an unsustainable deficit that haunts the principal.
A coalition of some 30 school principals in similar schools published a list of circumstances faced by their students. It includes the loss of a parent due to imprisonment, suicide in families, living in a drug den, neglect of every conceivable kind, sexual abuse and witnessing or being the subject of physical violence. What that looks like in practice in some cases is primary-aged children witnessing “6am beatings” where a family member is dragged out of bed and assaulted due to drug debts, or leaving a house at 3am to sleep in a Garda station because of a family member’s rampage.
In an average class of 28, some 14 per cent of students have additional educational needs. In these schools, it is more than 50 per cent. The 30 principals call themselves the Deis+ Advocacy Group.
Deis+ is shorthand for a suite of additional supports, an initiative supported by the Irish Primary Principals’ Network and the INTO , which it is suggested some 100 schools countrywide should receive. These supports are modelled on a pilot scheme involving 10 schools in northeast inner city Dublin. Multi-disciplinary teams attached to small clusters of schools comprised of psychologists, occupational therapists and other specialists meet children in the primary school itself rather than adding them to endless waiting lists.
These professionals also work with staff and parents. The Deis+ Advocacy group also believes that additional staffing is essential. For example, every Deis+ school should have a designated nurture/support teacher who can work intensively in a specialised room with small groups of children who have social, emotional and behavioural needs.
There are many obstacles, not least how these multidisciplinary posts will be filled. We cannot even find teachers . Currently, due to HSE recruitment difficulties, a child can be diagnosed with additional needs at age four and be aged eight or nine before receiving any help.
[ Paying travel costs may boost supply of substitute teachers to tackle classroom staff shortages, report finds Opens in new window ] Of course, funding needs to be increased across the board and especially for Deis schools. Current funding for mainstream schools amounts to €1.09 per pupil per school day before Deis allocations.
Even with the Fianna Fáil election manifesto promise of a 40 per cent rise it would still be only €1.53 per child per day. Using capitation grants as a funding model ignores that it costs much the same to heat and maintain a school with fewer pupils as it does for larger enrolments.
Many schools were decrepit long before Storm Éowyn and need significant upgrading. Principals also need administrative support, especially in Deis and Deis+ schools where principals can spend anything from eight to 15 hours a week on child safeguarding issues, including meetings with family and social workers, and taking part in case conferences and court attendances. (The latter takes a whole day.
) A recent OECD survey on Irish educational disadvantage suggested that the criteria for inclusion in Deis and the targeting of resources need continuing refinement and validation. This is bureaucrat-speak which can be translated as socio-economic indicators alone cannot capture the impact of living where, for example, gang-related intimidation occurs regularly. [ Breakfast clubs in Deis primary schools: ‘If it wasn’t here and you’d had no breakfast you’d be on the yard hungry’ Opens in new window ] The OECD report also said that Deis or Deis+ cannot help children from disadvantaged backgrounds enrolled in non-Deis schools and that they, too, need identification and targeted support.
Every political party has endorsed Deis+, but as Dr Brian Fleming and Prof Judith Harford astutely pointed out in The Irish Times recently, the endorsement lacked any detail. The appointment of a new Minister for Education is always a moment of guarded hope. Rumour has it that Helen McEntee sought this post.
How amazing would it be if she did so out of a passion to lift children out of poverty?.
