Rethink taking place over plans to slash disabled pupils' nursery schooling

A “devastating” move which would have slashed the amount of nursery schooling given to disabled children is to be reconsidered.

The plans were scheduled to come into effect in September, and would have meant that pre-school children with moderate to severe learning difficulties would attend school for 2.5 hours instead of at least 4.5 hours per day.

However, after news of the plans began to circulate widely yesterday (Tuesday), the outgoing Sinn Fein education minister John O’Dowd ordered a re-think.

In a statement shortly after 5pm, the Department of Education said Mr O’Dowd was calling on the Education Authority (which took over control of running education services from the five former regional boards last April) to “urgently revisit its decision”.

He made the decision partly because of what he believed is “a lack of proper consultation on behalf of the authority with parents and schools on this matter”.

The minister’s intervention may not totally halt the policy, but he said in a statement that “before reaching a final decision on how pre-school provision in special schools should be designed and delivered, I have called on the Education Authority to provide me with assurances that there has been full and open engagement with those most directly affected”.

The Education Authority – which is “sponsored by” the department, but not part of it – has agreed to carry out the review accordingly.

After the initial news of the cutbacks began to hit the headlines yesterday, Colm Davis, the principal of Tor Bank special school in Belfast, told the News Letter: “This is devastating for the kids involved, their parents and for the schools.

“The model before was four-and-a-half hours, which was still not enough.

“We have quite a range of children with profound and multiple learning difficulties who have maybe been tube fed from an early age and require a lot of therapy and specialised support and because of their rate of development they need a lot of time, consolidation and reinforcement and that takes a long time to establish.”

Mr Davis said that the decision would “lead to children playing catch-up”.

He added: “If you have them for two-and-a-half hours they are barely in the door before they have to go home.”

Mr Davis said he had heard plans to cut hours had been in the pipeline for some time.

The Education Authority said that “the move towards part-time provision in special schools” was agreed last June, and that it had “engaged with special school principals... regarding the proposed full implementation of part-time provision” from October.

It added that it is “fully committed to meeting the needs of children in the early years who have been assessed with special educational needs”.