Dear members,

Many of you will have heard by now that following meetings last night with Government, there has now been confirmation that there will be no reductions to special needs assistants for the next school year, and any school that has been allocated additional resources will receive them.

It was also agreed that the SNA redeployment scheme, the SNA workforce development plan and changes to a 2014 Circular outlining the role of a SNA will be advanced before any further decisions are taken. The priority will be ensuring that the child-centred approach to the provision of special education is retained and enhanced in these policy developments. The NCSE cannot therefore make recommendations on SNA numbers until these key documents are agreed and published.

This situation should never have happened. The Government has failed to prioritise this issue for too long. While the additional 19million in funding that has been found is to be welcomed, it is a sticking plaster. What is needed is real engagement and resourcing and proper planning for the future of special education in mainstream classes.

In all these negotiations we will continue to fight for fairness and respect for SNAs, for recognition of the essential role SNAs play in education and for better resourcing of inclusive education. We will now commence discussions with other stakeholders, political parties and campaign groups on the creation of a broad based coalition to campaign for a new Circular on the role of the SNA that recognises the need for supports to be provided to students with primary and secondary care needs. We need to remove the mechanism that allows the NSCE to impose cuts that can result in redundancies.

Should this same situation arise again in the next school year Fórsa will invoke the protections of the collective redundancy legislation, as what the NCSE was proposing to do amounted to a collective redundancy situation.

Tomorrow protests will take place all around the country. We will be there to stand with SNAs, families and school communities to send the message that schools need SNAs and SNAs deserve respect. We’ve created placards which you can print to use at protests. For a list of protests click here and to download placards click here.

In solidarity,

Andy Pike

National Secretary