A parent recently mailed the IDK team, with a query about her childrens’ entitlement to resource-teaching hours – now being shared with other pupils.
Both my children at mainstream school have full allocation for resource hours. Until the school year 2011/2012 this resource time was one-to-one. Now they share with another pupil two of their five allocations per week. My son told me today, he is now sharing with another pupil. That means his resource has gone from a one-to-one basis to a one to three basis, two mornings a week. Have I any grounds to query this situation?
Profoundly deaf children will very likely have their full 3.6 hours of resource teaching-time. The key issue is they be in a group with kids of similar ability, if this time is shared. In some cases where a deaf child was in a group with a child with complex and very different needs, they lost out in tuition time.
Get Written Confirmation Of Resource Hours
Initially, we asked this parent if she had a statement for her childrens’ exact resource hours. All documentation helps, even if it is for a past school-year and can be as basic as a letter on the school’s paper, with your allocations.
If no documentation was available, our advice was for the parent to to verify their childrens’ resource-teaching allocation with the school and/or SENO.
Resource Teaching
The next step was to talk with the family’s Visiting Teacher (VT), especially as each child’s need for educational support would alter from year to year.
One-to-one tuition, while necessary for some tasks for some time, is not an ideal, long-term learning-approach for children, particularly as they mature. A better approach is to plan in-class resource support (if viable) while keeping the child in the main curriculum if this is appropriate for the child.
As you can understand, with the cutbacks I am grateful the kids had a SNA shared between them this school year and the resource situation while not ideal I was grinning and bearing it – but with another child added, leads me to worry regarding next year and how many will [be] allocated for shared resource time.
Finally, the NCSE school resource allocation system has changed with the SENO assessing all resource-hours applications from a school. An allocation is made to the school, with the SENO allocating resource hours, based on a school’s needs (whose request is based on individual childrens’ needs).
In most cases, the school will receive a list of children and resource hours, with services allocated to the school, not to individual children, so the principal has to use this allocation, while meeting each child’s specific needs.
Having a statement of your child/ren’s resource hours is best, to refer to in situations like this, while providing an indication of how the children are doing in school, with the resource time allocated in a particular school year.
Further Reading
* Question: Do Deaf Children Really Need A SNA?
* What To Do If Your Child’s Support Hours Are Cut
* SNA Provision: The DES Value For Money Report
* Proposed SNA Cuts – Just The Tip of An Iceberg?
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