Debate contribution: Special Educational Needs: Crisis in Provision

Debate contribution by Miss Nuala McAllister on 8 September 2025.

MLA

Miss Nuala McAllister

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

8 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Special Educational Needs: Crisis in Provision

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5068848

Read the official Assembly record

Text

It is unfortunate that we find ourselves in this situation again, alongside many parents and families across Northern Ireland whose children, whilst they have been allocated a place in a school, have not been allocated one that will meet their child's needs. I want to focus my remarks on the cooperation or lack thereof between the Departments of Education and Health and on how we can get answers to the questions that have been asked. I saw the Minister of Health. He has now left the Chamber, but I thought that he had come in for the debate. It is really important that we should have more than one Minister present where issues and motions touch across Departments. That is something that we should look at as an Assembly, so that, when we need to work together, we can have both Ministers, either at a Committee or in the Chamber, to ask questions of. There is not just a need for communication from the Education Authority to parents. If we are not having improved communications between Departments, how do we expect it to filter down to the ground and to the people that it affects? We need to see practical solutions that will work, and then we will see an improvement for children accessing those places, whether that is through transport, construction work at schools or additional staff. One of the issues that I want to focus on is the need to improve the nursing tasks in schools. The fact that the Minister decided, I believe, in May to remove nursing tasks in our special needs schools was much to the confusion and not just the disappointment of many people, particularly those who look to the health sector, because delegated nursing tasks were removed as being authorised under direct payments. People who were not essentially qualified could not carry out the tasks, yet we were going to expect classroom assistants to do it because, let us face it, it was going to fall upon classroom assistants to pick up the slack, and that is just not acceptable. It is another consequence of a fall between the cracks of the reality of what it means to be a special educational needs school or to operate within a special educational needs system. I have had the opportunity over many years from being on the council and in the Assembly to visit special schools across Belfast. Specifically, I mention Cedar Lodge in my constituency of North Belfast and Fleming Fulton. Those schools are absolutely fantastic. When you go there and meet the pupils, you cannot help but feel happy at how happy and supported the children and the community are. Many of the principals and the teachers will reflect on how different it is now compared with years ago and feel that some of the services continue to be stripped away, in particular the health services. We do not yet know how many speech and language therapists are needed, how many psychologists are needed or how many nurses are needed for particular schools, because that work has not taken place. I ask the Education Minister whether he has had any direct conversations with the Health Minister in progressing that joined-up workforce planning across both Departments, because it is particularly important. I also want to touch on the issue of the individual child. I have heard about the special needs children getting classroom assistants when they are placed either in the mainstream schools or in SPiMS units or children who have attended a mainstream school from primary 1. I do not sit on the Education Committee, but, on the Health Committee and in constituency-based work, we hear time and again that one-to-one is not always the best way forward. It has to be individualised, and it has to be best for that child's needs. Unfortunately, parents wait far too long for those assessments. How many children do we still have on the waiting list to be statemented? That is just to get their statement. How many years must they then wait to get the services that they provide? If the Minister has not already, I recommend that he visit Belfast Boys’ Model School in North Belfast, because they run a different model of operation from other schools that basically cares for the individual needs of each child. We have to be realistic about the fact that there are some schools that do not put up their hand and take in children where it is needed. Fundamentally, at the heart of this are young people and children, and we need to ensure that their needs are met.

772 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:03 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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