General Teaching Council Northern Ireland

‘Lack of vision’ for special needs

Belfast Telegraph

Northern Ireland’s education boards need to work more closely together in order to ensure equality, consistency and the highest quality of provision for children with special needs, according to a new report published yesterday.

The need for a shared vision at a strategic level for around 1,800 children with moderate learning difficulties here has been highlighted following an evaluation by the Education and Training Inspectorate.

It evaluated the quality of special educational needs provision in special units attached to mainstream schools during surveys carried out in February this year.

While praising the teaching in the school units as generally being of very high quality, the inspectors said there is a lack of vision, strategic planning and commonality of approach to unit provision across the education and library boards.

The report said the boards “need to work together more cohesively to plan strategically for the future development of unit provision”.