Why AsIAm should run a mile from NCSE
Just when we thought the Friday evening emails had come to an end, just after 6pm today an email came from the National Council for Special Education. It began with the ominous turn of phrase: “I hope this email finds you well.”
It announced that it is doing a collaboration with AsIAm called the Autism Friendly Schools Project. They helpfully provided a link to a letter from AsIAm which I clicked. The letter from AsIAm began with the ominous turn of phrase: “I hope this email finds you well.”
The email explained how since 2019/20 AsIAm have been running a project that allows schools to “investigate ways in which we can further refine what it truly means to be ‘Autism Friendly’ in primary and post-primary schools across Ireland.”
In order to become part of this project, all a school needs to do is give AsIAm €500 (or €300 if you signed up before) and the school gets the following:
One thing I know about schools is that I have never met a school leader that doesn’t strive to be friendly to every child that enrols in their school. In almost every case, when this isn’t possible, it’s because of systematic issues. While that might seem surprising to many people that spend their time reading about education on social media, the vast majority of schools are very caring places. (There are over 500,000 children in primary schools in Ireland and, overall, they generally report to like school.)
Systematic issues are the things that prevent schools from doing more. For example, when a non-Catholic child enrols in a Catholic school, the school cannot be 100% inclusive to her/him because the system forces the school to promote Catholicism in the school. The school does what it can do within the constraints of the system.
For example, I was in Finland visiting a school and learned that most schools have a full-time social worker, nurse and psychologist working in the school. Imagine if Irish schools had that. We don’t even have a specific qualification for teaching in special settings. We rely on goodwill and guesswork, both of which we have in abundance.
When an autistic child enrols in a school, the school will do everything they can to ensure an inclusive environment for the child within the constraints of the system.
However, who are the gatekeepers of the system? Which organisation provides schools with 100% of the resources they have in terms of AEN? Who do schools apply to to try and access these supports? Who refuses over 90% of these applications? That’s right, the NCSE.
The NCSE is already supposed to provide schools with all the training it needs, which it does through https://sess.ie/ncsesupport. They also provide workshops and seminars throughout the year.
As for the AFS (Autism Friendly Schools) working group, funnily enough, most schools already have these in place. They are SET teams, which do exactly the same work, again within the constraints of the system. As an aside, ironically, if you sign a teacher up to this scheme, you don’t sub cover as they don’t provide that. Likely that will be a member of the Special Education Team.
However, what I find most vulgar about the project is that it implies if one doesn’t sign up to the project, by inference, a school is not autism friendly.
Collaborating with the very organisation that is the root of all the reasons why schools can’t provide autistic children with all the help they need is a very ill-thought out idea. Worse yet, who is supporting this ill-thought out scheme? I can’t even bring myself to naming them but it’s most of the same crowd that did that short lived and equally meaningful Flags for Frontline Workers thing during COVID.
So, in reply, I might write:
Dear NCSE/AsIAm,
I hope this email finds you well.
I would rather spend my €500 on a crowdfunding campaign to bring the NCSE to task for their continued failings over the years to provide children with additional needs with the supports they require.
Yours sincerely,
Primary Schools of Ireland.
