A circular that changes more than a date

The Department of Education has published a new circular outlining the new Parents Notify process for children who may require a special class or special school place for the 2027/28 school year. Parents are being asked to notify the NCSE much earlier so that demand can be identified in advance and more appropriate places can be planned across the country. Nobody could honestly argue with that objective. Every year we watch families desperately searching for places that simply don’t exist. We all want better planning. We all want fewer children left without an appropriate school place. On that, I don’t think there is much disagreement. It’s the timing of this that’s the issue.

But before I even get to what I believe is the most significant change in this circular, I have to say this.

Publishing this circular on the 7th of July is a disgrace.

I honestly don’t know who thought this was a good idea. Schools are closed. Principals have finished for the summer. Teachers are on leave. SEN Coordinators aren’t in school. HSCL Coordinators aren’t meeting families. The very people who spend every September explaining these processes, helping parents complete applications, scanning reports, contacting SENOs, answering questions and generally helping families navigate what is already an incredibly complex system simply aren’t there. Yet somehow parents are expected to know that this process now exists and that they have until the 1st of September to complete it. The day many of us return to work. Make it make sense! Are you telling me they couldn't have done this earlier in the school year when they knew that this was the direction of travel? Please. Of course they could have.

Enough people warned that this wouldn’t work. I know because I’ve spoken to many of them. They weren’t trying to block reform. They weren’t trying to make life difficult for anyone. They were simply pointing out the obvious. Parents don’t spend July and August reading Department circulars. Schools are how this information reaches families. Schools explain policy. Schools translate Department language into something parents can actually understand. Schools are the bridge between the Department and families, and for most of July and August that bridge simply isn’t there. I would be genuinely amazed if, by the middle of September, there isn’t enormous pressure to reopen or extend this process because so many families simply won’t have known. In fact, I bet my house on it. I can hear the discussions and pleas in the Dáil now.

But all that said, I don’t think that’s the biggest story here. I think we’ve all become understandably distracted by the deadline while something much more significant has slipped into the circular.

For children who are already enrolled in a mainstream school and are seeking a special class place, the NCSE will now require the child’s most recent Student Support Plan as part of determining eligibility. This changes what Student Support Plans are.

I’ve been saying for months that I believed we were moving in this direction. I said publicly that I thought we were slowly moving away from a system where psychological reports would be the primary gateway into special school and class support and towards one where evidence generated within schools would become increasingly important. Plenty of people told me I was overthinking it and that it would never happen.

Then, last December, Norma Foley announced the Government’s intention to remove the requirement for professional reports, including Assessment of Need reports, for entry to special schools and special classes, replacing that approach with a new education-based process by 2027. Her stated aim is that, ultimately, children should not need a diagnosis simply to access an appropriate educational placement. But removing the requirement for a diagnosis doesn’t remove the need for evidence. It simply changes where that evidence comes from.

And that’s why this circular matters so much. If psychological reports become less central, something else inevitably fills that space. My concern is that we’re beginning to see what that “something else” looks like. Student Support Plans, documents that were originally designed to support teaching and learning, are slowly becoming part of the evidence base upon which access to specialist provision will be decided. That is a profound change, and I don’t think we’ve fully appreciated what it will mean for teachers, schools or families.

Now, to be clear, this circular doesn’t remove the need to have psychological reports. That’s not what I’m saying. But I do believe it represents another significant step along that road, and I think we need to recognise it for what it is.

Before anyone misunderstands me, let me also say this. Teachers absolutely should have a voice. In fact, I’d argue they should have a far stronger voice than they often do. We spend more time with children than almost anyone else involved in the process. We see how they regulate themselves throughout the day. We see what happens when they become overwhelmed. We see how they access learning, interact with peers and respond to support. A report written two or three years ago can never fully capture what a teacher sees over the course of an entire school year. Of course educational evidence is valuable.

But there is a very important distinction between educational evidence informing decisions and educational documentation becoming part of the evidence upon which access to support depends.

That’s the bit that worries me.

For years we’ve been told that Student Support Plans are working documents. They’re supposed to help us identify priorities. They’re supposed to guide teaching. They’re supposed to be living documents that change as children grow, develop and respond to interventions. They’re useful because they’re honest. They aren’t written to prove anything to anyone. They’re written because they help us teach children better.

The moment teachers know that what they write in those plans may influence whether a child secures a special class place, the purpose of the document inevitably begins to change. Suddenly, the audience changes. You’re no longer writing solely for yourself, your colleagues and the child’s parents. You’re writing knowing that somebody outside your school may read every observation, every target and every description as part of making one of the most significant decisions in that child’s educational journey. Whether we like it or not, that creates pressure.

Parents will know these plans matter. Teachers will know these plans matter. Schools will know these plans matter. Then, almost without anyone noticing, Student Support Plans stop being documents that simply support teaching and begin becoming documents that help children access scarce resources. Once that happens, they become higher stakes. Every word suddenly feels more important. Every target feels more significant. Teachers naturally begin wondering not only, What does this child need? but also, How will somebody else read this?

Those are completely different questions.

The irony is that we’ve spent years trying to move away from paperwork for paperwork’s sake. We’ve worked incredibly hard to encourage schools to make support planning practical, meaningful and genuinely useful rather than simply producing documents to satisfy systems. I worry this risks undoing that progress. Once a document becomes linked to access to something as significant as a special class place, it almost inevitably stops being just a teaching document. It becomes an evidence document. It becomes an advocacy document. It becomes something much bigger than it was ever intended to be.

And if that’s where we’re heading, then we need to start having a bit of real talk about what that means for teachers. If Student Support Plans are going to carry this level of significance, then consistency suddenly becomes hugely important. Training becomes hugely important. Time becomes hugely important. Moderation becomes hugely important. We cannot increase the significance of these documents without recognising that we’re also fundamentally changing the responsibility attached to writing them.

Once again, reader, I keep coming back to the same point whenever new education policy is published.

It’s never just about what’s written on the page. It’s about what that page changes.

On paper, this circular simply asks schools to submit an existing document. In reality, I think it’s changing what that document is for.

Maybe I’m wrong. I genuinely hope I am. But experience has taught me that the moment documentation becomes linked to access to limited resources, that documentation changes. All because systems shape behaviour.

The deadline will dominate the conversation over the coming weeks, and rightly so. It deserves every bit of criticism it is receiving. But I have a feeling that, in a year’s time, we won’t be talking about the 1st September deadline.

We’ll be talking about how Student Support Plans suddenly became something they were never originally designed to be.