Last week schools across Ireland returned to the classroom for the final term of the academic year. Soon schoolbags, pencil cases and school tracksuits will fill the shelves of supermarkets, reminding families to plan for the start of the next school year in September. For any family this is a time of intense planning and preparation, with some anticipation and anxiety.
Yet there are hundreds of autistic children – who often require the greatest level of time and preparation – who still do not know where they will go to school next September. While most families understandably take for granted this constitutionally-protected rite of passage, many in the autistic community are forced to wait anxiously. They wait to see if another rejection letter will arrive, from perhaps the 10th or 20th school to which they have applied. Or if today will be the day that much hoped for offer of a place arrives. If they get a place they will have to wait to see if it will be appropriate to their child’s needs, if it will be in their locality where they can join siblings or peers, or if it involves a bus to a different community, a long way from home.
Some will hear there is no school place at all come September.
It was in this context that the Department of Education announced a proposed new model of support for autistic children called “inclusive special classes”. This announcement, which came without consulting a single autistic child, parent or representative organisation, proposes to increase the number of children in an autism class from six to 12, with a corresponding increase in the number of teachers and special needs assistants (SNAs).
While the support is packaged as a classroom, it comes without any additional physical space despite the specific sensory requirements of many autistic children and young people. The model will place an emphasis on children being integrated into mainstream as much as possible during the day, with children accessing pre-existing special class space as required.
In a hastily issued announcement, families were unclear as to what this would mean for their child, if the resources provided would meet their needs and if this proposed change was about inclusion, saving money or perhaps both.
While five secondary schools were announced as the starting point for this approach, it was not clear if this will be a local arrangement, a pilot or a whole new model of support. What confuses families and teachers working within the system the most is what defines an “inclusive class”. As all autism classes are meant to provide opportunities for participation in mainstream activities. But this seemed to be proposing a worrying two-tier system of support.
Needless to say, the abrupt nature of the department’s press release left parents who are awaiting news of a school place – and who are already tired from fighting a system meant to vindicate their child’s rights – even more anxious and concerned. Autistic people and families are all too aware that the existing system is not delivering, but it is critical that our community is central to finding the solutions to making it work.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case to date. In recent months, the same department caused a national crisis when it proposed to remove much needed SNA support from schools, a sign that it was again failing to recognise the specific support needs of autistic children. Before Christmas the Government announced a proposal to remove the requirement for a clinical recommendation in an autism assessment report as a ground for accessing special class support, while the department simultaneously declined to answer basic questions on what was envisaged as an alternative.
It is clear that these constant ad hoc, often ill-conceived, announcements are a symptom of a system in crisis, struggling to keep pace with demand and out of touch with the lived experience of autistic children and families. Each year, the department finds itself underestimating demand for autism classes and special school places. Despite this, we have yet to see the department’s own data on how many children are eligible for a place this year – or indeed how many are without an offer. It is only by having evidence-based conversations with our community that we can design the inclusive education system which Ireland has committed to.
This is an issue that goes deeper than improved communications, stakeholder engagement or national planning. It is a symptom of a deep-rooted charity-based model that continues to exist within our education system. While consulting extensively with stakeholders such as unions or management bodies, it is content to make decisions about us without us. It assumes families will simply accept whatever they are offered. It is a clear contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
This approach would be inexcusable even if it was effective, but the reality is anything but. As families continue to wait for news, they will know that this battle is likely the first of many. Our 2026 Same Chance Report, an annual state of the community report on autistic life in Ireland, showed more than 50 per cent of the children represented were in school places that their parents felt did not meet their needs and used teaching approaches that were inappropriate to their child. A lack of mandatory teaching training, discriminatory policies and too few suitable supports or access to meaningfully be included with peers are all day-to-day realities within our system.
For too long, we have equated inclusion with mere access and failed to deliver meaningfully at the systemic level. Tweaks and announcements are made year on year but generally with the needs of the system in mind. Not the needs of the end user – the child whom the Oireachtas voted the resources to support. It doesn’t have to be this way. Rather than shuffling from crisis to crisis, tweaking around the edges, the State can choose to engage with our community as rights-holders and experts in our own lives. If Ireland is truly committed to a sustainable, inclusive education system our starting point must be to design it with those it is proposed to serve. Anything less will repeat old failures.
Adam Harris is chief executive of AsIAm
