(Ireland) East Cork: "Likely demand for [SPED] classes and support"

June 2, 2026,  Bridging the Gap: Parents build a case for a new special needs school in East Cork

The move to ‘big’ school brings new worries for parents. For the eldest child in a family, the transition from primary to post-primary is uncharted territory.

With it comes new responsibilities like lockers and timetables, exam halls, and more subjects. There’s a lot for parents to get their heads around too, long before their child sets foot in the door, like open nights and admissions policies.

If they are lucky enough to have multiple options, they will have to make important decisions about which school to send their child. Usually, as the first to break new ground, the eldest children in the family bear the brunt of these worries.

In the seaside town of Youghal, East Cork, John and Clair Philips are already thinking carefully about where their youngest child, Sebastian, a Junior Infant student who is almost six years old, will go to post-primary school.

Sebastian is autistic and pre-verbal, flourishing in his class at Bunscoile Mhuire, the primary school he attends with his sisters Olivia, nearly 12, and Isabel, who is eight.

His big sister Olivia will leave primary school long before him. She was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and her parents expect her to attend mainstream secondary school locally when she starts in September 2027.

“We don’t have the same worries,” John explained. “It's a straightforward kind of pathway, whereas Sebastian, we are already thinking about where he will go.”  . . .

Spurred on each year by headlines and radio segments about the students the system failed to plan for, the group wanted to get ahead by anticipating the likely demand for classes and support in their area, and avoid repeating an annual pattern.