(Ireland) Laois: 9 new special classes for schools; no accommodations

Mar 16, 2025, Laois Live: Desperate: 'Short notice and no room' for newly announced special classes in Laois

Laois schools have been sanctioned for new special classes, but not provided with accommodation for them

On March 7, the Department of Education sanctioned nine new special classes for Laois schools.

Each new class has been allocated six places, two special needs assistants and one teacher.

While many Laois schools hail this as fantastic news amid a shortage of places in special classes nationally, there is frustration and panic for many principals as they struggle to source physical accommodations for this September.

Some schools have accommodations ready to go, while others are sacrificing their playgrounds and their general purpose areas to accommodate students.

Fianna Fáil's Sean Fleming TD announced these special classes, and acknowledged that it will be a struggle for many schools. 

"The staffing and school places have been approved, the next step will be the accommodation. I will be upfront on this; this will be easier on some schools to manage than others," Deputy Fleming said.

"The classes and the staff have been sanctioned by the Government, it's now down to the schools and their Board of Managements. I accept that hard work has to be done, and it should start now," Deputy Fleming finished.

The Leinster Express/Laois Live reached out to these schools, with six principals explaining there unique situations in the search for accommodating these classes for September. 

The Rock NS will have to find space in their playground for a modular classroom, which will house six special needs pupils, a teacher and two Special Needs Assistants.

“The challenge is having the new building in place for late August. We are due back in September and we need to have it kitted out with equipment.

“I have contacted the department’s building unit and they are being very helpful, so that part is up and running. Please God we will be open in time,” he said.

The school expects to be oversubscribed, with enrolment to be advertised in the coming weeks, after Bishop Denis Nulty as patron gives a letter of permission.

“We have had contact from a lot of families already but our admission process hasn’t started yet. 

“If we are oversubscribed and the SENO (Special Education Needs Officer) indicates that that is likely, we will figure out how to select the most suitable pupils. 

“The criteria will include things like siblings in the school and catchment area but some children will have professional recommendations that they are suitable. We will be consulting the SENO and the NEPS (National Educational Psychological Service) psychologist on it. This is new territory for me and a learning process for me and my staff. 

“As soon as we are ready to go, we will have a notice on our website,” Mr Ahern said.

Principal Bridie Dunne of Castlecuffe NS is happy to open the school's first special class, and the school is working hard to accommodate students for September. 

Castlecuffe NS has three teaching staff and one part time support teacher, and will sacrifice their general purpose area to accommodate their new special class.

"It is a very positive thing to have a special class, and it is positive for the children who are already here too," Ms Dunne said.

"We want to prepare them for the diverse world out there, and to take care of our children in the locality. It will be a lot of work for the Board of Management and myself, but it is worthwhile work," she said.

"Ideally, we would love to have extra space, we don't currently have facilities like a general purpose area in the school," Ms Dunne said.

"It is a challenge to have everything in place for September, it's late enough to be receiving the news. But we hope to be ready in September to fill this class," she said. . . .

"We would like to have this unit open for September, because we have local children in need of a place. We would never want to turn anyone away, but we would have preferred more time to put this in place. We had thought we would hear this news before Christmas," she said.

"But it is what it is, and we will work with it, we want children to be able to come to their local school and not have to travel further away to be accommodated, so we are very happy," Ms Dunne said.

"We are welcoming to all children, and we have done our best to meet the needs of all our pupils within the constraints of a mainstream classroom. We are lucky to have the facilities now, and the equipment that will come with this.

"We have had parents approaching us, with children who have siblings in the school. Since this announcement I have received many applications and emails from parents," Ms Dunne said.

Killeshin NS welcome this news, and are currently working to put a contingency plan in place due to the lack of accommodation for students. 

“We don’t believe in putting students into the PE hall and using that as a makeshift classroom, all children are entitled to a proper education,” Principal Nicola McGuill said.

“The whole school community is delighted and embracing this, but we don’t have a building to put students in,” she said.

“We are implementing a contingency plan and are working to source suitable accommodation for students.” 

Ms McGuill explained that local politicians have visited the school grounds and have been supportive in the search for suitable accommodations.

"Everyone is trying their very best. We are putting everything in action at the moment, we are being proactive about this,” Ms McGuill said. 

“We don’t have a magic wand but the whole school community are working very hard and are really enthusiastic about this, we are working with the Department of Education.”

Principal Seán Smyth welcomed this news, and has said the school will make suitable adjustments to classrooms to accommodate students, without the need of modular buildings.

Scoil Chríost Rí is happy to report that through this new class, they have cleared their waiting list for special classes.

"We opened two special classes in September 2024 and we were met with an awful lot of demand for girls in 6th class," Mr Smyth said.

"This year we had three vacancies in the class, as three of our sixth years will be graduating. We put those up on our admissions notice, and the three spaces warrant enough to clear our waiting lists.

"We contacted the Special Educational Needs Officer (SENO)  to say that there were still students on the list, while we have a purpose built suite and we could accommodate another class. We want to accommodate the needs of students in the area," Mr Smyth said. 

"We managed to clear the students on the waiting list, and we have one or two in mainstream with recent diagnoses and who will need a place in the class. Its great news," Mr Smyth said.

"I know there are students that will need a place in the years to come too. We have to make some adjustments within the building, but we can accommodate students this September within the school without needing prefabs or modular buildings," he said.

Mr Smyth is confident that Scoil Chríost Rí will manage to source staff for the special class for this September.

"It should be easy to get the staff for September , we have existing staff in our two classrooms and we will hire for our third class," he finished.

Principal Noel Daly of Portlaoise College has welcomed this news enthusiastically, while the school awaits for the finishing of their purpose built unit. The principal is excited to welcome new students, and has said the issue is finding space to accommodate them.

"The news is positive from the students perspective, it's great to get the extra class," Mr Daly said.

"There's a huge demand and we are awaiting on a new purpose built unit and we have to accommodate the extra students in modified classrooms. We have no problem with taking in students this September, we will have over 1000 students next year," he said.

"It's down to physical space. We want projects delivered quicker but delays with the Department and planning teams, we need it delivered faster. It costs a lot of extra money to install temporary facilities while we are waiting for our new unit," he said. 

"We have a fantastic team of staff here, we have had a special class for over 15 years. This is not new to us, we are taking extra students in, the same as other schools in the area. We are just waiting on a new purpose built ASD unit."

"It's challenging, the shortage of SNAs. You want to have SNAs that are specialised in different areas, such as in arts or language or sensory issues, different expertise is hard to get. Other schools have also played a huge part in reducing waiting lists across the county, and the SENO has been very proactive. She has been working hard.

"It's fine having funding for special classes, but you need a physical structure to spend it on," Mr Daly finished.

Principal Frankie Andrews of Presentation Primary School Portarlington, welcomed the news of an additional special class in the school.

"Due to the reduction in enrolments across the mainstream school we were able to use an existing classroom and retrofit it to accommodate the new Primary Special class," Ms Andrews said.

"We also converted an adjacent Special Education Teacher's classroom to a Sensory room for the pupils of the new Primary Special Class.

"With creative timetabling, two of our Special Education Teachers were very happy to share a room - this enabled us to free up a room that could then be converted to a Sensory room," the Portarlington principal said.

"This September, we will open our second Primary Special Class, again we will be able to utilise a free classroom due to a reduction in enrolments for next year and the classroom will be next door to our first Primary Special Class - the pupils will therefore be able to access the adjacent Sensory room we created last year for the first Special class," she said.

Last week parents were notified about their applications to the second Primary Special Class. Once again six pupils will be accepted and one Class Teacher and two Special Needs Assistants will be recruited in the coming months.

"We are blessed to be in a position to build on the great work of previous principals and staff in our school since the build of the Early Intervention Classes in 2011.

"We are excited about the addition of the two new Primary Special Classes as it enables our school to meet the needs of our pupils with Autism. . . .