IF a child relies on one-to-one classroom assistant support today, will they still have it next year?
It is a simple question. Yet after weeks of raising concerns in the Assembly, questioning senior officials and pressing the DUP Education Minister directly, we still do not have a clear answer.
The Education Authority’s proposed Enhanced Support Model, announced without consultation one evening via social media, has created real and growing anxiety. At the heart of that anxiety is uncertainty about the future of one-to-one support for children with Special Educational Needs.
For many families across the North, one-to-one support is not an added extra. It is what allows their child to feel safe, to regulate, to learn and to participate in school life. Parents often fight tooth and nail to secure that support. It can take months, sometimes years, of assessments and appeals.
To now leave those same families in limbo is simply not acceptable.
Classroom assistants are watching this unfold with deep concern. These are skilled, compassionate professionals who work every day with some of the most vulnerable children in our education system.
Their patience, expertise and care are central to effective SEN provision. Yet their wages, terms and conditions stand in stark contrast to the value of the work they perform.
I recently visited the specialist provision in Coláiste Feirste and saw the remarkable work teachers and classroom assistants are doing to support children with additional needs. Their commitment is extraordinary, yet the support they receive from the Department and Education Authority, particularly in the Irish-medium sector, falls far short of what is required.
They are the backbone of support in our schools, but this Minister and the Education Authority treat them as an afterthought.
The DUP is taking our education system down a bad path. Broken commitments to school leaders, a harmful reform agenda and now uncertainty around vital support for vulnerable children.
Reform must enhance provision, not weaken it.
Families deserve clarity. Classroom assistants deserve respect. And children with additional needs deserve certainty.
We will continue to hold those responsible to account until they provide that certainty.
Pat Sheehan is a West Belfast MLA for Sinn Féin.
