Defence CommitteeWritten evidence from the Northern Ireland Executive

Thank you for your recent letter in which you invited comments on the challenges faced in educating British Armed Forces Service children in the north of Ireland. I have set out below information relating to each of the main issues in which you have asked for comments.

So far as the Service Pupil Premium is concerned, qualifying schools receive an additional £405 per child (201213 rates) for each full-time pupil designated in the school census as being from a Service personnel family. This money is allocated to schools under the Common Funding Formula and is part of the school’s overall delegated budget. Schools are free to deploy such resources according to their own priorities. Monitoring of school expenditure is undertaken by the Education and Library Boards (ELBs) whose accounts are subject to audit by the NI Audit Office. However, the Department of Education (DE) officials are represented on a local Services Children Forum (NISCEF) chaired by the MoD, which considers issues affecting the education of Services children here. Local schools are also represented on this forum. Feedback from this group suggests that due to the transient nature of Services children, they could have moved schools 3 or 4 times, resulting in them missing important aspects of their education due to how and when the curriculum is taught. The allocation from DE would be used to bridge those learning gaps through either in-class or out-of-class catch-up learning.

The allocation can also be used for pastoral care services, for example through the employment of a classroom assistant who would have responsibility to help with emotional and well-being issues such as mental health problems when family members are on deployment in high risk areas; separation from extended family support; and pressures on pupils when they arrive half way through the academic year in making and sustaining friends.

DE is aware of the Ministry of Defence Support Fund, however this fund is not accessed through DE. Army Welfare Services, 38 Irish Brigade liaise with and direct the relevant schools here to the MoD Children and Young People website where the applications can be accessed.

Although Statements of Special Educational Needs (SEN) are not transferrable between jurisdictions, where a child has a statement, schools and the ELBs can take cognizance of this whilst a statutory assessment is undertaken. Furthermore, although the Code of Practice on the identification and assessment of SEN here sets out a 5-stage process, as opposed to the 3-stage process in England/Wales, the time frame for conducting an assessment is the same in both jurisdictions, namely 26 weeks subject to the statutory exceptions. On receipt of a request from a parent or school to commence a statutory assessment, an ELB has 6 weeks in which to inform the school and parent if it will conduct the assessment. If the ELB decides to proceed with the assessment it has 10 weeks in which to do so. If, as a result of the assessment, the Board decides that a statement is necessary it must within 2 weeks serve a draft statement on the parent. This is followed by a further period of 8 weeks to enable the parent to discuss with the ELB the contents of the statement. At the end of this period the ELB must issue the final statement.

General transfer of information between schools when Service children move is a recognised problem here. Feedback from the local Services Children Forum suggests that schools would welcome a consistent format for the transfer of documentation.

John O’Dowd MLA
Minister for Education

28 May 2013