Special schooling in Ireland, anyone with any experience

[theDudesmummy]

I would be grateful if anyone is able to help me, or signpost me to any help.

DS is 10 and autistic. He is in a special needs school in England. We are considering moving to Ireland.

DS will need a special needs school there. We are in the position of basically being able to live anywhere as our work is freelance type stuff which we could do anywhere (although I need to be able to fly to England about once a month for a few days). So we could basically choose any area to live in, the most important factor is meeting DS's needs.

I have plenty of experience of negotiating the SN education system in England, but am not sure how it all works in Ireland. How easy or feasible would it be to pick a school, move to very near to it, and apply to get into it? We did exactly this in England two years ago, when we moved out of London to the countryside, DS was out of school completely for a term and in an inappropriate mainstream placement for another half a term for assessment, before they granted the school we wanted (we had moved to practically next door to it with the express purpose of getting into the school). It was quite stressful but I was sure that in the end we would get what we wanted, because I had a lot of knowledge of how the English system works (including having won a tribunal against the previous Local Authority).

If we made the huge decision to move to Ireland, we would need to be sure that in the end we were not doing something that would potentially be disadvantageous for DS, who is our top priority.

Has anyone got any thoughts? Much appreciated.

It is a very different system.
A lot of children on the spectrum are in ASD units within mainstream schools. Special school are more unusual. It really depends on needs.

Ah OK. He was in mainstream up until two years ago, but we then moved him to special school. He is non-verbal, so began to struggle in mainstream.

I don't object to a special unit in a mainstream school, but would not want him in a big school. I was hoping for something small and outside the cities which is what we have now.

Maybe contact an organisation like the Middletown Institute or Asiam. They might be able to give information.

OK, thanks, I will try them...

Hi there, I just came back to report a very positive experience and a good outcome.

I found a site that lists every special school in Ireland, and emailed the head teacher of each one. Three types of response. No reply, reply with varying degrees of helpfulness but emphasising barriers and potential difficulties, and positive encouraging reply. I pursued only the ones in the third category, and then DH went over there to meet each head teacher at their school. One stood out above the rest, she had already been extremely helpful on the phone and was the same in person. She helped us arrange the required ed psych assessment and to apply for a place at her school. It turns out that Ireland is very different to England in this, in that it is the school itself and not the Local Authority that has the final say. No messing around with ECHPs, waiting for funding panels etc etc.

The end of the story is that DS is starting school there in June!

And also, if that was not good enough, here in England you really have to choose between a one-to-one TA or a special school (we had the former first, and later on the latter) In Ireland he is getting both!