NI Education Authority: Consultations on five-year school plan to begin today

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The Education Authority will begin proposals today

By Q Radio News

Consultations to help decide the future shape of schools in Northern Ireland will begin today.

The draft area plan by the Education Authority sets out proposals for how the number and nature of schools in Northern Ireland could change over the next five years.

Education Authority (EA) Director of Education Michele Corkey said:

“The Education Authority, collaborating with CCMS and engaging with all sectoral support bodies, has developed this draft plan based on what has been learnt from the last Strategic Area Plan and feedback from school principals and sectoral bodies.

“To meet the draft plan’s goals, we need managing authorities and sectoral bodies to continue to work together to find solutions to the many complex challenges which are shaped by falling or rising pupil numbers, parental choice, changing demographics and multiple school sectors
within a certain area.

“Our focus must remain at all times on the educational needs of pupils and not on the needs of individual institutions or sectors.”

The EA has also launched the consultation on its first regional plan to focus on creating special education provision that ensures all pupils in Special Schools and Specialist Provision in Mainstream Schools have the opportunity to achieve their full potential by having their individual needs met.

Ms Corkey said:

“Not everyone has the same access to special schools and specialist provisions currently, with some areas of Northern Ireland having no specialist provision, or not enough to meet the needs of the local area.

“Our ambitious plan is to create enough school places that pupils can attend the nearest suitable special school or suitable mainstream school with specialist provision, and which can adapt to their changing educational, physical and medical needs.

"We plan to have a consistent model across all areas of Northern Ireland that would see special school education, nursery through to Post 16 (ages 3-19), provided in the same school for the majority of pupils, and in some cases where this is not possible we plan to have close collaboration between schools to streamline the transition process and avoid uncertainty for families.”

The consultations will run from 12 noon on Tuesday January 18 2022 until Tuesday April 12 2022.

The consultations and all related information are available to download at https://www.eani.org.uk/publications/consultations

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