Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I welcome Colm Davis, who is the principal of Tor Bank School, Harry Greer, who is the Northern Ireland president of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) and the principal of Harmony Hill Primary School, and Helena Macormac, who is the policy director for NAHT. We have handouts from the NAHT. I do not know who will lead off, but you can make a short presentation and then we will open it up to questions.

Ms Helena Macormac (National Association of Head Teachers): I will start with our presentation, if that is OK. NAHT welcomes the opportunity to respond to this call for evidence, and we are delighted that the Committee has given us the opportunity to present oral evidence on what we feel is a vital issue. We welcome the Bill but have concerns about the implications of its outworking, and we have provided a summary of that for you.

Very briefly, for those of you who might not be familiar with our work, NAHT is an independent trade union and professional association with 29,000 members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Members include principals, vice-principals and bursars, and, from September 2014, we have represented middle leaders as well. We have membership within the nursery, primary, post-primary and special sectors throughout Northern Ireland, and we believe that that places us in an excellent position to provide a broad, informed practitioner position on the highly important matter at hand. This is a joint presentation with Tor Bank School. We have come together to highlight the implications of the draft legislation for vulnerable learners particularly.

We start by saying that pupil well-being is of the utmost concern to us. We believe that schools must have the autonomy, resources and support to tailor the most effective preventative approach to the insidious and highly damaging issue of bullying. In addition, schools must be given guidance and clarity in respect of an efficient and swift process approach when incidents occur. It is with that in mind that we would like to present our evidence. From the outset, it must be acknowledged that much good practice exists within schools in Northern Ireland and that the development and implementation of such initiatives have been driven by school leaders. Many schools have stand-alone anti-bullying policies in addition to their discipline policies. While such initiatives should be highly commended, it is recognised that bullying continues to be a persistent problem within schools for a variety of complex reasons.

You will all have received a copy of our detailed response, along with the detailed response that has been provided by Tor Bank School. In our response, we address the Bill on a clause-by-clause basis. Given the limited time of the presentation, we wish to focus on eight key issues. A brief overview has been provided in the handout.

First, we are concerned at the potential unintended consequences of placing the definition of bullying on a statutory footing, given the complexity of the issue and the different challenges that are faced by schools throughout Northern Ireland. Currently, there is no common definition of bullying; however, it is recognised that schools have legally defined responsibilities. Greater clarity would be welcomed in respect of those responsibilities. Different schools have different circumstances. While the development of a definition is welcome, we are concerned that uniformly holding each school to account under the same legal definition at hand will not reflect the different challenges that are faced by schools throughout Northern Ireland. In particular, we are concerned that applying a mainstream bullying definition to a special school may have unintended detrimental consequences.

Many special-school leaders and staff tailor specialist bullying policies to reflect the highly complex needs of the children within their often greatly diverse educational setting. A statutory definition incorporating intent would need to be carefully applied in the context of children with behavioural and learning difficulties. For example, children with severe learning difficulties often do not intentionally hit out in an attempt to bully another person. A staff member with a high degree of experience and expertise who knows the child best is in the best position to be able to distinguish what is bullying, rather than uniformly applying a statutory definition. In addition, putting the definition on a statutory footing may have unintended consequences for vulnerable learners in any school setting that may have above-average rates of behavioural issues or disadvantage. Such schools may have excellent policies and procedures and staff initiatives in place, yet barriers and factors beyond the control of the school may mean that the school will struggle to fulfil legislative requirements. That may have implications with regard to accountability, thus damaging staff morale and inhibiting tailored initiatives.

With that in mind, I turn to our second point. We are concerned that the proposal does not adequately acknowledge that addressing the needs of children and young people goes beyond the limit of individual schools. We believe that all stakeholders who are involved with pupil well-being, including governors, parents and staff, must work collaboratively to address bullying. Therefore, tackling bullying comprehensively is beyond the limited scope of the proposed legislation at hand. It must be recognised that a definition alone cannot prevent bullying. Such a new policy or legislative change must be supported by guidance and adequate resourcing as part of a collaborative interdepartmental strategy. As is implied, it is the intention of the Assembly to develop a statutory definition. Therefore, we have provided comment in our response as to how that proposed definition could be strengthened. We do, however, recommend that further consultation and piloting of the definition in schools is undertaken before it is brought into legislation.

Thirdly, we are concerned that the proposed definition does not incorporate international best practice by giving recognition to the key element of power imbalance. We wish to know the rationale for that highly concerning omission. Schools and school leaders possess a great deal of experience and expertise with regard to pupil relations and are capable of distinguishing between bullying, where there is an imbalance of power, and deliberate repeated aggressive behaviour between equals — for example, playground fights. Those who are closest to the children are often best placed to identify situations. To omit such a crucial aspect of the definition would have detrimental consequences, and would undoubtedly lead to schools having to record many more non-bullying incidents than necessary, thus inflating statistics. Guidance on the element of power imbalance should give explicit mention to the fact that the primary motivation for bullying behaviour can often be prejudice or discrimination based on actual or perceived differences with respect to, but not limited to, the various groups in section 75. We are also cautious that the Bill identifies repetition as a key criterion for bullying. Whilst repetition can be a crucial element in many instances, it must be acknowledged that the actions of the perpetrator are central, whether they act once or repeatedly.

Fourthly, whilst the Bill does address issues of bullying by electronic communication, this legislation does not adequately address all the ramifications of such a multi-faceted and legally complex area. We recommend that DENI develop a separate policy and accompanying consultation process with regards to tackling cyberbullying. In the experience of our members, parents frequently approach schools to request that they deal with incidents of cyberbullying that have happened outside of school hours. Schools and school leaders cannot be responsible for what happens outside of the school day. However, school leaders recognise that bullying can be complex and what may start outside school will have consequences within the school. The Department must thoroughly inform parents of the remit of school responsibility. When incidents occur that are beyond the remit of the school, parents should be provided with guidance and a means of support, so as to ensure that situations are dealt with effectively.

Fifthly, the Bill removes the principal's duty to determine measures in respect of bullying as per the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, and confers the duty upon the board of governors. We are concerned at the impact of increased liability for voluntary boards of governors. The explanatory and financial memorandum states that this duty has been removed to prevent conflict. It is not clear what is meant by this statement. While central guidance to ensure consistency of approach would be helpful, the autonomy of school leaders to tackle the acute issues faced in their schools must be given. Boards of governors are voluntary, and cannot be on site to ensure that measures are taken in relation to every incident. We also wish to know to what extent they will be required to engage in consultation with the principals, pupils, and parents, prior to developing measures. What resources and assistance will be given to facilitate this, and why was consultation with staff omitted from this clause? Many larger schools have pastoral teams to oversee incidents, so staff should be involved in determining measures. While legislatively the responsibility will lie with governors, the practical responsibility will lie with school leaders. Greater responsibility on governors may overburden their capacity, leading to difficulties in recruiting new governors.

The Bill confers a duty to keep a record of incidents of bullying. We recognise the importance and value of recording complaints, but we have concerns regarding the appropriate implementation of this duty and the impact on workload and on limited resources. A key aspect of effective school leadership is the ability to handle difficult situations. Handling accusations of bullying from parents and pupils requires strong interpersonal skills. When every aspect of a conversation has to be recorded as a mandatory requirement with a high level of detail, interpersonal diplomacy may become limited. This will hinder the ability of education professionals to avert situations before they escalate. As the Assembly research paper highlights, effective recording of incidents is usually dealt with by policy and not by legislation, as a flexible approach, rather than rigorous bureaucratic monitoring, is required in order to be effective. We recommend that an efficient, effective mechanism, collating existing reporting approaches with robust guidelines and templates, is developed in partnership with school leaders. In addition, we are concerned at the potential developing of a misleading league table of bullying, which may occur as a consequence of the publication of statistics from a central record. The creation of such a record would be unacceptable, as it would not reflect the widely varying circumstances in every school.

Lastly, we are concerned with resource issues relating to the Bill. A cost analysis must be considered here. The current economic climate means that school budgets are already stretched to the limit. Without additional specific resources, schools cannot be expected to absorb the cost of implementing the Bill within existing funds.

That concludes our oral statement.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Thank you. A point, Helena, is that you could pause for breath at times. [Laughter.]

You packed an awful lot into a very short time.

We will ask some questions. There are probably elements of your presentation — I am not precluding anything that anybody has said, but a number of those points are quite familiar to us now, in that others have made them, so we may at an earlier stage have explored some of the issues. If we do not touch on an issue, it is not because we are not interested in it but probably because we are going along very similar lines.

In terms of the definition, I appreciate you are making a general point across schools with regard to your concern about one size fits all, but obviously and very specifically, as is the case with Colm, you showed the dichotomy of the situation of applying essentially a mainstream definition of bullying to special schools, where indeed sometimes, special schools themselves would, in that regard, be quite variable in their nature.

To clarify, if you are we going to have a definition, if you like, of bullying — clearly, you feel that definition is not necessarily going to be appropriate to special schools — do you feel that the legislation should have a separate definition for special schools, or do you feel that special schools, for instance, should simply be excluded from the definition of bullying? Where do you stand on that?

Mr Harry Greer (National Association of Head Teachers): I will pick up on that, Mr Chairman, just to say that I do not necessarily think so. While we referred to the special needs sector — Colm is from Tor Bank, which is a special school — we feel that the same principles might apply to children with special needs in mainstream schools who are vulnerable and have limitations on their ability to do something. I think some of them could be caught up, because sometimes in a mainstream school a child with special needs and who has a statement of special needs, for example, can be more misunderstood in a way.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I understand that. I suspect, notwithstanding any decision that the Assembly will take, that we are likely to end up with a definition in whatever format, rather than no definition. From that point of view, would you seek, be it for statemented children or special needs children, somebody to be qualified? How do you believe, from a legislative point of view, that should be handled?

Mr Colm Davis (Tor Bank School): I will just take up Harry's point that they would be qualified legally. The secret may be giving enough flexibility in the guidance. It will be about having the protocols and having the guidance written by practitioners from all the different sectors, including that one, to affect how it is applied. As you said, Peter, there is such a wide variation even within the special sector. We have not done any recent research on bullying of children with special educational needs in mainstream or even in special schools. A lot has been done in England by different organisations — that is possibly to do with their own agendas on autism, for example — but not so much has been done here recently. However, you would probably find that, in the special schools sector, where we should bear in mind the staff influence on the whole classroom environment, the staff know the children inside out. They will know whether the bullying is intentional, whether they are obsessional and whether it is part of the autism or other condition. Those children are so well monitored, and the strategies are built in to their individual education programme for anger management, for example, or to break an obsession with another pupil or a particular thing. It is probably easier to monitor things, and recording is very meticulous. The worry, when some of these children are mainstreamed, is how that is managed, recorded and perceived in a mainstream teaching environment.

Mr Greer: I think it could be very difficult in the mainstream for the parents of a child who is being hurt or offended by a child who has some sort of special educational needs. It is hard for parents of the alleged victim to understand that. But at the same time, the child who has committed the act of bullying, offending or causing emotional hurt may not intend to do it. When we were in the Public Gallery, I was interested to hear a previous speaker say that they would like schools to have a degree of latitude and discretion when it comes to interpretation. I am not sure that is given in the Bill at the minute. A big concern of ours is the discretion that Colm is talking about, where a teacher knows their pupils. We accept that there have to be rigorously applied strategies to address the issue, but there also has to be, particularly for these pupils, some recognition of the teachers' and the school leader's understanding of the child's needs.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Yes, I suppose that this may come down to what is, first, in the legislation and, secondly, in the guidance. In talking about the intention of the legislation, one of the potential issues is whether, from a practical point of view, the test is seen as purely objective. I suspect that, in practical terms, it may be a bit more subjective, and maybe that would be no bad thing. That is more of a comment.

A number of members want to speak, but I want to touch briefly on two issues. Helena mentioned that there is, obviously, considerable concern over clause 2, which is on the duties of boards of governors. I suppose I am paraphrasing here a little bit, but, effectively, the duty has switched and flipped from being a duty on the head teacher to being purely on the board of governors. By the same token, it is clear that there is probably going to be some level of duty on the board of governors. Would you like to see clause 2 removed altogether, or do you feel that there should be considerable rebalancing of it so that principals have a greater input? Whatever is in the legislation, we all know that, from a practical point of view, a lot of the work will be undertaken by head teachers; that is where it is going to be. Is it realistic to simply say that there is not any duty at all on boards of governors, or is it a question of rebalancing it?

Mr Greer: We are entirely happy with the board of governors having a governance view of this, but the Bill now confers the duty on the board of governors to determine measures. We contest that it is very difficult for a board of governors to determine and scrutinise individual measures without the principal. As we said in Helena's presentation, there is a pastoral team and a senior team in the school, so there are more people who need to be involved in this sort of work than just the principal or the board of governors. It may be that the guidance will explain it better or be more helpful, but as it stands at the minute —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Yes; there should, at the very least, be a level of adjustment.

Mr Greer: At the minute, it looks as though it removes the duty from principals. We accept the duty of the board of governors in governance, but, practically, we do not think that is a sensible move.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I want to raise one final point with you. You covered quite a few points in your presentation. This has been expressed by a number of members, and it was raised at Second Stage as well. It may be less about the legislation and more about the practical outworkings of this. Time and time again, concern has been raised about the need to collect data and to ensure that that is there. You used the phrase, "league table of bullying", and others mentioned that. From a practical or legislative point of view, do you have any thoughts on how we prevent the collection of data emerging as a danger? How do we crack that problem?

Mr Greer: I think it was mentioned before that, if every single incident of somebody being offended or words being exchanged can be defined as bullying, there would be an explosion in record-keeping. I think that the guidance could work very well here. There will be examples of excellent practice in schools in Northern Ireland. That is very sensible practice, and it provides sufficient record-keeping to protect the child, communicate with parents, monitor the situation and eradicate the issue. So, I suggest that we look at existing good practice and be sensible about it.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): OK. I think that at least six members are looking in, so I ask them to be brief in their questions and not take their lead from the Chair. Jonathan, you are first.

Mr Craig: Thanks, Chair. I will ask you two obvious questions. I think you may —

Mr Newton: Is he getting to ask two questions, Chair?

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Make it one comment.

Mr Craig: It will be short. You may have heard them anyway.

First, what is your opinion on the remit being extended to staff? Maybe you have heard it. I cannot understand why you would do that, because it falls under disciplinary codes anyway. Secondly, I note that you raised concerns about resources and the ability of a school to carry out extensive record-keeping. We all know that there is a massive difference between resources in the primary sector and the secondary sector, which handle these things slightly differently because of the resources. What are your views on that?

Mr Greer: You are speaking to the converted about resources for primary schools, Jonathan. That is maybe another debate. Where there is an increase or explosion in paperwork and record-keeping, it will create a difficulty for primary schools. Schools do not have the resources to provide teachers, even senior teachers and so on, with release time. Record-keeping could be managed sensibly through good guidance.

On your first question about staff, I do not think we feel that the Bill needs to include that. I think we feel that there are sufficient employment law rights and so on conferred on all the parties in a school to deal with that, and we feel it would come up naturally under a disciplinary procedure.

Mrs Overend: I will not repeat the questions that I thought of; they have been answered. Thank you. It has been interesting to hear your views. I want to ask about children with special educational needs and special schools and the need for maybe an additional clause to cater for them.

Mr Davis: I do not know what that additional clause would look like, to be honest with you.

Mrs Overend: That is what I was going to ask about.

Mr Davis: It is important that they are acknowledged, but I do not know what such a clause would look like. That is the problem you have with trying to impose any definitions on special schools or kids who sometimes sit outside the remit of normal definitions. To me, it would have to have enough flexibility, but how we would get that in I do not know. Do you have any ideas on that, Harry?

Mr Greer: It maybe goes slightly beyond children who have a statement of special needs. For example, you could have a child who is going through very distressing home circumstances and may, for a limited period, have anger issues, fear issues or anxiety issues caused by something outside school. How that child interacts with another child can be changed by that. Some sort of allowance clause could maybe be implemented.

I read the Minister's speech when he introduced the Bill, and we get and agree totally with the need for consistency. But I am not sure that a clause relating only to children with statements of special needs would give sufficient flexibility in circumstances where a child has gone through a difficult, distressing and hurtful experience outside school that, for a limited period, has changed their behaviour and how they interact with other pupils. Allowing for all that is difficult. Would it weaken the Bill if the definition included the words "taking account of"?

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): All this food for thought, particularly for when we deal with departmental officials.

Mrs Overend: Maybe the guidance that comes afterwards would be able to describe the flexibility that would take situations such as the one you described into consideration.

Mr Greer: As I think Colm would agree, we are increasingly dealing in schools with societal problems and family difficulties and so on. In primary schools and special schools, those difficulties have an impact on children whose behaviour changes. So, children who normally would never have any negative interactions with others can do so for a limited period, because they are upset due to what they are living through. I feel that the current definition being on a statutory footing does not allow enough discretion.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): We are in a position to look at potential amendments to put to DE, but it may also be that, if we are looking at the proper flexibility being in the statutory guidance, we would want to get the Department very publicly tied to that position. That is one of the advantages of getting assurances that we could use in the Chamber. We need to have a very clear understanding of that.

Mr Greer: In Helena's presentation, we talked about the school leader needing very strong interpersonal skills to deal with situations like that. Where you have a situation where a child's behaviour has temporarily changed, although it may be long-lasting, because of a crisis situation outside school and another parent comes in to raise concern about that child's behaviour towards their child, often the strong interpersonal, pastoral and people skills of the school leader can diffuse and bring a bit of understanding to the situation through discussions with the parent. If you have a definition, it is done and dusted, and it does not take account of a moment in time that can be worked through positively with families when a situation occurs. I think that is our fear with that.

Mr Kennedy: Thank you very much indeed for your presentation. My sense is that you are inclined to think that better regulation and guidance would achieve more than legislation. Is that a fair assessment in the profession generally?

Mr Greer: Yes.

Mr Kennedy: Do you want to expand on that? You are clearly indicating the potential problems that the legislation, as it stands, would create. That gives me a sense that there is a certain nervousness on your behalf about what principals and other teachers will have to face as a consequence of this going through. Are you indicating that it would be far better to provide stronger guidance or regulation than legislation?

Mr Davis: Yes, certainly, Danny, that would be the key to the success of this. We are all in agreement that something like that is certainly needed across all schools to get more harmony and consistency. It is about who draws the guidance up and what stakeholders are involved in that to ensure that we are all in agreement that it is workable, does not add to the existing workload of schools or governors [Inaudible.]

— that is a key issue — and is actually in the best interests of all children. That includes those who, as Harry pointed out, have had differences in their lives over short periods of time, those with special needs and those with and without statements. Getting the guidance right will be the key to success.

Mr Greer: We would probably also accept the Minister's concern, and presumably the Committee's, that, as we stand, there may be inconsistent application of anti-bullying policies and approaches in schools. However, there are many examples of fantastic, outstanding practice, so when the guidance is being developed, I think it would be really helpful if we called on those. Simply, if some schools are applying very rigorous, successful policies and some are not, that is not right for the children. But there is enough good practice out there, Danny, for the guidance to be flexible enough, to exemplify good practice and, to be fair, to tie schools to that level of good practice. I think that is better done through good guidance, as long as the good guidance takes account of the best practice that is happening and is aware of where best practice is not happening. There is a need to bring that up to scratch; we accept that.

Mr Lunn: Thanks for your presentation. I was interested in what you both said about the special schools and the need for the legislation, because, instinctively, I would have thought that there would be a case for excluding special needs schools as designated from the legislation. That would be simple. Harry, you said that it could impact on mainstream schools with special needs and special units, but —

Mr Greer: Actually, that is maybe mainstream schools that do not have special units. There are a lot of children now with statements of special needs who are in mainstream schools but not in units.

Mr Lunn: Right, OK. I still tend to think that the application of the legislation, no matter what comes out at the end of our process, does not really relate to the pupils that you probably have, Colm, or that other special schools have. The way you would deal with those situations would not be so formal, given the fact that, I would say, you know your pupils a lot better than those in mainstream schools with huge populations would know their pupils. You know them inside out, and you can spot these things. I continue to think that perhaps exclusion from the legislation of that type of school would be a good start. Also, in schools like yours, there is no possible element of bullying by what could be called mainstream pupils on special needs pupils, which I would think would be reasonably prevalent. Maybe you could advise me, Harry. I see the need for the legislation to be applied to all mainstream schools, whether they have special units, statemented pupils or whatever. That is fine, but I am not sure about Tor Bank or Ceara School.

Mr Davis: In some ways it is a difficult one. We deal with bullying, like we deal with most other incidents, by trying to support the holistic needs of the child. We put in lots of support that perhaps the mainstream cannot provide. You have art therapy and music therapy, and we buy in an additional counselling service. We collect copious data on changes in behaviour or obsession with other pupils etc, and we analyse that. It is time-consuming, but, in our case, we have small numbers in the class. We have a good, strong team of staff with a high degree of expertise who know the individual children.

The worry is the situation in the more mainstream setting, where class sizes are bigger and the teacher will struggle to access those resources. A lot of stuff comes through the voluntary sector and through our connection with additional stakeholders, as well as the clinical psychologists who come in and the various psychology departments in the Departments of Health and Education. We still argue that we do not have enough, but we can call on those partnerships that have built up. They give us a more informed insight into that child's learning condition and whether it is driven by the autism or by genuine bullying, if that is the case. Very rarely is it driven —

Mr Lunn: That is exactly the point I make. Bullying is the repeated use of verbal, written or electronic communication, physical acts, stress, alarm, hurt, fear and the intention of causing physical or emotional harm. I would have thought that would rarely apply to what might be perceived as a bullying situation in your school.

Mr Davis: Very rarely. What happens in our case, Trevor, is that we get young people coming in for alternative education provision (AEP) at 16 with a very chequered background. That being the case, it will apply more to young people who have come in through the system and have a history of this throughout their schooling career. They may have been excluded or suspended from previous schools that may lack the capacity to deal with such a young person. In those cases, that is where our main issues come in. They have not come through our system having been there since they were three years of age; they are coming in sideways. The inclusion agenda has created that. We get a lot of children coming in sideways to special education who have been in mainstream education. Maybe it is time for a move to a more specialised resource if the parental wish was to have them in mainstream at the beginning but it has not worked out.

There is lots of pressure. Very rarely do we ever have to apply that. I have said before that we are committed to shared education. We are at level 2 of Rights Respecting Schools and are ambassadors for that. So, the UNICEF principles of the Rights Respecting Schools are driven throughout the school and throughout all the programmes, including relationship and sexuality education (RSE) and personal development and mutual understanding (PDMU). It is easier, to a degree, because we have individual education programmes designed specifically for that child. That includes the whole pastoral side and the welfare needs of that child in the context of a supportive environment. I am not saying that mainstream schools do not have that, but it is harder for them to recreate that model.

Mr Lunn: Fair enough. Chair, you and I visited Ceara School. To apply this sort of legislation to that school would seem of no consequence.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I understand that.

Mr Newton: I thank the witnesses for coming up. I will be very brief. Mr Greer, I noticed that you were in the Public Gallery for most if not all of the previous presentations. Helena was very strong in her presentation on the emphasis of the power of imbalance, as you described it, or the imbalance of power, as others described it. I had some concerns about how that might play out. Will you make a few comments on that? I would be very much of the thinking that, whatever the school, all children across the board, whatever their needs, must be treated equally, but how we get to that is where the governance lies.

I know that you, Chair, will join me in saying that we were concerned at point 8, which relates to the cost of this. That is particularly relevant to the special needs schools that do not manage their own budgets and are not in command of them. We had asked the Minister some questions about that. There will obviously be a cost to this, so, as a special needs school, how do you address not being in charge of your budget?

Mr Davis: Thank you for taking that on board. We are struggling. A lot of the additionality we have in the school is due to the voluntary sector and our links with it, putting pressure on that. We have no additional funding whatsoever to support any measures beyond what we already have. In fact, we struggled to bring in music therapy, for example. We have counselling in the secondary end of the school paid for by the Department of Education but not in the primary end. In the primary end of the school, we have employed counsellors, but we pay for that ourselves out of the limited budget that we have. That will put us in the red. We have identified a need for that in the primary school, and it is working very well.

I still argue that, if we had more control over the funding in some shape or form, it would not cost us more money. We have said before that it is a smarter way of using the existing money. We seem to have an old framework imposed upon us of classroom assistants and teachers, and we do not have enough flexibility to manage other additional support services or to bring them in using the existing money. For example, instead of a classroom assistant, we might have a behavioural therapist, a music therapist and an art therapist all for the price of a classroom assistant. We are asking for that not only for us as a special school but for a mainstream school that applies for additional support for children from the EA and gets a part-time classroom assistant. Maybe the part-time classroom assistant is not what is needed for that child and that a more bespoke therapeutic model will help to support their needs. The classroom assistant might be what they need; Harry could probably answer that. To me, we have been starved over the years of the opportunity to look at a new model to support underachievement and special education.

Thankfully, the Minister and other people are aware that we need to look at this. To me, the existing model has not been very successful. Certainly, we have lots of outstanding schools. A lot of the work that is going on in special schools is due to the dedication and enthusiasm of the staff working in them. They bring in new initiatives and innovation, and they think outside the box. They really get into the world of that child and make a difference for that child. We are grateful for the high-quality staff whom we have who can do that, but we recognise that, with having our own budget or elements of that budget to manage, we could build up a better support infrastructure and more of a nurturing environment than we have.

Mr Rogers: Most things have been addressed. We spend a lot of time across this Table or across the Chamber heckling about amendments to legislation and so on. It has been refreshing to have you here today, because it brings in the key thing, which is that is has to be about the child. Children are all different. The more I think of this, the more it seems that the success of really addressing bullying in schools will put added pressure on our school leadership. Good schools have good leaders, so there is more coming to you as leaders. I just wanted to make that comment.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Thanks. It has been a very useful session to help us to focus our minds on some of the issues. Thank you for your presentation.

Mr Greer: Thank you very much.