Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you for your attendance today, Minister. It is great to have you here. I thank the officials from the Department of Education who are also attending and giving us their time. Thank you for your patience with the slight overrun.

We are joined by Paul Givan, Minister of Education; Janis Scallon, director for special educational needs (SEN) reform and inclusion; Deirdre Ward, director for SEN strategic policy; Debbie Mingout, deputy director for investments and infrastructure; and Suzanne Kingon, acting deputy secretary for policy, delivery and infrastructure. If I got any of those job titles wrong, just let me know.

As for how we will approach the session, I am happy to hand over to you for any opening remarks. I ask that you keep them as brief as possible — up to 10 minutes but certainly no more than that — because we want to make sure that we have time for every member's questions and your answers. We are working to a schedule of one hour. I ask everybody to bear that in mind. If we have long preambles to questions or rambling answers, we will not all get a chance. I do not want to have a scenario in which the Minister leaves without a member having had an opportunity to engage in the session. I ask us to all bear that in mind. At this point, I will hand over to you, Minister.

Mr Givan (The Minister of Education): Thank you, Chairman. I will certainly do my best not to ramble. My opening remarks should be well within the 10 minutes. There are a few new faces at Committee since I was last here: Gary and Jon. I look forward to engaging with them more in their capacities as education spokespeople for their respective parties. I will make some opening remarks, and we can then move on to questions.

I welcome the opportunity to update the Committee on special educational needs. I begin with the SEN capital programme. There has been harsh criticism over the past 18 months of the poor condition of our special school estate, the need for more special schools and the emergency reactive approach in providing classrooms to support SEN placements in special schools and specialist provision in mainstream schools (SPiMS). I share those concerns, but I am not content to just sound off about the problems: I have sought to take proactive steps to respond. Therefore, in April 2024, I established the SEN capital investment programme to build for the future, enhance our current special schools, provide up to eight new special schools across Northern Ireland and expand specialist provision in mainstream schools, so that we are, ultimately, in a position in which a pupil can attend a special school or specialist provision in their own area, similar to their peers.

Working with the Education Authority (EA), we have made significant progress. In the past two years, £119 million has been spent to progress building works to provide 242 new specialist provisions in mainstream classes and 96 new classes in special schools, all of which also received £20,000 for furniture and equipment to enhance the learning provision. Construction on-site has begun on two school enhancement projects in special schools, with a third due to commence in the coming months. We have delivered a programme to improve access to the outdoors in special schools. Crucially, the business case for the first of the Belfast school campuses is with my Department and is progressing through the approvals process. That is a huge achievement, but, of course, it is not enough.

Last year, I tasked the Education Authority with developing detailed plans for action for each of our 40 special schools. Those plans have now been published, and they will revolutionise the special school estate. They will provide fit-for-purpose accommodation, facilities and equipment to enable all our learners to reach their educational potential and develop vital skills to enhance their lives beyond education. Those plans will work alongside a programme to provide a further 500 specialist provisions in mainstream classes over the next 10 years.

The plans are not aspirational; they are deliverable. The investment required is significant, however, and is on a scale that has not previously been encountered. The combined cost of plans for special schools and the programme to expand specialist provision in mainstream schools is in the region of £1·7 billion over the next decade.

Let us be clear: I cannot plan, build or deliver the facilities that the children need on my own. It is simply not possible, nor is it responsible, to suspend all capital works across the school estate for a decade in order to redirect funding towards SEN infrastructure. That would jeopardise the integrity of the entire education system. The conventional education capital budget cannot carry the weight of modernising and expanding SEN provision over the next 10 years. For next year alone, £93 million is required. That is almost a third of my Department's total annual capital budget.

To place investment in SEN infrastructure on a sustainable footing, it is vital to recognise it as a strategic, cross-government priority and secure Executive commitment to funding it over the next 10 years. That is why, on 2 September, I submitted detailed proposals to the Executive for the establishment of a new Executive-led and funded SEN capital investment programme. A strategic, long-term commitment over the next 10 years, it would sit outside my Department's conventional capital programme.

On Tuesday 16 September, in my statement to the Assembly, I requested its support for an Executive-led and funded SEN capital investment programme. Today, again, I ask for your support. Without Executive support and a dedicated programme, I simply cannot progress to the next phase of the SEN capital investment strategy, and we will remain trapped in a cycle of emergency planning, reacting every year to perpetual crises rather than strategically building for the future.

I have been clear that special educational needs reform is one of my priorities. I set out my ambition for reform in January this year, closely following that with the publication of the SEN reform agenda and its delivery plan. Those have the capacity to bring real change, and good progress has been made on a number of the year 1 actions, including the establishment of the special educational needs capital investment programme; the publication of the Education Authority's operational plan 2 and special schools plans of action; and an investment of over £1 million to date in the preschool inclusion fund. The EA has launched its new local impact teams (LITs) and is progressing with the digitisation of the statutory assessment and review process.

As the Committee is aware, the Department secured an additional £27·5 million from the public-sector transformation fund. That is on top of my Department's budget and will fund a series of early actions that were identified in the delivery plan that focus on early intervention; the introduction of more effective support models for children with a statement of special educational needs; the professional development of teachers and classroom assistants; and the development of a more inclusive education system.

One area in which the evidence for change is already clear is how we support children with SEN in our classrooms. Research shows that one-to-one classroom assistance does not deliver the best outcomes for most children and can even be detrimental. Various studies have shown that it can create a dependency that impedes a child's ability to navigate challenges and develop problem-solving skills. It can also isolate children from their peers and reduce opportunities to engage and interact with their teacher. There is a strong rationale for moving away from a model based on almost universal one-to-one support to a whole-school, child-centred approach that provides flexibility and budget autonomy for schools to deploy resources in a way that best meets the needs of their children.

I appreciate that, even though the evidence shows that the current approach is ineffective, some parents will be anxious about changing it. We will need to demonstrate the benefits of alternatives and involve parents and children in the process of transition. What we must not do is retain a system that we know to be ineffective. I plan to bring a paper to the Executive in the coming weeks that will set out my proposals for changing the model for classroom assistance and seek Executive agreement for what would be a significant reform.

Committee members previously asked for detailed costings for the suite of projects to be funded from the £27·5 million transformation fund. Following extensive design and cost projections, it is anticipated that high-level costs across the lifetime of the fund will be £4 million for transforming the support model; £10 million for the early childhood intervention programme, which has five discrete actions within it; £1 million for the speech and language communication toolkit; half a million pounds for transforming inclusive play environments; just over half a million pounds for the early intervention enhanced nurture programme; £5 million for the use of special schools as resource hubs; £2·5 million for a teacher and classroom assistant professional learning programme to support inclusive education; and £1·3 million for the design and trial of an inclusive capacity building programme. The public-sector fund also provides cover for the programme management and staffing costs of £2·6 million.

I recognise that there is much to do. The Committee rightly raised issues such as the need for health professionals in education, better support for young people who are transitioning out of the education system and the need to extend all support services to all preschool settings. I agree that those issues need to be addressed, and they will be covered in the special educational needs reform delivery plan if that is appropriately funded. I have been clear that full implementation of that plan requires additional investment of around £570 million, which is, to say the least, challenging in the current budget climate. I am, therefore, not in a position to provide definitive timescales on delivery until additional investment has been secured, at which point high-level costs will be reviewed.

I assure the Committee that I have sought and will continue to seek the support of my Executive colleagues to secure the investment required to take forward this important reform programme. In doing so, I recognise the financial constraints that we, as an Executive, face collectively.

Finally, I will touch on SEN placements. I reinforce my commitment to ensure that all children with a statement of special educational needs have a school placement that is appropriate to their needs. That is and will continue to be a primary focus for my Department and the EA. I recognise that it is unsatisfactory that not all children know at the same time each year what school they will be going to. However, I recognise that over 6,000 additional special school places were created between 2020 and 2025. In this year alone, a total of 1,374 additional special school places have been created, involving 29 classes in special schools and 128 specialist provision classes in mainstream schools.

As of 5 September, there were no children with a statement of SEN without a school place. Despite the huge efforts of the EA and schools, there is still a small number of children who will not be able to attend school on a full-time basis until preparatory work has been completed for their classrooms. As of 17 October, that amounted to 50 children.

The willingness of our schools to step up and adapt existing classroom spaces is welcome. However, for the needs of our children with statements of SEN to be met, we must increase the proportion of schools that offer specialist provision above the 26% that already do. If we are going to provide the right places in the communities in which children live, we need all our schools to work with the EA to ensure that the local provision is available. My goal is for all schools to eventually be in a position to offer specialist provision. The EA offers a comprehensive set-up package for specialist provision.

With regard to quality of education in specialist provision, part one of an evaluation carried out by the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) was published in 2024 with largely positive findings. I expect part two of the evaluation to be published this term.

For the incoming academic year, it is expected that demand for additional places for children with statements of SEN will be approximately the same as it was for 2025 . I am confident that progress is being made on the required provision for 2026. The EA has advised that planning is under way for over 50 projects, which would provide over 400 places. I very much welcome the increasing collaboration between the EA, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) and the other Northern Ireland Teachers' Council (NITC) members in order to facilitate engagement with school leaders. I understand that EA development officers are directly engaging with over 50 schools that advised this year that they would be willing or potentially willing to establish provision for 2026. The EA has reviewed the full regional school list, and up to 300 schools across all localities have been identified to potentially receive an invitation to a large-scale engagement event that is planned for the beginning of next month.

I thank all the schools and stakeholders that have engaged positively to ensure that all children have the right support, from the right people, at the right time and in the right place.

It is important to recognise that, whilst the legal responsibility for securing placements for children sits with the EA, there is a responsibility on all stakeholders to support that area of work to ensure that all children have access to an appropriate school place in their local area.

Mr Chairman, hopefully that was within the 10 minutes or not far off it. I am happy now to hand over to you and take questions from members.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Minister. I was not watching the clock too attentively, so I will trust you that it was within the 10 minutes.

I will turn to resourcing first around the reform agenda and the transformation plans for special educational needs. It was good to get some of those high-level costings for the transformation projects. Can you provide clarity for this financial year? How much are you investing in the SEN transformation plan?

Mr Givan: Let me just turn to that to give you the accurate figure. Obviously, as the Committee knows, the funding of £27·5 million is over five years. That represents, as I indicated, just 5% of what, I believe, is necessary. There are those 13 projects that we intend to take forward, and I have provided some of those costings in my opening remarks.

Janis, do you want to give the figures for this financial year?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Just to help, I had asked a question on 21 October, and the answer came back that it was £4 million. When I asked back in June, I was told it was £7·5 million, plus £3 million for early years. I just want clarity: which is it? Is it £4 million, £7·5 million or £10 million?

Mrs Janis Scallon (Department of Education): Initially, when we put in the transformation bid, we had to profile indicative costs. It is only when we go through the business case process that we can take those costs to the nth degree for each project. In doing that, the re-profiling went from £7·5 million to £4 million, but we have not lost £3 million; it has been re-profiled into future years.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): So that £3 million or £3·5 million that is not now appearing in those figures: will we see that in the following financial year?

Mrs Scallon: It has been re-profiled into future years. Taking into account the fact that we got confirmation of the funding only in March, we then had to move to the business case process. Our business case was approved on 28 August, so then the re-profiling took place. Given that we work in an academic year rather than a financial year, we cannot stand things up in July or even June. It is too soon for schools, so we have to stand them up in the new term.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I appreciate that challenge. To what extent can we expect clarity on what that money will be spent on this year? I have been really trying with questions for written answer to get clarity. To give a flavour of the responses that I have been getting, I have asked for specific details on transformation projects, and I have been told that it is not planned for publication. Again, if we are going to hold you to account on what you deliver, it would be good to know how the money is being spent. Can you give some clarity on those projects? Can you give us any sense of what level of investment is going in this year and what we will see as the output of that?

Mr Givan: Absolutely. As we incur that expenditure, we will provide all the details to the Committee on that.

Do you want to give a breakdown of the £4 million?

Mrs Scallon: If you want to talk about the transformation support model, Deirdre and I can come in on the others. I know that we have agreed to come back and do specific and detailed briefings, and it might be more appropriate to do it at that point.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I do not want to waste Committee time in going through line by line, but I guess it is the sense that I am really keen to know exactly. We have a really small funding envelope, so how will it be spent? This year, where is that money going? Will we get that information? The Committee can rightly expect to know. It is a small amount of money: £4 million. We are not asking about a huge, high-level figure; it is £4 million. Where is it going?

Mr Givan: We will give you the high-level figure now.

Mrs Scallon: The £4 million relates to transforming the support model. In this financial year, I think the costs are around £0·5 million.

Ms Deirdre Ward (Department of Education): Yes.

Mrs Scallon: You might have more detailed costing, Deirdre, but, if I remember correctly, it rises to £1·5 million next year and so on.

With regard to parental engagement, that is a system-wide process. For that one, we have proposals from organisations. I had previously mentioned that giving those costs out publicly could have an impact on those proposals, and that applies to some of the other projects as well. We are going to do a detailed briefing on transforming the support model, and I am going to do a detailed profile of the early intervention projects, of which there are five, and then pick up the other projects in another detailed briefing. By that stage, I think, we will be in a position to set that out where we would not compromise any proposals that are currently sitting on the table.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Understood. I just want to make it clear that the Committee wants to support the work of the Department around transformation, but, if there is a sense that you are not going to tell us what you are doing with the money, it feels a little like a barrier is being put up.
You mentioned transforming the support model, for instance. I had asked a question about what the outcome of that project would be and what it would deliver. The response came that it would transform the support model for children with a statement. I think that you all know that that is not what members are looking for: we want to know specifically what that will look like, what the intended new support model is and what actions will be taken this year. Those are reasonable questions. Answers like that feel dismissive.

Can you give us more as to what we will see with those projects? Maybe not project by project, but will we get that level of detail? What is the activity on the projects, and what comes out at the other end? That is a reasonable request.

Mr Givan: I do not disagree with that. You should be more sighted on it, so —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): When I am asking you that question, can I ask why the response came back just quoting the name of the project? That does not feel like engagement.

Mr Givan: In the detailed briefing session, you will get the opportunity to get into what it is designed to achieve. There is absolutely no issue around sharing all that information; it is not in my interest to do otherwise. The more visibility everybody has on the challenges that we face, the more we can bring people with us on what we need to change around the special education process. I will make sure that you get the proper information, Chairman.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is helpful. We look forward to that coming through. I have other things on resourcing that I want to ask, but other members want to come in, so I will move on.

You referred to the collaboration with Health in your initial remarks. How many times have you met the Health Minister to map out how your Departments work together on special educational needs transformation?

Mr Givan: We can get the details in a formal sense, but Mike and I regularly have conversations about this. Most recently, we were at Fort Hill Integrated College, and we talked about the need for collaboration in what we are doing. Obviously, there has been written communication with him, and I outlined the importance — indeed, the critical nature — of the allied health professionals (AHPs). He has —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Are you making any joint bids to the Finance Minister on areas of shared interest? Resource is scarce: would it be better to work together?

Mr Givan: Not only do we need to work together, with special schools, it is critical that the Department of Health supports us. You will be familiar with some of the engagement that we have had with school principals.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Have you made any joint bids for finance for this? We know that resource is scarce. You have said that the Executive need to back you. What are you doing with your Executive colleague, the Health Minister? What are you doing to get the resource that you both need to make this work?

Mr Givan: Both of us are funded, obviously, within our Departments. I have responsibilities on the education component side of it. Mike Nesbitt will have responsibility for the health aspects of what we need in our special schools. We need to look at the funding that we have within our Departments. If I were to go to the Executive, the Finance Minister would say, "What are you funded in your own Departments? Collaborate without coming back to the Executive to get funding for joint proposals". We do that, and we —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): The Children's Services Co-operation Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 created facility for the pooling of resources. That suggests to me that there are no joint funding proposals on the table between Health and Education. Is that what I understand?

Mr Givan: Not in that formal sense, because we are aligning what we spend within each of our Departments. The Health Minister has indicated that his financial position, like mine, is incredibly challenging. However, we have established formal processes where the two Departments are engaged in the transformation work. One of those meetings took place only last week, at the start of October —

Mrs Scallon: On 2 and 7 October.

Mr Givan: — and that is the formal governance structures that we have for special educational needs. We have put in place that framework. We have identified where the collaboration needs to exist, and there are accountability mechanisms in that process. Those have been established. We need to make sure that what limited funding we have and Health has works together on that one. I would not frame it necessarily in the way that you have — that we need to then take that to the Finance Minister — because the Executive would rightly say to us, "You have funding in your Departments. How best are you using it? If you want to jointly fund projects, do it from within your existing Departments."

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Are you planning to jointly fund projects?

Mr Givan: Part of the outworkings of what we are doing on SEN is aligning our spend and their spend to make sure that it can achieve what we want to do. There are processes in place to handle that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Will you come to the Committee with the Health Minister to brief us on those proposals and plans?

Mr Givan: Where it is appropriate, I have no objection to coming to the Committee. That is something that I can do with the Health Minister. I have no objection to that in principle, but, like everything, let us work through what we are trying to do in these structures.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I think that there is a frustration. I am sure that it is felt by officials across the system as well, in that we talk about how we need to work together. I am really keen to get a concurrent Health and Education Committee meeting. Obviously, we need to engage with counterparts in Health on that. It feels like we need to hear, at senior level, the vision of how we will do this, so that we move beyond paying lip service and saying that, "Collaboration is a good idea".

Mr Givan: I would welcome that, because I have challenged Health about the concerns in our special schools. You and I were with the Health Minister when I was challenging that. I continued to do that, leading to the report being commissioned by the Chief Nursing Officer. I know that there are issues with the report, but, ultimately, it happened as a result of my engagement with Mike Nesbitt to make sure that I represent the needs of schools. We have a fundamental responsibility for education, but Health has a responsibility to support schools, particularly where pupils have complex medical needs.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Committee members will want to come in, so I will finish with one more question that is slightly outside the remit of SEN. It is appropriate, while you are here, to ask about the School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill that has just been passed. I understand that the clock is ticking for the deadline of 26 November for prospectuses. Will schools have the new guidelines before they publish those prospectuses, and are you giving them enough time to reflect those guidelines? We are close to one month away from that deadline. I think about supplier engagement, parental engagement and there potentially being significant changes, if the guidelines are as comprehensive as you suggest they will be. I am hearing from schools and retailers who are extremely nervous that the changes will land overnight.

Mr Givan: They will. You submitted a question for written answer to me on that. I cleared the response to that today, and it may already be with you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I have read it.

Mr Givan: OK, good. You are asking a question that you know my answer to.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I know that the date is 26 November. I am trying to understand how schools and retailers can be prepared. As far as I am concerned, the clock is ticking. I had a retailer on the phone with me during the week saying, "I am waiting for the call from schools to say that they are changing their uniform policy", at the point when the retailers are trying to put orders in with their suppliers.

Mr Givan: I have every sympathy with retailers who are in that position. I will declare an interest: my wife supplied school uniforms when she had a retail shop. She does not have it any more, but I am familiar with the challenges that retailers face and have been watching with interest to see what the final legislation will look like, because they were concerned about the impact that some Members' proposals would have had on them.

I was working through the guidelines yesterday. They are very close to being published to those schools. They are imminent. I have been going through them following the passage of the legislation. The guidance is with the Departmental Solicitor's Office (DSO) for a final legal check. I expect that to then go out to schools within the time frame needed for them to complete their prospectuses. As I indicated to the Assembly, it will not be new to schools.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): They do not know what is in the guidelines.

Mr Givan: But they will, and —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): You are saying that it will not be new, but we do not know what is in the guidelines, and they do not know what is in the guidelines, so it will be new.

Mr Givan: What they need to do about affordability as part of the guidance has been communicated to them over a number of years. It has not been statutory, but now it is. They are therefore familiar with the direction of travel on that. Given that we passed the legislation in the time frame that we did, we will provide that guidance. I would rather have the challenge of schools having to carry out the work of designing their school uniforms and engaging with their retailers in order to deliver changes that will benefit families for September next year than wait for an extra year, which is what would have resulted from some approaches.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I appreciate the differences of opinion around Committee Stage, but it is about where we are now. I declare an interest that I am on a board of governors, and, although any prospective changes do not impact on us directly, I certainly hear from principals that there is nervousness that time will be extremely short. I just want to put this on the record: the sooner the better.

Mr Givan: I agree.

Mr Sheehan: Minister, you seek £570 million for SEN reform and £1·7 billion for the SEN capital plan. Can you explain why, at a time when the Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have been extremely critical of the Department and the Education Authority — they have been accused of being economically wasteful and failing to demonstrate value for money — you have confidence in your Department to manage those vast sums of money, never mind why anyone else would have confidence?

Mr Givan: I welcome the Audit Office report and the subsequent PAC report, which we will debate in the Assembly after the half-term recess. I challenge some of the findings in both reports. Fundamentally, the challenge that we faced that led to criticism of a lack of strategic planning and investment is a result of the wider school estate not having had sufficient funding for a long time. That has impacted on capital spend to the extent that we are down to emergency responsive repair approaches. Had there been sufficient funding, we would have had long-term planning and an investment programme and the school estate would not have deteriorated to the extent that it has, with our now being down to emergency responses. That has been the fundamental problem with the capital programme in the school estate.

When it comes to costings and delivery, of course I will interrogate and challenge assumptions, and I always challenge what we are doing now. In the past seven years, our spend on SEN — officials will keep me right — has gone from £250 million to £650 million. That is a huge increase in the money that is being spent on special educational needs without, it appears, any material impact to reflect the increased investment. If I were sitting in your seat, I would ask questions such as, given the increasing amount that has been spent without having the effect that it should have, how can we have confidence that these proposals will have the desired outcome?

Mr Sheehan: When your permanent secretary came in a few weeks ago, I raised the issue of the Department's inability to demonstrate value for money. I asked him what had changed, and the only thing that he could point to was that the EA and the Department were working more closely together. When the chief executive of the Education Authority was here, I asked him what inefficiencies or waste had been identified and what changes had been made, and he said, "None", so I ask you this: can you give the Committee any concrete examples of better outcomes and better management of the vast amounts of funding that the Department gets?

Mr Givan: In SEN, there are examples — I think it can be improved — of greater flexibility being afforded to some schools to utilise the resource that they get through a statement to employ a teacher who can assist with a smaller group of pupils. We need to move that model on. That is a more effective use of expenditure than universal, automatic one-to-one provision. When it comes to the £27·5 million from the transformation fund, all the schemes will be tested on whether they provide value for money.

Mr Sheehan: Let me give you one example, Paul, of value for money clearly not being demonstrated. I know of a school with a number of specialist provision classes. The children in those classes cannot eat in the school canteen because there is a flight risk. When the lunches come into the school, the canteen service people will not take them to the specialist provision classes, so, every day, a taxi arrives and drives the containers 50 yards across the playground. The driver then waits, with his meter running, until the children have finished eating and the containers come back out. Are you telling me that that is good value for money?

Mr Givan: No. Look, if that —

Mr Sheehan: Why has somebody not looked into that?

Mr Givan: — is taking place, it is not a good use of money. I do not know why you would not be able to bring lunches over without having to use a taxi, but that sounds like a waste of money, not a good use of it.

Mr Sheehan: Absolutely. If you look at all the other areas to do with transport, you will see that that is by no means unique. I just flag that up because no one has been able to give us concrete examples of the better management of funding.

I will ask you one quick question about the issue that Chris — or Nick, rather, raised —

Mr Givan: The good old days [Laughter.]

Mr Sheehan: — on school uniforms. I have mentioned to you on a few occasions that the Committee was misled in the information that it was given about the guidelines. It was told at one time that the guidelines were imminent and would be with us by the end of the following week. We were assured that they would be with us before recess, and that did not happen. You told a different story during the debates in the Chamber. Have you asked officials why they give that information to the Committee?

Mr Givan: I do not think that anyone misled the Committee in that respect. I certainly did not mislead the Committee, because I never indicated that I was going to provide guidance to the Committee. I appreciate that, in hearings, officials indicated that they felt that that was something that they could do. They never sought my view on that. Ultimately, it is I who run the Department. They did not take my view in respect of that. I explained that I felt that it would not be appropriate to share guidance, even in a very early draft-type environment, because the legislation had not yet been passed. I knew that members wanted to put down amendments, and, as I repeated in the Assembly, guidance has to follow the legislation. That was my explanation to —.

Mr Sheehan: Have you spoken to the officials?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Brief final comment, Pat, and then a brief response.

Mr Givan: It is not that I have not. I explained the reasons why, in my view, the guidance would follow when the legislation was passed. The officials were acting in the best interests of trying to share with the Committee what they felt, but, ultimately, when I explained the process that we needed to follow in my Department, that is the position that was adopted. I take responsibility for having a view that the guidance follows the legislation because the guidance could not reflect something that had not yet been passed by the Assembly.

Mrs Mason: Minister, this is a genuine question, because it is something that I feel really deeply about: why will you not stand up for young girls and allow them to wear trousers to school?

Mr Givan: I absolutely am standing up for young girls. If they want to wear trousers to school, they now have more legal authority to make the case, because —.

Mrs Mason: They have more legal authority, but, in certain cases, they still will not be able to wear trousers to school.

Mr Givan: Ultimately, that will be a decision for the schools, but, until we had the legislation passed, we did not have a position where schools now legally have to ensure that they listen to their pupils' voice and they engage with parents. We have strengthened —.

Mrs Mason: I accept that, and I have heard you saying that. Some of us here have daughters. If our daughters are going through —.

Mr Givan: I have three daughters.

Mrs Mason: So you will know —

Mr Givan: I do. They are all at school wearing skirts.

Mrs Mason: — if they are going through a very heavy period, they risk the embarrassment of having a leak. Their stomach could be bloated to twice its size, and they could be miserable. The fact that they could wear trousers could make life much better for them. You had the power to make sure that they could do that, but you chose not to do that.

Mr Givan: No, I did not have the power in that respect, because that is not the legislation that I brought through the Executive.

Mrs Mason: With all due respect, there were lots of ideas and amendments brought forward. I do not want to dwell on it, because I have limited time, but I feel very deeply about it.

Mr Givan: As I said earlier, I encourage girls to challenge their schools, and, as a result of the legislation, their voices have now got much greater weight to make the case.

Mrs Mason: OK. We are not going to agree on that point.

Mr Givan: Speak to your schools. You are an MLA in your constituency. Engage with those schools and make the case. They have the autonomy to take those decisions, which, under law, they need to give much greater recognition to.

Mrs Mason: With all due respect, you have literally just said that you run the Department.

Anyway, there are a couple of things —

Mr Givan: The Department does not run the schools.

Mrs Mason: — that I want you to hear. In a recent survey, 78% of special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) said that they were not being supported by the EA. Just this morning, I had a comment from a SENCO who said that she had just hit her absolute darkness, that it is the hardest role that she has ever done and that her workload is through the roof. We have an EA staff member who said that, even if it were fully resourced, the new model is not fit for purpose. We heard from you directly that there are 50 children who are still not in school, and we are almost in November. Are you content that, as Minister of Education, that is happening on your watch?

Mr Givan: No, absolutely not. Last week, I was at St Teresa's Primary School, where new specialist provision has just opened. Next year, in phase 2 of that, there will be 10 classrooms. I think that it will be the biggest primary school providing specialist provision in Northern Ireland. That is a result of a school stepping forward to work with us, and then we put that support in.

I am not content that, as of today, there are 50 children still not in school. There are contingency arrangements in place, and I would not want members to think that those children are not receiving an education: they are. They are being supported, and there are measures in place to do that, but it is not what it should be. I am asking, "When?". The EA has told me that it expects the issue to be addressed by the end of December, and I continue to keep up the pressure on the EA to deliver on that. No, I am not content, but have the Department and the Education Authority been responsive to that pressure? Yes, we have, and we have been able to provide support. That is why we need to pivot. Whilst doing the short-term work engaging with principals, we need a long-term strategic plan, and we need investment. That is why I have a paper before the Executive. I welcome the fact that Mike Nesbitt, as a Minister, has agreed that it should be a flagship, ring-fenced project. I want other parties to get to the same place as my party. That will help us so that we are not dealing with that responsive kind of approach.

Mrs Mason: OK, and they are all strategies coming down the line. The EA is hanging its hat on that LIT model, but, in the here and now, we hear that it is just not working. Are you content with that?

Mr Givan: It is being rolled out, so we need to give things time to bed in. You mentioned SENCOs and LITs. Deirdre, you have more detail about the approach that we are taking on that: would you like to share that?

Ms Ward: Yes. we accept that a lot of paperwork is involved for SENCOs. Processes are being put in place by the EA to digitise the statutory assessment process. There is now one form for referral for involvement.

Mrs Mason: I accept that that is what the system says. We have heard comments that SENCOs' workload is now reduced. The Committee was told last week by SENCOs that their workload has doubled. That is the reality of it. Why are you not listening to the reality of this? What are you going to do about it? We cannot keep saying that there are lines in the delivery plan or that there is a new portal. What exactly is being done? Why can we not listen to the people who are on the ground and deal with it?

Mr Givan: We very much are —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A brief response on how you will address the issue of SENCOs, and we will move on to the next point.

Mr Givan: Part of the end-to-end review heard about the amount of work that SENCOs have; indeed, for some, it is a full-time job. In big schools, they are not able to teach because they do so much work as the teachers responsible for SEN coordination. As part of the movement with that new model, SENCOs are having to make the case for one-to-one provision. We need schools to have greater utility and resource so that they can employ full-time teachers, or we upskill classroom assistants, and they become —

Mrs Mason: What are the EA literacy teachers for, then?

Mr Givan: With regard to the work that they do?

Mrs Mason: Yes.

Mr Givan: Well —

Mrs Mason: Their job is to provide one-to-one literacy support. It does not seem as though they are doing that now.

Mr Givan: Schools are best placed to identify where they need to have resource. If there needs to be movement of resource away from the EA, we do that, and we empower schools. Schools that have greater flexibility on funding know where the need is. My concern is that some children have a SEN statement and get one-to-one provision, but other children with special educational needs do not have a statement and are not getting the support that they need. If there were a whole-school approach, with the school being able to have permanence in staffing arrangements, classroom assistants could be deployed more effectively than in the current model. Therefore, I am bringing to the Executive a paper on what I regard as the significant transformation that needs to take place.

Mrs Mason: Minister, I accept that —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A final comment, and then we will move on.

Mrs Mason: — money matters, but leadership matters much more. This is not a matter of money; this is a matter of design. The design, at the minute, does not seem to be effective. I beg you to listen to the people who are on the ground because we all want this to work. This is what we need to see going forward.

Mr Givan: It is both. It is —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I am just going to draw this line of enquiry to a close. Other members may pick up the LIT issue.

Mr Givan: If I could just finish that point.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A final response.

Mr Givan: It is both leadership and resource, but it is also the effective use of current resources. That is a real challenge, and we need to realign what we do. I have visited 27 special schools since I have been Education Minister, some in your constituency. I have heard at first hand. I have been in nearly 200 schools. I have engaged with principles and SENCOs. I know the challenges that they face, and they have said to me, "This is how, we believe, it can be made better". That is why we have a SEN delivery plan with a SEN capital programme.

I have shown the leadership. I have re-profiled capital expenditure. We need to see the continued outworking of that, but leadership also requires resource, and that is a challenge for us all collectively.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Members and witnesses, if I ask for final comment, you must stick to that because we are not going to get everyone in if we keep pushing the boundaries.

Gary, you are next.

Mr Middleton: Minister, thank you and your team for coming along today. Just prior to this session, Chris Donnelly was in, and we had a very informative and useful discussion. One of the things that he highlighted — I am aware of it in my constituency — is the feeling and reality that many of the schools in disadvantaged communities pull more than their weight when it comes to special educational needs provision when compared with those in other sectors and communities. That is an issue that clearly needs to be resolved. How do we encourage more from those other sectors to step up to the plate and provide for SEN? These are children and young people. They are not a burden but valuable members of our society, and all schools should do their bit to carry that weight.

Mr Givan: Confidence needs to be created in other schools so that, when they are asked to help and we map out where there are stronger areas of need, they need to know that, when EA comes in and makes the provision available, they will continue to have that support. Some principals will relay the feeling that, "I have agreed to help place a child, but, when there are issues and there is no support coming, I am the one, as principal, who is left to pick up the pieces and I have not felt supported".

The EA has been working on that, and a programme of engagement with schools has been taking place. As I mentioned, we have identified 50 schools where we are already taking forward projects that will create just over 400 places next year. We will have an engagement event later this month at which we will have hundreds of schools. That will allow us to explain, "Here is the support that you can receive". The peer-to-peer support will be really important. A principal will be able to speak to a colleague and say, "I have set up specialist provision. It has been positive for my school, and I have been supported". Some principals have been very positive about that, and that can reassure others.

A number of weeks ago, I had a meeting in this room with a collective of North Down primary school principals. They shared with me some of the issues that, if they can be resolved, will be helpful. One of them was that, in creating specialist provision, principals may have pupils in their school that should be allocated to it. Yet, even though they create the capacity in their school, their own pupils will not benefit from it because of the way in which we have to align pupils who need a place and the way in which that is prioritised. Those principals rightly said, "If I knew that pupil x was going to be allocated in the SPiMS unit, it would certainly make it easier for me to take this on". I indicated to them that I have a Northern Ireland-wide responsibility and am looking at every school and trying to help, but I appreciate that, if a principal cannot see the benefit for their one or two pupils, there is a bigger picture that we need to consider.

We must bring schools and communities in some areas to move all together. It is not just one school, because maybe some other schools will say, "Sure, that is being taken care of because school x has opened up a SPiMS unit and will open up a second one if needed". It is not fair to expect 26% of our schools to have this, because the need is across Northern Ireland. Specialist provision will continue to be an issue that is the norm, not the exception, and that requires us to look at every school regardless of what sector and area they are in. Children have needs that must be met in those school settings.

Mr Middleton: We cannot isolate the issues from the financial reality and the pressures that exist. We often hear about the challenges in Health. In Education, we know that there is a clear issue. I welcome your conversations with the Health Minister, and that is important from a grassroots approach up. Where are you as regards conversations with the Finance Minister? You talk about the £1·7 billion capital investment plan, which is welcome and shows leadership, but we need it to be delivered. Where are you with those conversations in the Executive, in as much as you can tell us without breaking confidences?

Mr Givan: I met the Finance Minister at the end of the summer, before the Assembly returned from summer recess. We talked through a lot of the financial issues facing the Department on both resource and capital, and we indicated the planning. He rightly challenged me: "Where is your plan? Don't just ask for more money. Show me a plan that will deliver an outcome". I said that, on special educational needs, we have carried out a detailed plan and commissioned the EA. It has mapped out for all special schools, and we have mapped out the specialist provision needed to create 11,000 new places over the next 10 years. That is crystallised in my paper to the Executive with a figure of £1·7 billion. It still has not been placed on the agenda, and that is disappointing. I know that the deputy First Minister has approved it to be on the agenda, and I hope that the First Minister will do the same because, for me to get to that strategic, long-term financial investment, this is the approach that we need to take. That is reflected in the criticism that the Public Accounts Committee has made of Education in that we have not been long-term and strategic. Here is an opportunity for us to do that. On the resource side —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Can you bring that point to a conclusion?

Mr Givan: I have documented that I am in ongoing engagements in my Department on the financial pressures. The Education Authority has a projected overcommitment of £270 million, and I am deeply concerned that it will break the budget. We have been working with it. The Education Authority board has voted through a number of cuts in provision, and I am in the process of corresponding with Executive colleagues on what some of that looks like. That is not a place where we want to be in Education, but it is a result of years of underfunding. As a Department and an education system, 80% of costs are, understandably, for staff: the teachers and classroom assistants. Therefore, the ability to make the savings required would entail a significant redundancy programme, which would have implications for how we deliver education. The picture is bleak, given the funding challenges that face the wider education system, particularly the Education Authority.

Mrs Guy: Thank you, folks, for being here today. Thank you, Minister. I want to pick up on the conversation that we were having on the LITs. Cathy touched on SENCOs, and we have had some really stark evidence around SENCOs. We are getting comments such as, "Support is based on the quality of the paperwork and not the needs of the child". It should always be about the needs of the child, and it feels like a system that has been rushed into place without the things that need to happen with resources or people. From this inquiry and from my own work, I get the sense that the LITs can work, but the message that we get is that they are not being properly resourced. Minister, can you commit to giving them the resource that they need? My understanding is that the underfunding amounts to around £3 million. That is just for the baseline funding. We heard evidence earlier from a school leader who said that we need to do less and do it better and that we need more people dedicated to meeting the needs of children. This seems like an ideal opportunity to do both of those things in a focused way.

Mr Givan: I agree with your analysis that, if it is adequately resourced, it can work. To assure you, the Education Authority had to realign its structures to accommodate the Department of Health because it still operates on a trust model, whereas we had moved to a single education authority approach. We needed to realign to facilitate the way in which the health trusts operate. Yes, it can work because the model is the right one to provide the correct support from the professionals who are involved. I entirely agree that it comes with a need to make sure that the resource is available for that to work.

Mrs Guy: Three million pounds is a relatively small amount in the big scheme of things. Could you find that money to focus on the use of LITs and help that to succeed? It feels a bit as though they are being set up to fail if you are not going to fund them adequately.

Mr Givan: Three million pounds is a small amount in a total spend of £3·1 billion. However, I have just outlined the financial challenges faced in the EA, which is responsible for rolling out the LITs. It has flagged up —

Mrs Guy: You fund the EA, so you have some control here.

Mr Givan: We provided the funding to the EA in its opening budget, but the EA is raising concerns and has been clear that its financial pressures are in the quantum of hundreds of millions of pounds. It is therefore looking at vacancy control and is not replacing staff when they become unemployed. It has been working through a number of areas. I am concerned that the impact on staffing in LIT could be negative, but the premise on which LIT operates should be impactful and a better way to deal with things.

Mrs Guy: I would have preferred a commitment to do it, but I do not think that I will get it.

You highlighted the placements issue. I believe that there was a request for people to assist with getting 110 SPiMS units to meet the demand next year. I highlight again the need for sensitivity in the framing, which I have raised previously. We speak to schools all the time that do not have the capacity for SPiMS, yet they support children with special educational needs. Saying things such as, "Schools need to step forward" or "Schools are stepping up" diminishes their contribution. It is worth stating that over and over again and making sure that we are sensitive in how we present the issue.

I want to ask about workforce for SPiMS. Specialist provisions need to have a specialist workforce: where is that workforce coming from?

Mr Givan: In a SPiMS unit, you will have a teacher, and, normally, you will have assistants who have the skill set to support the children in those specialist settings. However, that speaks to the wider point around having a skilled workforce. Ulster University published a report on the need to provide more skills and have pay reflect the more skilled nature of that workforce: that is right. How do we give opportunities to classroom assistants in particular to develop their skill set? How can that then be reflected in terms and conditions? The Education Authority is working through those things, and that is part of how I want greater use to be made of classroom assistants. Many of them do exceptional work, and they can do more within the right framework. We know that they are, largely, on temporary contracts. We want to move to much greater permanency in the deployment of staff. We need a better funding model so that schools can have greater certainty that the funding will be available for them to recruit and deploy permanent staff and get more qualified staff who can be utilised in all school settings and not just in specialist provision.

Mrs Guy: There is one more area on which I have a question.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It will need to be a quick question.

Mrs Guy: Most people are outside the lines of special educational needs. You will be aware of the case last week in which 24 children in our education system went missing. Those children are registered in school, but there is a cohort of children — we have no idea what their number is — who are not registered in school, in independent education or in home education. We do not have the facility to provide the number of kids who are missing in that context. I am really concerned about that, and I know that you are doing some work on it. Those children are hugely vulnerable. What will you do in this mandate to address that through policy, guidance or legislation? By the end of the mandate, what can we have some certainty will have changed so that we can start closing those gaps in the system?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Minister, that is a really important question, but I ask you to answer quickly just on the specific actions.

Mr Givan: My officials are scoping out where there are gaps in legislation. Parents are under a legal obligation when it comes to education. When a child is withdrawn from education, we will know that the child no longer attends school because they have left. However, parents are not under a legal obligation if they decide to homeschool their child.

Mrs Guy: That is the first point of failure in the system that we need to address.

Mr Givan: Currently, under the law, parents are under no legal obligation to inform education authorities that they are going to homeschool their child, for example. There is therefore a gap in that information. We are scoping out the legislative gaps that prevent us from identifying children who are missing from education.

Mrs Guy: You have been scoping that for a year now: are we getting any closer to having some answers and some deliverables on it?

Mr Givan: If there is legislation to come in the mandate, I have said that, if we can do that, we should, but the time window is closing for taking legislation through the Assembly. I assure you that we are looking at what gaps there are and how we can address them.

Ms Hunter: Thank you, Minister and panel, for being here. My question is slightly out of the remit of SEN. I spoke to a parent of an autistic child who is at one of the schools in Coleraine that is set to be part of an amalgamation. My question pertains to the Causeway Academy and some of the issues that we have had. A number of teachers and parents of children who go to those schools — Coleraine College, North Coast Integrated and Dunluce — feel that the planning, so far, has been a total disaster. There has been a lack of clarity and a lack of public messaging. Initially, the plan was to have the school on a neutral site on the Lodge Road, but we were informed in June that that would not happen. The plan has changed, and I have been informed that it will likely operate across three sites. That was not the initial plan. Putting the logistical issues aside, where are we with that important project, from an integrated standpoint, particularly for the children attending the schools who have autism and like routine and certainty? What does it look like? Will you provide clarity?

Mr Givan: I entirely agree about the process, where we are today and identifying where the site should be. I have been honest with people that the current proposal to operate on a three-site model is likely to continue. There is a new principal who is responsible for the work, and the EA is engaging with them on that. Ideally, you would want to have a single site. However, when the costings were carried out by the Education Authority — officials will correct me on this — it was established that it would cost over £20 million to provide a single site. There is not £20 million available in the Department's capital budget for that to take place. It is not acceptable that that is where we are with those three schools still having to operate within their sites. That is not the best outcome. However, it is a reality of the situation that we have to deal with.

Suzanne Kingon has been dealing with that aspect of things in the Department. Suzanne, do you want to provide more detail?

Dr Suzanne Kingon (Department of Education): The project is a wider issue about development proposals and having sufficient funding. Of course, it is suboptimal to have any school operating on a split site, as the Minister indicated, but, because of the wider pressures on the Education capital budget, we, unfortunately, do not have £20 million of unallocated capital available for individual projects. There is a wide range of projects: there was a recent development proposal for Craigavon Senior High School, for example.

We know that schools should be on one site after they amalgamate, but we face such capital pressures, particularly around SEN. Our SEN expenditure has increased from below £10 million per annum to close to £90 million this year and will go up and up thereafter. We do not have the money for individual projects. We are faced with the wider market position in which we have not only growing demands on our capital budget but massively escalating construction costs. We get less bang for our buck; our funding does not go as far as it used to. We are in a situation where we have to provide SEN places first. That is right and proper: children need to be provided with school placements. That is the most pressing need across the school system, and it has to be prioritised.

Unfortunately, we have dozens of projects at an advanced stage of planning, including new builds, extensions and refurbishments, work coming out of development proposals and work in the Irish-medium sector, that we do not have sufficient funding to take forward. Unless we get the ring-fenced Executive programme that the Minister referred to, that will, regrettably, continue to be the case in the long term.

Ms Hunter: Parents to whom I have spoken are confused. The idea around amalgamation was brought forward. The core principle of the amalgamation project was to have all types of children coming together to learn and to improve educational outcomes, but now we hear about a three-site approach. It is confusing. The desire is to be open for 2026. Is that still going to happen?

Dr Kingon: When it comes to amalgamations, the split-site approach is not optimal. Of course, we want schools to be on a single site, but benefits from amalgamation can come even if a school operates across three sites. There can be improved sustainability and a consolidated teaching staff and senior leadership team, and children are able to avail themselves of a better curricular offer. Many schools successfully operate across split sites. It is not the case that there are no benefits to amalgamation if a school is not on one site; that is not the case. There are significant benefits, particularly around the curricular offer for children and young people. Having a larger staff means that they can have subject teams and things like that in place across the school. There are significant benefits. We have to work through the project and get a solution that is affordable and deliverable.

Ms Hunter: Will it open in 2026 for certain?

Mr Givan: It will operate as a new school, but it is likely to be on a split site.

Ms Hunter: Will it be 2026?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A final comment, please, Cara.

Mr Givan: It is not acceptable, but it is also not unique. Soon after coming into office, I visited a school — I think it was Lecale Trinity Grammar, which is made up of three schools — that is in that very position. My officials can correct me if I am wrong, but St Ronan's College, a new build that just opened, previously had a split site. That new school has just opened in Lurgan, and, if the Committee is looking for a new school to visit, I commend St Ronan's as an example of an exceptional new build. Again, it previously operated on a split site for quite a number of years as a result of an amalgamation. I accept that, up in the Causeway area, it is suboptimal and not acceptable, but it is also, unfortunately, not unique.

Ms Hunter: I just have a final comment —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A final comment.

Ms Hunter: — because I want to respect the Chair.

Minister, thank you for your answers. While I am here, I note that Coleraine has an extremely high level of child poverty: nearly 50% of our young people are on free school meals. Educational outcomes in the area desperately need to be improved, and we need your Department on side to do that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I ask you to bring your comments to a close.

Ms Hunter: We desperately need you to take any opportunity that you have to engage with teachers, principals and parents in that region about Causeway Academy.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is on the record.

Mr Baker: Minister, you have heard about the challenges that our school leaders and staff face and the heavy lifting that they do, but they are also overwhelmed with the pace and scale of the consultations and your proposed changes. My concern is about your plans for assessments and the curriculum. Are you more concerned about league tables and spreadsheets than the confidence, growth and creativity of our children?

Mr Givan: Here is a real challenge: one of the biggest contributors to excessive teacher workload is their responsibility for controlled assessments. What we are doing on assessment will release some of the workload pressures that they face. The way in which the curriculum operates in Northern Ireland requires teachers to do much more than they will need to do once we conclude the curriculum process. If we want to address teacher workload, we either allow the current system to operate or transform it in a way that improves the experience of teachers and, importantly, pupils.

Mr Baker: Minister, let me stop you on that one. What I mean is this: by narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test and focusing on high-stakes exams, are you undermining the overall development of our children and young people?

Mr Givan: It is quite the opposite: I am removing teaching to the test. The problem is that there is a curriculum and a qualification, and, in seeking to ensure that pupils gain the qualification, schools will teach according to the test that needs to be passed in order to gain that qualification. That is why qualifications need to align with the curriculum. Otherwise, you are saying to teachers, "Here's the curriculum that you need to teach, but, if you want to pass the test, you also need to cover these areas". Teachers are having to skim through a huge amount of the curriculum without having the time to give pupils an in-depth understanding. Children then have to catch up. Here is why we are doing it: do you know who suffers most because of the curriculum in Northern Ireland? It is children from a disadvantaged background, because —

Mr Baker: OK, Minister —

Mr Givan: — Danny, parents who have the money will pay for tutors to get their children caught up. My approach will benefit the working class more than the current system.

Mr Baker: OK, Minister. I completely disagree with you about that. You want to reduce teaching, but you plan to scrap AS levels and have single, high-stakes exams that will pile even more pressure on our young people. Do you accept that that will have a huge negative impact on the mental health and well-being of many of our pupils? What about the children who do not test well and prefer coursework? Are we taking away their chances and opportunities and designing a curriculum that benefits the few and not the many?

Mr Givan: No. The evidence does not back up the argument that a linear approach disadvantages children. We can have a view on that, but I challenge you to come forward with why you disagree with me on the evidence. My view is informed by the education sector across every sector and community in Northern Ireland.

Mr Baker: That is not what I hear from school leaders and pupils. I do not know where you are getting that from.

Mr Givan: We can debate the issue of AS levels. I watch as the responses come in, and a valid debate is being had on it. Let us talk about pupil welfare and anxiety. Children who follow the more modular approach are tested in year 11 rather than year 12. There are more examinations, and more pressure is put on them, when they are in fourth year of school. They will sit more exams in fifth year; they will sit AS levels in lower sixth; and quite a number of them resit the same tests, doing it all again, in upper sixth. Therefore, for four years, we demand that our pupils go through revision, mock examination periods —

Mr Baker: Minister —

Mr Givan: — and tests, which also eats up —

Mr Baker: Minister, they get a second chance when they resit.

Mr Givan: Yes, Danny, but that takes them out of the classroom, and they are no longer listening to teachers.

Mr Baker: Minister, you talk about teachers teaching to the test, but you ignore the fact that academic selection warps our education system. We test children and call them "failures" at the age of 11. You champion that; you are not challenging or trying to change that part of the education system. It is hypocrisy to say that you are taking away testing further down the line. It just does not stack up, Minister.

Mr Givan: I welcome the discussion. I appreciate that it is not on SEN, but what I would say —

Mr Baker: Sorry, Minister, but it really impacts on our children with additional needs. The way that you are going to set up the curriculum will make it even harder for them, because you are putting it all on a high-stakes exam and not having assessment throughout their pathways.

Mr Givan: That is not the case. In the work on the reform of the curriculum, Lucy Crane identified that the Northern Ireland curriculum, as it stands, disadvantages children with special educational needs. Our curriculum also disadvantages children who use the medium of Irish. Part of the work that I am taking forward on the review of the curriculum will improve the experiences of children with special educational needs. It will also address the shortfall for children in the Irish-medium sector.

I will say this about the testing periods. In lower sixth, some children are out of school for two or three weeks in January to prepare to sit mock exams. Then, they sit and complete their AS levels in May. Some schools do not bring those children back in for the whole month of June. Therefore, some children miss out on at least seven weeks in the classroom.

Mr Baker: It gives them a second chance. You are putting it all on a high-stakes exam.

Mr Givan: Danny, if you want children —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will just come in here.

Mr Baker: You are going backwards. It is going back 30 years.

Mr Givan: You want more testing.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Sorry, Danny and Minister.

Mr Baker: I want more child-centred opportunities for our young people.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Excuse me, Danny. We are running out of time. It is a really important conversation that clearly needs to be had. When we get a briefing from officials on the proposed plans, it will be important to have that conversation. I am not sure that we will unpick the complexity of the issue in the time that we have left.

Mr Givan: I will welcome the conversation. Danny is right to get into the issue, because we need to have the debate.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Minister, I completely agree, but I we are not going to bottom it out in the next couple of minutes.

Mr Givan: I know that it is not what today's session is about.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes. On post-primary transfer and academic selection, there is a big issue in that we have to be realistic about whether we will say, "Up the school system, at post-primary, you should not be teaching to the test, but, down the school system, at primary level, that is OK". The independent review of the curriculum was clear that it skews the curriculum. We are teaching to the test, way down the scale, in the current system. If we are going to have the conversation, we should have it in the round. I know that you will say that I am politicising —

Mr Givan: You are tempting me.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): You told me in the Chamber that you were disappointed in me for politicising the issue. It is not invalid to ask whether that is a good thing to do to children at that age. That is a question that should be put into the mix for debate. It is perhaps a debate to have at another time, but, if we are going to have the discussion, we should have it in the round

Mr Sheehan: Especially since, as the Minister pointed out, if you are from a disadvantaged background, you are at a disadvantage because more affluent parents can pay for tutors.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): They can pay for tutors.

Mr Sheehan: That was a well-made point, Minister. [Laughter.]

Mr Givan: Thanks, Pat.

Mr Brooks: They can also pay for houses near good schools, which is a problem.

Mr Burrows: Minister, thank you. I echo the comments on the need for investment, because, when I go into mainstream schools that offer special educational needs provision, I notice that basic things are not there. For example, I was in sensory rooms that are sort of makeshift. They are not fully padded and not big enough, and, in fact, some have stud walls, which means that the children can hear what is going on next door even though they need to be somewhere really quiet. It is just an observation that those basic things need to be done. I appreciate that that requires cash.

I want to raise a really difficult issue but not in a point-scoring way. Teachers in mainstream schools that offer additional needs education provision tell me that they come home having been bitten and spat at because those children, who are vulnerable — it is not about blame — are dysregulated and become difficult and volatile. The teacher has to intervene to protect the child and other children. Those teachers have told me that they do not have training and that Team Teach has not been rolled out, so they are not trained in de-escalation and safe restraint, and they do not have bite guards and visors. I am keen to establish whether that can be rolled out ASAP so that we can support our teachers.

Mr Givan: Thank you, Jon, for that. I echo what you said about sensory rooms. I know that not all schools have sensory rooms, but schools are increasingly introducing them. Indeed, just before I came to the Committee, I was at Park School, which is a moderate learning difficulty special school, to officially open its new sensory room. Even in the short time that that room has been operational, it has had a positive impact by helping children who are dysregulated. I spoke to one of the pupils in the sensory room and asked her, "Why is this important to you?", and she said, "When I get upset, this calms me down". It is a valuable part of a school estate and one that I would like to see developed. Indeed, I thought that it was apt that the choir sang the Bob Marley song that contains the words, "Don't worry". I said to them, "I am slightly anxious because I am heading to the Education Committee, so this song has prepared me for it". Those visits always pull at the heartstrings.

The wider issue is one that principals have raised with me. I have been in schools where there is very challenging behaviour. I have witnessed that occurring. Those children need as much support as we can give them, and their families often face challenging environments at home. The teachers and classroom assistants also face those challenges. It is not only being bitten or spat at; limbs have been broken in some school settings. Teachers and classroom assistants need to have clear guidance on when it is appropriate to intervene and on the nature of that intervention, not only for their protection but for the protection of the children involved. That is really important. We come to this with, rightly, a very child-centred focus, but, as well as keeping the child safe, our approach has to keep the staff safe in those school settings. It is difficult to navigate, but I will not allow the teachers and staff to operate in an environment where they feel that there is not sufficient clarity on the law and in guidance to protect them and the children. I want to make sure that there is a clear child-centred approach but one that recognises the practical realities of what a lot of our teachers have to deal with.

We can take it out of special school settings. Such issues are more acute there, but incidents occur in all our schools. I was on the board of governors of a school where there was an incident between two pupils. They were fighting in the corridor, and a teacher had to intervene. I am glad that the teacher intervened, but that teacher needed to be assured that their intervention would not be challenged. We cannot leave teachers in an environment in which they feel vulnerable, otherwise they will not intervene, and we will end up with pupils engaging in activity that is harmful to themselves and to other individuals.

Mr Burrows: Thank you. I will follow up on that, because I am keen to see training and equipment provided. Support is vital, because, as you said, if they are not supported, there will be risk aversion, and, then, everyone is at risk.

The final matter that I want to look at is outside the scope of special educational needs. Last week, there was an issue with Harryville Primary School in my constituency. I do not know whether it was leaked, but the BBC got hold of the tracer alert that said that 48 children were missing from education and that 24 of those children were from Harryville Primary School. The Education Authority must have confirmed the number, and that became a headline, causing a lot of distress for the school. With a quick phone call, I found out that the number was actually eight. The number in the public domain was then revised. Can any lessons be learned by the EA, principally, and by the school, so that, before the EA confirms such information with the BBC — however it was obtained — it checks that information with the school principal? There is a big difference between eight and 24, and that caused significant distress to the school.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I would ask you to address that as briefly as you can, Minister, as your party colleague is waiting patiently to come in.

Mr Givan: Is David the last to ask a question?

Mr Brooks: I think so.

Mr Givan: OK, well, I will stay for a bit longer, Nick. [Laughter.]

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): He is not known for his brevity. [Laughter.]

Mr Givan: Let me look into that example, Jon. It is important that information that is put into the public domain is accurate. I am not exactly sure of the stats for pupils who are missing as a result of what happened in Ballymena. I would only be speculating on the reasons for that, and it would not be right to do that. I will take that away —

Mr Burrows: Please.

Mr Givan: — and come back to you in writing about how that information was communicated, and, if there were inaccuracies in the information, why that was and what steps have been taken between Harryville Primary School and the Education Authority to put it right. I will leave it at that for now, but I will come back to you.

Mr Burrows: Right. Three of the children who were on the list that the BBC ran with and that other politicians commented on were in the school at the time that I visited. It was inaccurate information.

Mr Brooks: You may be surprised that I do not have a preamble today, Chair. That is because I have three questions that I hope to get in.

Thank you to you and your officials, Minister, for your preparation. Chris Donnelly's presentation in the Committee's previous evidence session was useful. One thing that he spoke of, which is probably in line with some of the Department's thinking and your thinking, is the need to address the issue of how sustainable the current prevalence of one-to-one assistance is and to look at a model that serves our children as well or better. He said that we needed to look at whether that is the best and most sustainable model. Will you speak to that and about what other models you have been looking at? Can you reassure those who fear that this may be about a cull of classroom assistants that it is more child-focused?

Mr Givan: On your last point, David, it is absolutely not what some have accused it of being. There is a clear and important role for classroom assistants in our education system. I want to find ways to empower our classroom assistants so that they can be utilised and deployed more effectively in school settings. A new model would allow much greater permanency in their employment. The current one-to-one direct provision, by its very nature, is tied to a specific pupil, which creates the temporary nature of the employment. If there were a way to give schools greater assurances of the resources that they will get, they could employ people permanently. That may mean additional teachers, but it would also, inevitably, mean having classroom assistants. Therefore, we would need to look at how to give them the required skill set and improve their qualifications.

Earlier, I mentioned the evidence that we have for the approach that we want to take. We had our departmental end-to-end review, which heard from parents and schools. That review fed into the approach that, we believe, is necessary to recalibrate. Going back as far as 2017, the Public Accounts Committee published a report on the impact review of special educational needs that questioned the operational effectiveness of the current model. We also fed that into our end-to-end review. In 2020, the Northern Ireland Children's Commissioner produced a report that referenced the way in which, she believed, the system was not working. There was an independent Ipsos review of SEN. I will not go through them, but a multiplicity of reports demonstrate that there has to be a fundamental change in approach. Classroom assistants have a key role to play as part of the transformation that we need to take place. It is about how best we can support them and improve their skill set.

We need to empower schools. Principals have told me that they could utilise the resource much more effectively by trusting their judgement, as opposed to the current system, where one-to-one provision is provided and you can have many extra people in a room who are not being deployed in the most effective way. A school could use the resource more effectively and deploy that skill across more pupils who are not currently being statemented. It is important that we do not allow children to fall through the cracks between those who get a statement and those who do not. There is a better way to make sure that we can provide greater support to all of the children who present with additional needs.

I understand that some parents will be anxious and ask, "What does it mean? What is the impact? If this changes, will I lose something?". It is important that we make sure that people fully understand how the approach that we need to take will be more effective for children.

Mr Brooks: Agreed. Thank you for your answer. I will move quickly to another issue that Chris Donnelly raised, which was about schools that are willing to set up SPiMs and carry some of the load that we talked about earlier. There is a challenge in recruiting teachers who have the training. He said that teachers get a day's training at the Antrim training centre, and, suddenly, they are specialist teachers. We would all, obviously, hope that there could be more training than that. You also hear from some special school principals about their challenges in trying to recruit classroom assistants and so on. Down the line, will there be a move to having, as part of the core teacher training, mandatory experience in special schools or special education?

Mr Givan: Our initial teacher training colleges are providing that training. It is also part of the transformation of our education programme that we need to set up much better induction programmes, including for special schools. That is already under way to make sure that the young people who are being trained in our colleges get access to special educational needs training. Janis has a bit more information on that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): May we have a brief final comment, Janis, and then we will draw a line under it?

Mrs Scallon: Yes, I will be quick, because we will come back to brief you fully on that project. One of the public sector transformation fund projects is about utilising some of our special schools to act as hub-and-spoke models for their local mainstream schools, whether or not they have specialist provision. That will use the expertise in special schools to reach out to mainstream schools for peer-to-peer learning on the ground.

Mr Brooks: Thank you. Is that time up?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It is, unfortunately, David. I thank members and witnesses for working with us on the timings.

I want to raise briefly the issue of transitions, which we have not covered. I do not plan to ask a question on it; it is more a point for the officials to note. When we hear from the Department in more detail, I would like to hear about the work that is planned to deliver that process better. I am conscious that we have focused a lot on system-wide issues but not covered the end of a child's educational journey: what transition planning looks like, particularly in the 14-19 space, and whether that could be covered as part of the wider transformation agenda. I ask the officials to include that in the briefing.

Mr Givan: Just to assure you, Chairman, the Executive recently approved a paper from the Economy Minister on transitions and post-19. That paper contained a number of recommendations from my Department. I assure you and the Committee that we are fully engaged in that process.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We will be keen to hear a bit more on that.

I will draw the meeting to a close. Thank you, Minister and your officials, for your time and preparation for today.

Mr Givan: Thank you, Chairman and Committee.