Cavan No. 1 School campaigns for extra SNAs and classroom

BEHIND the Georgian walls of Cavan No.1 School, the small team of teachers within have been battling on many fronts and ‘putting up’ with what they see is government neglect of children with additional needs or those who are disadvantaged in Cavan Town.

To date, the school’s repeated pleas for help from the Department of Education and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

Now the staff and management at Cavan No.1 School say the time for just “shutting up” has passed.

The national school on Farnham Street currently has six children with significant primary care needs including autism enrolled but, because they only have two special needs assistants (SNAs) and no special education classroom, the town centre school has had to refuse places to children with additional needs for the coming year.

Six of the children currently enrolled need one-to-one care. On the day the Celt contacted the school its principal, Sabrina Faulkner Richardson, said she was looking after two junior infants with autism as well as six pupils with primary needs while “juggling” her usual admin duties.

Children, including those with severe autism, are required to go up and down stairs multiple times daily just to access basic facilities because there are no toilets or sinks upstairs where the General Purpose room has been turned into a temporary classroom.

The school, which maintains a Church of Ireland ethos, projects 112 children enrolled for the coming academic year – representing a 66% increase.

They say 85% of the school’s current and incoming pupils come from ‘demonstrably disadvantaged backgrounds’ including homelessness and social exclusion.

And, in Cavan, which has approximately 1,000 primary school-aged children, the siblings of Cavan No.1 School pupils who have additional needs are bused to a separate school outside the town and outside of their community.

Yet the Department of Education and NCSE have rejected the school’s calls for one or more special classrooms and more classroom accommodation in general, additional special needs assistants and inclusion on the DEIS scheme.

It has led some of the teaching staff to question whether Cavan No 1 School is being discriminated against because of its religious ethos. Cavan No. 1 NS is under the patronage of the Bishop of Kilmore, but welcomes students of all faiths.

And now, to “ensure their children’s needs are prioritised”, teachers have brought the issues into the public arena and may consider “legal steps”.

One senior teacher, Phillip O’Callaghan, told the Celt: “There is now a very real concern the Department is applying unequal treatment towards our school.

“Two other Catholic schools in this town have been granted DEIS status, staff toilets, and special classrooms. Our school, serving over 120 children, has consistently been denied the same supports, despite clear evidence of need,” a deeply frustrated Mr O’Callaghan said.

The first and second class teacher said he does not want to make the disadvantages being placed on the children in his care a religious issue rather it is a “moral obligation to the children and families of Cavan Town” to provide education to all.

“As a normal mainstream class teacher, with autistic children in my class, I suppose my main message is that in a town with over 1,000 children attending primary school, an autistic child deserves to go to their local primary school just as much as a neuro-typical child does,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

“The families in this school walk around the corner from Main Street, Drumgola Woods, Swellan,” he continued.

“With a heavy populated town like Cavan it’s just ridiculous neglect towards the most vulnerable children in our care to bus them out of town.

“It’s putting our most vulnerable children at the greatest extremes to get an education,” he continued. “The Department of Education should stand for inclusion, but they seem to treat special needs children and their parents with the complete opposite,” he said.

Mr O’Callaghan is urging the Department of Education to place two special classrooms in a school in Cavan Town to reduce the stress and discomfort for the children with significant primary care needs. Doing so “would be life-changing for these children and their parents,” he said.

The staff at Cavan No.1 School are very grateful for the “brilliant” support they’ve received from Senator Pauline Tully who, as Sinn Féin’s former spokesperson on disability, raised the “urgent need” at the local school in the Seanad recently.

“They are one of four schools in Cavan Town and the only one without Deis status or a special classroom,” Sen Tully said in the chamber of the Upper House. “They are hearing of other schools being contacted about the establishment of a special class and some of them are not willing to do so but they are willing and they feel like they’re being penalised because they are a Church of Ireland school.

“Now, I’m sure that’s not the case,” the senator continued, “but I’d like that fact clarified.”

She told the Seanad that, while there are two SNAs in Cavan No 1 School, they cannot assist children who are all in different classrooms.

“The urgent need is an SNA then a special classroom in September,” Sen Tully said.

A spokesperson at the Department of Education said they and the NCSE continue to forward plan to provide additional special class and special school places for children with complex special educational needs.

“Any school who believes their allocation is insufficient to meet the care needs of their children can seek a review of their SNA allocation from the NCSE,” a statement reads.

“Regarding the sanctioning of special education classes … Parents were asked to notify the NCSE by the 1 October if seeking a special educational placement in the 2026/27 school year. The NCSE is working towards sanctioning the majority of new special classes for the 2026/27 school year by December 31, 2025.”

The statement also pointed out that “in the last five years in County Cavan, the number of special classes has increased by 70%, the number of SNAs overall has increased by 36% and the number of special education teachers in mainstream has increased by 11%.”