Re-entering normality after Covid-19 will take intense foresight and planning in all spheres.
Education has put out recovery plans, but these are solely focused on ‘mainstream’ schools, seemingly marginalising special schools catering for pupils with a range of physical or intellectual disabilities.
Here, intensive levels of specialist educational care and support are required which involves curriculum adaptation, training, repetition and consolidation to gradually mould pupils into at least some measure of independent living.
Routine is what gives these pupils meaningful orderliness and fosters learning.
Even minor breaks, such as weekends, necessitates a kind of ‘catch up’ programme.
A major break in routine such as the national ‘lockdown’ will certainly create much anxiety and cause regression among these pupils, for whom school is usually a place of constancy, learning and happiness.
The post-lockdown programme for this sector will have to take several factors into consideration:
• Staff should return at least a week in advance of the pupils for screening and where indicated, testing and isolation.
• Staff must oversee the sanitising of facilities and receive training in the finer points of safety measures. The Department of Health should be involved.
• It would be best for pupils to return to schools in batches, starting with the highest grades/phases first. Instruction should commence with Covid-19 safety precautions rather than the formal curriculum.
• Techniques such as masking, sanitising, washing of hands and protocols relevant to coughing, sneezing and social distancing should be taught via fun activities such as singing, drama and choral counting.
• Teaching social distancing will be a particular challenge, as these pupils are naturally gregarious, quick to hug or touch. It would take a great deal of repetition and consolidation for this to become a habit.
• There is the very real fear that having the entire complement of pupils present at school at any stage, could easily catapult the school into a new infection hot spot. It might be worthwhile to allow only the return of the pupils closest to the exit age of 18.
• Special schools are generally understaffed and underfunded. All these measure will come at a heavy additional cost and if the State does not support special schools now in material, financial and practical ways, they may just collapse.
• Without the active and sustained support of all relevant education district officials, these schools will more than likely fail. Now is the time for curriculum advisers and circuit managers, who generally for some or other reason ‘can’t find the time’ to support special schools, to now do so in earnest.
• For the district to ensure accountable and proper service delivery to special schools now and going forward, it would be best to allocate at least one circuit manager and one curriculum adviser to the special schools in our areas. This will swing the situation from, what seems at present to be neglect of these schools, to meaningful and accountable service.
This is an unexplored journey which we are taking, calling for extraordinary cooperation and support.
