Hundreds of Whanganui kids missing out on learning support from Ministry of Education

A lack of funding for learning support in school means children are missing out. Photo / 123rf

Hundreds of Whanganui students are missing out on much-needed classroom support with schools’ applications for funding being denied by the Ministry of Education.

Teachers were being left to support children with severe disabilities, who might have little speech or display volatile behaviour such as “throwing chairs around the classroom”, Castlecliff School special education needs co-ordinator Anne Moon said.

If children did not “fit into a box” for prepared funding, they were often refused funding, Moon said.

The Ministry of Education acknowledges the shortfall and says the demand for more funding is part of current reviews.

In 2023, less than a third of the in-class (ICS) funding applications for children with learning difficulties were accepted by the Ministry of Education.

Whanganui schools made 346 applications for ICS funding for the 2023 school year.

The ministry funded 150 students for the 2022 and 2023 school years, despite well over 100 more applications being put forward than the 245 applications made in 2019.

Sean Teddy, Ministry of Education operations and integration leader, said the number of available in-class support places remained at 4500 nationally in 2023 but the demand for places was consistently higher than the funding available.

Brunswick School principal Jane Corcoran said hundreds of students who should be receiving in-class support funding were not getting it.

“These are students who have diagnosed intellectual disabilities,” Corcoran said.

ICS funding gives students one hour of teacher aide support per day for a year.

Moon said a child would need to be three to five years behind in classwork “and that’s significantly behind, before you can get that funding”.

ICS funding is given for learning but not behavioural issues. Moon said the lack of funding for children with behavioural problems was the “biggest issue” within learning support.

Schools could apply to Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) for teacher aide support for students with behavioural problems, but Moon said the funding was temporary and, after six months or a year, funding could be cut off.

“By that time they’ll expect the problem to have resolved itself,” she said.

“We get no funding for behavioural at all - and the kid might be throwing chairs around the classroom.”

Moon said this made it hard work for teachers to control a learning environment.

“It affects everyone else’s learning and it can trauma the other kids because that kid is kicking off and they don’t feel safe.”

For children with the highest needs and most severe disabilities, applications can be made to the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) and Moon said this funding was “the magic bullet everybody wants”.

In 2022, of the 31 ORS applications submitted for the Whanganui region, 20 applications were accepted and 11 declined.

There was an increase in the number of applications made since 2020 when 18 applications were made and nine were approved for funding.

Moon said ORS applications required a huge amount of paperwork and she would only apply for children who had a likelihood of success, because they were unable to speak, could not toilet themselves and were a danger to other students.

“We have had children come in with no speech but, because cognitively they can understand an instruction and follow it, then they won’t qualify.”

Last year only one child in Castlecliff School had an ORS application accepted.

Corcoran said getting an ORS application accepted and granted was extremely hard.

“If you manage to get a successful ORS application through, it is a miracle.”

There was an exponential rise in the number of students in schools with learning support needs and behavioural needs, she said.

“Teacher aides need to be in every classroom and centrally funded, and the amount of resourcing given to ORS funding and ICS needs to be significantly increased.”

Corcoran said if the Government increased staffing entitlements in primary schools and learning support funding it would go a long way to improving a teacher’s work life.

Teddy said there was an annual moderation process to allocate the ICS places involving representatives from Te Mahau Ministry of Education, RTLB and principals of schools/kura. The Whanganui region was allocated 105 places.

“We understand there is higher demand for ICS than there are places available,” Teddy said.

“The implications of this, and the demand for ORS, are being considered as part of the bigger picture of the Highest Needs Review and the Accord Teacher Aide resourcing review.

“We will be better placed to plan for next steps on the number of ICS places as these reviews progress.”