6th September 2021
The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has last week launched a new application form for schools wishing to apply for a review of their SET allocation in mainstream classrooms, based on exceptional circumstances. Applications will be made online via the NCSE School Support Portal.
The NCSE School Support Portal is the platform through which schools can apply for in-school support for whole staff, groups of staff and individual teachers. Support may be in the form of telephone support, email support, video conferences and, in circumstances where public health advice permits, a school visit, or a whole school seminar.
The process to apply for an exceptional review will be familiar to many schools as it is the same mechanism which has been used by schools over the course of the last year to apply for in-school support and SNA Exceptional Reviews. Schools will be required to create a new support ticket for “SET Exceptional Review for mainstream classrooms” on the online platform. An instructional video and guidance on navigating the portal are available in the ‘Knowledge base’ section.
An account for each school has been established on this portal using the school’s email address. Account activation details were circulated to schools via email on 1 September 2020 and schools are advised to check the school email account – including the spam folder – for this important information. Any school that has yet to receive an activation email should contact the NCSE via email at schoolsupport@ncse.ie to request access to the portal.