Little boy to face a weekly 400 kilometre round trip to school due to closure of special class in Nenagh

The loss of the Mild General Learning Disability (MGLD) class in CBS Primary School Nenagh means the parents of a young boy in Templederry will now have to send their son to a school in Cashel to meet his educational needs.

The little boy’s parents feel fortunate that they found a place for their five-and-a-half year-old son in Cashel. But due to the closure of the class in Nenagh, the journey time to and from school has more than doubled for their child.

What would have been a daily round trip of 40 minutes to Nenagh has now turned into a 100-minute round trip to Cashel - 84kms a day. This long journey on its own will no doubt have a toll on a child so young.

“We feel very lucky that we have got a place in Cashel for our son in September and he has also been approved for transport,” says the child’s mother, who did not wish to be named.

She and her husband are both working, and having the State provide for their son’s transport to and from the school in Cashel is good news for them.

Yet, they still both have concerns. “We are sending off our little boy, who will be six in October, in the back of a car with two strangers, and it is a real worry,” said the boy’s father.

The parents said their local national school in Templederry would gladly have done all it could to accommodate their son, but they themselves felt his needs are too complex and that he would be best served by in a school that specifically meets his needs.

So the class in Nenagh, being relatively close to their home, was the obvious choice.

The child has been diagnosed with mild learning disabilities, and while there are a number of schools with facilities in the Nenagh area that cater for children with autism, their son is not autistic. Therefore he is one of several who fall between two stools when it comes to best serving his education needs.

The closure of the class in CBS Primary Nenagh means not only the child of the Templederry couple, but other local parents with children diagnosed with mild learning disabilities outside the range of autism will also now have to try to find places for them in special class in faraway schools such as Cashel, Limerick or Birr.

NEEDS NOT MET

The parents say their son’s educational needs cannot be fully met by sending him to one of the several units for children on the autism spectrum that do exist in the Nenagh and wider area of North Tipperary.

“He would not get the supports that exist such as a Special Needs Assistant solely for himself because of his complex needs,” says his father.

His mother agrees: “For for our son to have a meaningful inclusion in the education system there is no point in us sending him to a school in Nenagh.”

The parents fear that their son could become “a crutch on the State” if they fail send him to the school in Cashel where the specific care and education he requires will be provided.

They are bitterly disappointed that the local unit is closing for other reasons too.

Says his mother: “CBS Primary School Nenagh is gone co-ed and our son’s younger sister (4) had been looking forward to joining her brother in there.

“But now our son is being removed from his siblings and his community and it’s not fair on him that he now has to travel 84 kilometres a day in a taxi with, hopefully, somebody who is going to be nice and drive appropriately.

“Our son is going to be travelling 400 kilometres a week for an appropriate education.

“We have to take him out of his local community and unless he is going to be around Templederry with his four siblings nobody is going to know him in Templederry and he’s not going to know anybody in Templederry.”

The father says there are “loads” of other children like their son in North Tipperary whose needs cannot be properly met by the autism classes that exist in schools in the area.

Labour Party TD Alan Kelly has highlighted the problem and is now calling on the Government to address the situation.