Summer Programme 2023 Announced

Posted by SchoolDays Newshound, on 10/02/2023. Summer Programme 2023 Announced

Tags: Parenting Teachers

The Minister for Education Norma Foley and Minister of State for Special Education and Inclusion Josepha Madigan announced details of the 2023 Summer Programme. Once again, all schools will have an opportunity to run a programme for those children that need it the most, so that they can be supported, nurtured and encouraged to continue to engage in a fun and inclusive educational setting.

For 2023, additional funding was secured in Budget 2023 to run the programme to match the investment in 2021 and 2022, bringing the total funding available to €40 million.

This year’s programme is designed and developed to ensure supports are targeted to better assist children and young people to have access to a school based programme. For 2023 it is a priority that more children in special schools have access to a school-based programme.

This year introduces a new Special School Programme as a pilot initiative to ensure there is a real focus on supporting special schools. This programme has been designed and developed to ensure supports are targeted to enhance the availability of a school-based programme for pupils in special schools.

In addition, there are two in-school schemes at mainstream primary level:

the Primary School Scheme for pupils in primary mainstream schools, which provides one cohesive scheme combining the Inclusion programme and special classes from last year

the DEIS expanded literacy and numeracy summer camp/campa samhraidh for pupils in DEIS schools. This is available to all schools in the DEIS scheme, including those that received their new DEIS status in September 2022

There is one scheme at post-primary level, the Post-Primary Scheme.

This year all post-primary schools can offer a Summer Programme for students with complex special educational needs and those at risk of educational disadvantage.

A central theme has been developed, ‘Building Confidence and Connections’. The aim of this theme is to help our children and young people to realise their potential, to be resilient in dealing with the normal stresses of their lives, to take care of their physical wellbeing and to have a sense of purpose, connection and belonging to their school community.

This year’s programme introduces a new organiser role, replacing preparation hours in previous years. This will help support schools in their planning and participation from a much earlier stage for summer 2023. The title of the overseer role has changed to Summer Programme Manager. The functions for this role remains largely the same as previous years.

A number of supports are in place to assist schools in running the Summer Programme this year. These include:

contracted teachers and special needs assistants will be paid their personal rate of pay

while the role of Summer Programme Organiser must be allocated to one specific teacher, the role of Summer Programme Manager can be shared between teachers in a school

there is provision for schools to recruit newly qualified teachers graduating this summer as well as the undergraduate student teachers who have registered with the Teaching Council under Route 5

substitute teachers, SNAs, newly qualified teachers and Route 5 undergraduate student teachers will be paid their standard substitution rates

schools can also recruit other external workers such as early child care workers, carers and other students in relevant areas such as therapy, nursing and social care to take part in their programme. There will be a separate portal for special schools for this purpose

an online portal will be available to schools to submit payment claims to simplify the process. Claims will be entered by a Data Entry Person and approved by an Approver at school level under the direction of the school’s Summer Programme Manager

as in 2022, claims will be automated and paid directly to individual teachers and SNAs when fully completed claims are received from schools, significantly reducing the payment timeframes of previous years

training and guidance will be provided to schools and their organisers, this will be facilitated through online training

An online registration portal will be available soon for schools on gov.ie/summerprogramme.

When schools register for the Summer Programme they will receive an email specifying the staffing resources that have been allocated to them. Schools will have the facility to appeal resource allocations