Parents of children who attend the San Ġorg Preca College Guardian Angel Resource Centre in Hamrun have raised concerns about the resources available at the centre.
The centre caters for children with severe learning difficulties.
The issues they highlighted concern the physical and personnel resources available at the school. The parents who spoke to this newsroom said that there are children who, according to the statementing board, are meant to have one Learning Support Educator with them, however, the resource centres only provides three LSEs for every eight students. These parents believe this level of support is not sufficient for the children.
Emma McEwen is the mother of one such student. Her son, Finn, who is on the autism spectrum, was in the mainstream school system until last year, when he joined the Guardian Angel Resource Centre in Hamrun. Finn, she said, is almost non-verbal and has “behaviours which communicate unmet needs”. These full-time students at the school who need a one-to-one LSE ratio should have it, she said.
"The provision of support is eight students to three LSEs," she added. "My son went from a one-to-one ratio in mainstream private and then government school to a specialised government resource centre, but has 2.6 students to one LSE." She said that there aren’t enough LSEs at the centre.
She said that there are other issues. “There are no IT or music teachers, no full-time speech therapist, no full-time occupational therapist, no calm room, no behavioural therapist, and in general not enough staff.”
The ratio of LSEs to students was confirmed as an issue by another parent, who spoke on condition of anonymity and told this newsroom that the school lacks staff. A number of children who attend the school are non-verbal and so need someone to recognise their needs without them talking, the source said, adding that if one of the children needs something, and the LSE doesn't notice because they are busy with another student, that child would get frustrated, which could lead to behaviour problems. “Then when they have a lot of behaviour problems they end up being suspended.”
Another mother of a child attending the resource centre, Becky Neil Crossey, said that her son has Down syndrome and is on the autism spectrum. She also highlights the LSE ratio at the centre as a problem.
Crossey had sat on the School Council, which includes the head of school, three LSEs and a teacher as well as two parents (including her). "Last year, my son would come home screeching and shouting after school, but he's not that type of child. The summer holidays would then come round, and I had my son back, and we suspected that his behaviour was due to what was happening at school. The school year started again, and we saw the same issues."
"The Christmas holidays came, and our son's behaviour changed again, at which point we were pretty sure this situation was coming from the school. I went to the head of school and asked if there were any children with excessive behaviour in my son's class, to which I was told no. We walked into his class and there was screaming and shouting everywhere," she said.
Crossey said that children attending the resource centre who come from Inspire or Hand-in Hand come from a therapeutical approach and are then placed in an educational system. "The classes are small, eight children to a class. But there are resource issues. We have a music room, but no teacher; an IT room but no teacher." As for outdoor facilities, she said the school needs more of them, like swings, sand pits, and others where the children can play.
She said that when there are children with excessive behaviour one needs a behavioural therapist and specialised programmes, which she said there aren't. There is no calm room, she added. The speech therapist is only present once a week, she said, having to deal with many students on that day.
"You cannot put children with certain behaviour issues in a class (which is eight children) with just three LSEs; it needs to be a one-to-one ratio," Crossey said, highlighting that if a child has a behaviour-related issue, then that would probably require the attention of two LSEs alone.
She also said that the students attending the resource centre aren’t taught enough life skills at the centre.
“We need therapists who understand children with disabilities in classrooms and every child needs to be assessed and have a proper programme catered for them,” Crossey said.
Transition period
Emma McEwen described an incident which led to a particular situation.
“We were very happy for around three or four weeks, but then it became evident that the training and resources that we assumed were there, are not.”
Her son had, what she described, as an “autism meltdown” on 31 October. The UK's National Autistic Society (NAS) says that a meltdown "happens when someone becomes completely overwhelmed by their current situation and temporarily loses control of their behaviour. This loss of control can be expressed verbally (for example, shouting, screaming, crying), physically (for example, kicking, lashing out, biting) or in both ways." McEwen said that her son became aggressive during the incident, to the point that they were called to pick him up, and he broke her car window. "We calmed him down and took him home. Because he cannot communicate pain when experiencing high levels of pain, we took him to our GP. In fact, he was in a lot of pain from a nasty throat infection requiring antibiotics,” she said, adding that it was the pain and the frustration of not being able to communicate it that triggered the behaviour.
Finn was off school for a few weeks due to the throat infection, the flu he then contracted, and then the Christmas holidays came round. Emma was told by the National School Support Services (NSSS) that her son would only be going back to school on a transitional basis. "I completely agreed with this; that is how I suggested he start the school year. Currently, he goes with the other students in the van, leaving home at 8am and arriving at 9am. We pick him up at 10.35am, instead of the normal drop off time of 3.30pm."
The problem is, she said, that there was no communication from the school as to the plan for her son to return to normal hours until very recently. "There was next to no response to our questions," Julian McEwen, Emma's husband, said. Their son, and others also on this transitional basis "were stuck with less than two hours of schooling and nobody seemed to care. And there was no plan to gradually increase the time at school".
"These resource centres are meant to be there for students like ours," he said. "A transition period should have a plan with it, otherwise it's not a transition, and our concern is that this has become perpetual," he added.
Emma said that some parents, including themselves, had gone to the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) over the issues they encountered at the school, as well as to the director general of Education and the ministry.
Emma said that some parents have escalated inadequacies to the CRPD over the issues they had at the school, as well as to the director general of Education, the Ministry of Education, National Autism Council, the Education Ombudsman, Autism Europe as well as the Ministry of Education and the Permanent Secretary. After having done this, she said that her son and others who were on this “transition period”, and others who were excluded from the centre, have now been offered a new education programme at another centre providing one-to-one support.
“The aim is to transition the students back to Guardian Angel when appropriate, facilitated by a behaviour specialist,” she said. “This answers the immediate needs of these children, however, as yet plans to increase the level of support for other students at Guardian Angel have not been communicated. Additionally, what happens to these non-verbal children on the autism spectrum when they move to the Wardija Resource Centre? Change is challenging for everyone, but it is excruciating and causes mental paralysis and meltdowns for some on the spectrum. The problem will extend outside the students’ education journey and into adult mental health with psychological damage caused by exclusion from education,” she said, highlighting the need for a holistic inclusive education journey from preschool through to the end of the person’s academic journey.
Complaints to CRPD
This newsroom contacted the CRPD, which, in answer to our questions, said that "following complaints from parents of children with autism who felt that their child's needs were not being met adequately, CRPD visited the school, spoke to educators and observed some of the difficulties these children were facing. Suggestions were then made to the Education Department with regards to potential solutions.” It said that suggestions it made relate to alternate programmes more suited to children with autism.
Education ministry says centre has ‘full complement’ of LSEs
Questions were sent to the Hamrun Resource Centre, as well as the Education Ministry. The former said that questions should be forwarded to the latter.
They were asked, among other things, for the criteria being used to decide what students are being placed on the transition period, for how long a student would remain in that situation and to provide information as to what efforts the school is making to keep the parents of children in such a situation up to date. The school was also asked why students who are meant to have a one-to-one LSE ratio do not have it, whether this is a case of there just not being enough LSEs to allocate, whether the school needs additional funding, training or facilities to cater for the number of children who attend and whether the school was working on employing a behavioural therapist.
The Ministry said that the “Guardian Angel Resource Centre effectively addresses student needs, maintaining a full complement of Learning Support Educators (LSEs) and educators for its 88 students as per collective agreement. Regularly organised outdoor activities and a personalised curriculum, including the Prince's Trust programme, reflect the school's commitment to a diverse and enriching education. The student-to-LSE ratio, with a maximum of eight students per class accompanied by three LSEs and an educator, reflects a nurturing and attentive educational environment. Parents are informed that this specialised setting, which differs from mainstream systems, is tailored to the unique context of the school and its students, a system which has been in place for years. Educators and LSEs receive ongoing training from professionals like behaviour therapists and occupational therapists, ensuring they are well-equipped to support children with severe disabilities. This continuous professional development is a testament to the school's dedication to maintaining high educational standards”.
The Ministry stated that “in situations where students exhibit challenging behaviour, which is dangerous to staff members and other students, one of the strategies that is employed is a reduced timetable until their behaviour improves. As soon as an improvement in their behaviour is observed and agreed with all professionals and educators supporting the student, then the period of time at schools starts extending gradually. Again, this reflects the specialised setting which differs from mainstream settings and caters for students who are deemed to benefit more in this particular ambience with a different approach”.
Omar Farrugia, president of the Autism Parents Association (APA), spoke to The Malta Independent about the education system in general. He said that “unfortunately, people underestimate the hardships which families endure when you have a child on the spectrum and especially when coupled with challenging behaviour. One needs to factor in that certain cases have it more difficult than others, hence the plea for a more unified approach. Over the years, APA has reached out to several ministries for their support in addressing certain situations, but the fact is that nowadays everyone is constantly firefighting to address the ever-growing need for support. There is no secret that every year the Education Ministry is inundated with new cases and there is a constant need of LSEs, but the situation stays futile, and they must find workaround to address certain needs. We passionately believe that if there is more communication and cross communication exposure between the respective ministries, we can prepare ourselves better and address not just the immediate but have a plan for their future as well”, he said.