The Department of Education has commenced a review of the legislation that provides for education for children and young persons with special educational needs.

The Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004, is often known as the EPSEN act and provides for the education of children aged under 18 years with special educational needs.

The purpose of the review is to ensure that legislation on education for students with additional needs is up-to-date, fully operational, and reflective of the lived experiences of students, families and school communities. The review will help us to understand what aspects of the law is working well and whether aspects of it should be amended.

As part of the review process, a public consultation is taking place. This consultation will seek the views of a wide range of organisations and individuals that have experience with the law and with the services provided under it.   It is an important part of the review that the lived experiences of students and families are recorded.

To achieve this, the Department is seeking views from students and parents, staff and from young people who left school in recent years.  The link to the survey for public consultation is below:

www.gov.ie/epsenreview

The Department is committed to ensuring that the views of persons with disabilities are fully considered in policy making.  It will also hold focus groups with staff, parents and students over the coming months.

When the survey process is completed, the Department will produce a consultation paper, and will run further consultation events. If you would like to be invited to a consultation event, please contact the Department on epsen@education.gov.ie.

Many thanks for your assistance.

Please see letter from HSE, published Wednesday 18th January 2023.

Dear Parent(s)/Guardian(s)/Student

See below message from the State Examinations Commission. 

The 2023 Leaving Certificate Candidate Self Service Portal Registration Phase Closed on Tuesday 21 February and will now reopen on Tuesday 28 February 9am – 5pm for one day only. 

This decision was taken in the best interests of the candidates to provide them with every opportunity to confirm their entry for the examinations.

All final year Leaving Certificate candidates must register and activate their account and confirm their subject and level choices through the portal. 

The SEC Candidate Portal helpdesk  can be contacted at 1800-111135 or 1800-111136  will open between 9 am and 5 pm  Tuesday 28 February or candidates can email candidateportal@examinations.ie.

For students who have applied for Transion Year 2023-24, the Interviews are taking place in the Guidance offfice this Monday 27th March.  The schedule of Interview times have been posted to the students 3rd year Teams.

Wishing all candidates the best of luck

Dear Parent(s)/Guardian(s)

The Family Resource centre in Ballymote is collaboratively working with both secondary schools in the town to run a creative programme called the 'Teen Toolkit Programme' with 2nd year students. The programme will run in the Family Resource Centre for 4 weeks beginning this Thursday 23rd February and finishing on the 16th March. The students will be accompanied to the venue by a teacher.

Each week the participants will learn new techniques and skills based on their needs. The sessions are full of creativity, are very interactive and practically based. This programme links in very well with the schools wellbeing programme.  Should you have any questions about the programme itself, do not hesitate to contact Niamh Flaherty at coordinatorballymotefrc@gmail.com

Kind Regards

Fiona McNamee. 

Dear Parent(s)/Guardian(s),

Apologies, the link sent out yesterday did not work.  Please see updated link below. 

As part of our School Self Evaluation (SSE) process, we are reviewing our wellbeing structures.  To this end, we value your input and would appreciate 5 minutes of your time to answer the questions in our SSE survey.

Please complete this survey before Friday 24th February 2023 - please note that you can complete more than one form for each of your children if you wish as some of the answers may be different for different year group experiences.

Kind Regards

The very best of luck to the Junior Boys GAA team in their Connacht D final tomorrow against Mohill.