Jen Cummins
Question:516. Deputy Jen Cummins asked the Minister for Education and Youth her plans to ensure that attendance campaigns and supports for schools are inclusive of neurodivergence. [29575/26]
View answerTuesday, 28 April 2026
Questions (516)
Written answers
Tusla Education Support Service (TESS) is under the remit of my department and operates under the Education (Welfare) Act, 2000, a piece of legislation that emphasises the promotion of school attendance, participation and retention. TESS has three strands namely the statutory Educational Welfare Service and the two school support services the Home School Community Liaison scheme and the School Completion Programme. The three TESS strands work together collaboratively with schools, parents and guardians and other relevant services to achieve the best educational outcomes for children and young people.
In May 2025, a comprehensive suite of targeted and universal actions to improve school attendance was announced. Among the key initiatives was a national multimedia campaign, developed by my department and TESS in consultation with key stakeholders, to ensure the contribution of their collective knowledge and experience.
The campaign “Every School Day is a New Day” was launched in September 2025, to raise awareness of the school attendance issue with parents and guardians, to communicate the many positive benefits that daily attendance at school provides for our children and young people and to signpost the available supports for schools, parents and guardians.
In the ideation phase of the campaign, discussions were held with the National Parents Council regarding feedback the council had received from parents, children, and young people, on their feelings about attending school, the drivers behind school absences and the supports they felt would be helpful in increasing school attendance. During this phase, TESS also engaged ‘Spark Foundry’ to conduct focus groups that included parents and grandparents of children with special educational needs (SEN) to discuss a variety of creative concepts and how they may be perceived by diverse communities of parents and children. The feedback from the focus groups influenced the direction of the campaign visuals and messaging.
In designing the campaign, TESS led a number of engagements with the HSE, the Children’s Rights Alliance, the National Educational Psychological Service, the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), and the special education Consultative Forum, to gather additional feedback that would strengthen campaign messaging.
Following the first run of the campaign in the autumn of 2025, TESS undertook a two-day consultation with almost 90 children and young people regarding school attendance. Participants were drawn from primary schools, special schools, and post-primary schools in Ireland and represented diversity in ethnicity, gender, language, and school type, status and setting. Children from two special schools attended the in-person consultation. Furthermore, a parent/caregiver consultation on school attendance is currently underway with parents and caregivers from a variety of educational contexts, including parents of children with neurodivergence and SEN, ensuring a broad and representative range of perspectives.
As work continues on measures to promote school attendance, TESS will continue to engage openly and collaboratively with parents, children, young people and stakeholders from education, health, disability, neurodiversity and inclusion to ensure our activities are mindful of the value and lived experiences of all children and their families.