Tusla Education Support Service (TESS) is under the remit of my department, and operates under the Education (Welfare) Act, 2000 (the Act), a piece of legislation that emphasises the promotion of school attendance, participation and retention.
Under Section 23 of the Act, the Board of Management of each school must prepare and make available a code of behaviour for its students. The Act also requires that the school code of behaviour is prepared in accordance with guidelines issued by Tusla and specify the following:
(a) the standards of behaviour that shall be observed by each student attending the school
(b) the measures that may be taken when a student fails or refuses to observe those standards
(c) the procedures to be followed before a student may be suspended or expelled from the school concerned
(d) the grounds for removing a suspension imposed in relation to a student
(e) the procedures to be followed relating to notification of a child’s absence from school
Section 21 of the Act sets out certain circumstances when a school principal is obliged to inform an educational welfare officer, including where a student is suspended for a period of not less than 6 consecutive school days.
In line with the Act, all primary schools, including special schools, and post-primary schools are required to return an Annual Attendance Report (AAR) to Tusla.
This data is collected from schools using the Tusla Portal, which is then used to generate the two reports - the Annual Attendance Report and the Student Absence Report.
The Annual Attendance Report (AAR), provides four pieces of data in respect of all students enrolled in the school;
• total days lost by all students,
• total students absent for 20 or more days,
• total students suspended,
• total students expelled at the school level.
In addition, Student Absence Reports (SARs) are submitted to Tusla twice within a school year and a SAR is made whenever a child reaches a cumulative of 20 or more days absent. The Student Absence Reports (SAR) provide data on those students aged over six and under 16 years, absent for a cumulative total of 20 or more days in the school year, by the recorded reason for their absence, i.e. illness, urgent, holiday, suspension or other.
The reports are published and are available on Tusla’s website at the following link:
www.tusla.ie/services/educational-welfare-services/publications/research-and-statistics
Individual school data is not published.
My department continues to engage with the patron of the school concerned in relation to any issues that arise. The most recent engagement was last week. My department, the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) and the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) are providing a range of supports to the school concerned and participate in ongoing engagement with the patron regarding school supports and developments.
