Every August, we see the same thing – young people opening envelopes, parents hovering nervously, hugs, tears and lots of talk about grades and what comes next.
This year, RTÉ visited St John of God Special School in Dublin, where pupils were receiving results from Ireland’s new Level 1 and Level 2 Learning Programmes.
I loved it. It was results day. Their families were there. Their teachers celebrated. The cameras were there. It makes you wonder why it felt so unusual.
I work with children with complex SEND. For some, learning to communicate a choice may represent years of teaching. For another, it might be using the toilet independently, coping with a transition, initiating an interaction or doing something without an adult beside them. These aren’t consolation prizes because a child isn’t achieving conventional academic outcomes. They are legitimate educational outcomes.
Yet schools are much better at making some kinds of progress visible than others. We track reading, writing and maths. We put the data on dashboards. We discuss it at pupil progress meetings and report it to governors. Why aren’t we equally rigorous about communication, independence and participation?
If these things matter, we should measure them properly: starting points, meaningful outcomes, milestones and progress over time. That information needs to be knitted into ordinary school data, not kept in a separate SEND universe.
Academic progress matters enormously. But for some children, being able to communicate a need or become a little more independent could fundamentally change their adult life. Every child deserves a results day.