St John The Baptist Girls School, Old Road Cashel Co Tipperary

Inclusive Education

13th Oct 2025

St John the Baptist GNS is committed to providing for pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN), situated within an inclusive whole-school framework which emphasises effective teaching and learning for all and good collaboration and engagement between schools, teachers, parents/guardians and pupils.

In order to achieve this, some of our students may require supplementary teaching. This may take the form of in-class small group work, withdrawal for small group work, or individualised work with one other teacher.

The Special Educational Needs Team, under the direction of the Principal and the Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator, and in collaboration with class teachers, is responsible for the provision of support to pupils.

In addition to support from our school, parents may also access further support from the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) https://ncse.ie/

Here, parents may access a wide range of online resources to support their child at home.

At St. John the Baptist GNS we are very proud of the additional training and professional development that our teachers engage with in order to provide the best learning experiences to all our students. We work hard at implementing literacy and numeracy intervention in many forms for example Station teaching, Literacy Lift Off and Learning through Play. Two particular programmes are outlined below:

Reading Recovery © is a licensed short-term, one-to-one literacy intervention, targeted toward pupils with the most complex problems in reading and writing, and who have completed at least one full year at school. This means that pupils who get Reading Recovery are usually in Senior Infants or First Class. The goal is for the pupil to catch up with her/his classmates in reading and writing.

Who receives Reading Recovery?

Pupils aged around six are screened on a series of sensitive assessments of literacy, and offered Reading Recovery, consisting of daily lessons with a Reading Recovery trained teacher. The intervention is for a period between twelve and twenty weeks.

How Reading Recovery is delivered

Reading Recovery involves a short series of one-to-one daily lessons for 30 minutes with a specially trained teacher. It is different for every pupil, starting from what the pupil knows and what he or she needs to learn next. The focus of each lesson is to comprehend messages in reading and construct messages in writing, and learning how to use letter and work detail fluently without losing focus on meaning and comprehension. The series of lessons ends as soon as pupils can meet class-level expectations and demonstrate that they can continue to work independently in the classroom. New pupils then begin individual instruction.

Maths Recovery is a programme which is aimed at improving the child’s understanding of number concepts. Children arrive at school with different levels of knowledge in maths and the Maths Recovery programme quickly identifies where the child is in terms of their numeracy skills. A one to one approach is used for some children who are experiencing difficulties in maths through Maths Recovery at 1st/2nd class level.
We have also staff trained in Mata sa Rang and we have tailored our programme to help all the children in the school to learn and use key skills in maths. Through the use of real world materials, fun maths based games and exploration of maths in their everyday environment, the children are encouraged to discover and use strategies for working out maths problems.
Our Maths Recovery Programme and Mata sa Rang programmes are hands-on enjoyable approach that enables the child to develop their knowledge and abilities in Maths.