Welcome to the AEN Department!
Ms Natalie Dalton, Mr Aidan McColgan, Ms Clodagh Byrne, Ms Nicola Doran, Mr Kevin Thompson, Ms Lauren Galvin and Ms Leyla Byrne.
Curragh Community College offers learning support to students with additional educational needs (AEN). Curragh Community College is committed to the principle of equal access and welcomes students with special educational needs, where possible we aim to accommodate these students in the mainstream setting. Students who need AEN support can be identified in a number of ways, including: School acceptance letter, communication with parents, in house testing and teacher/parent observations. The AEN department will collaborate and communicate with parents before any AEN support is put in place.
SEN supports in the school are adjusted and reviewed in three blocks throughout the year. This is to ensure that all students are receiving the best support possible. This allows teachers to implement supports throughout the year. Curragh Community College currently offers a wide range of supports, including:
- Vocabulary Enrichment
- Rapid Reading
- Catch Up Literacy
- Snip Literacy
- Toe by Toe
- Numeracy Ninjas
- Talk About: Social Skills
- Self Esteem and Life Skills
- Working Things Out
- Mind Out
- Retracking
- People Skills
- Behaviour For Learning
- Check and Connect
What does support look like in our classrooms?
Support can be delivered in a number of ways including:
- Team Teaching
- Small group withdrawal
- Student participation in short intense courses/programme's
- Regular monitoring and celebration of progress.
Level 2 Learning Programme (L2LP)
Curragh Community College also offers the Level 2 Learning Programme to some students. In the new Junior Cycle a new qualification has been designed for students with particular special educational needs who currently can’t access the Junior Cycle. The Level 2 Learning Programmes (L2LPs) and qualification are targeted at a very specific group of students who have general learning disabilities in the higher functioning moderate and low functioning mild categories. The students are small in number (one or two in a typical school) and all have Individual Education Plans (IEPs). The Learning Programmes are built around Priority Learning Units (PLUs) that develop the basic, social and pre-vocational skills of the students involved.
There are five Level 2 PLUs:
- Communicating and literacy
- Numeracy
- Personal care
- Living in a community
- Preparing for work
Further details of what each PLU involves can be found here.
This programme is delivered in the mainstream setting where students attend all classes through out their first three years. Students keep a separate portfolio of work, which is used to assess their learning at the end of third year for their Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement.
Relevant Documents:
Team Teaching Review 2021