TACKLING INEQUALITY: Another government, another initiative to tackle educational disadvantage?Anne Byrne went to St Thomas' JNS, Tallaght, Co Dublin, and found an illustration of best practice and a marker for the continuing difficulties facing the children of socio-economically disadvantaged areas

IF THE basket of disparate items that adds up to educational disadvantage could be tackled on an individual basis, with each item independent of the next, then this State would be well on its way to tackling some of the problems.

Unfortunately, the intermeshing of problems requires an integrated approach, so that each child is sufficiently supported to stay the educational course to Leaving Cert. This integration is noticeably lacking at present.

St Thomas's Junior National School, in Jobstown, Tallaght, Co Dublin, is, at one and the same time, an illustration of best practice and a marker for the continuing difficulties facing the children of socio-economically disadvantaged areas.

While virtually all of these children will complete primary education, with some benefiting from pre-school services, a proportion will drop out at second level and only a very few will ever enter the portals of third-level colleges.

Fionnuala Wallace, home-school liaison teacher at St Thomas's, recalls that 20 years ago "there was no church, no shops, no bin service, no Square. The school took in 240 children into junior infants and they were put into six rooms with 40 children per teacher. The only support was one remedial teacher."

Today, there are 35 teachers for 460 pupils (including Early Start) and an intake of 100 junior infants. Wallace lists off a litany of interventions: "With Early Start, 60 pre-school children are taught, in groups of 15, by one teacher and one childcare assistant. With Breaking the Cycle, there is a pupil-teacher ratio of 15 to one throughout the school. The school has a reading support teacher, two learning support teachers, a home-school liaison teacher, special-needs classroom assistants, parents to help with multi-racial integration..."

So, what's the problem? This school would seem to have it all, benefiting from about a dozen different interventions. The problem is that, although a vast improvement in 20 years, it's simply not enough.

Mary Mulroy, learning-support teacher, says the school carries out standardised tests in first and second class each year. The aim is to identify and cater for the bottom 10th percentile with literacy and numeracy problems.

"In this school, my caseload is already full with literacy problems. Even with a 15 to one pupil-teacher ratio there are still children failing at reading. There is no provision for those with difficulties with maths," she says.

In schools with a more middle-class catchment, she says learning-support teachers might expect to deal with four or five children who fall into the 10th percentile for literacy and numeracy.

The educational psychology service provided to St Thomas's does not allow for all students identified by teachers to be assessed.

Parents play a large role in the school, with mothers and buggies evident in the corridors. It is a very welcoming place, with bright posters, a warm atmosphere and an open attitude. School principal Seamus Massey is conscious that many parents had a poor experience of school and is anxious that they feel comfortable here.

Some of the parents help on a more formal basis. The school has 14 children from overseas, with attendant language difficulties. It would need 15 to acquire a special teacher, so the school uses a Department of Education grant to fund two parents to help these children.

A group of mothers with children in the Early Start programme are gathered in the resource room. They have signed a contract with the school promising involvement. All strong advocates of Early Start, they are also determined that their children will complete primary and second-level education. One young mother, a past pupil of the school, says: "I didn't do the Leaving Cert. I did the Junior Cert. I'm a cleaner. But I'm better than a cleaner. I had a brain." Asked about her plans for her three-year-old daughter, she says in a determined voice that "she will complete her Leaving Cert". Another mother tells of a wall of fame she has constructed in her child's bedroom. She pins each picture, story or achievement on the wall. Her daughter is also in Early Start.

FURTHER up the corridor, oblivious to parental plans, the children are playing hard. In the wet area, Aloisia and Jessica have their hands deep in soapy water. Jessica says she is making stew and frowns as she says there aren't enough containers to give this reporter a bowl. Aloisia giggles as she suggests I might partake of some soapy tea instead.

So, what does St Thomas's still need, other than more plastic stew bowls? Unfortunately, since EL visited St Thomas', an Early Start classroom burned down, but classes have resumed and a new room should be built very quickly. Parents as well as teachers have been very supportive, says Massey.

Wallace's wishlist includes better provision of speech therapy and psychological services, a social worker attached to the school, Early Start to be extended to all school entrants, more space for parental involvement, an education welfare officer (at present, school attendance is the responsibility of the overstretched gardaí, as Tallaght is outside Dublin city) and "real integrated delivery of services".

This school is "lucky" in that it has both Early Start and Breaking the Cycle. Many schools which have been designated disadvantaged continue to struggle with large classroom numbers and fewer supports.

Breaking the Cycle was a five-year pilot scheme located in 33 urban and 25 clusters of rural primary schools. The pilot has ended and the formal evaluation has yet to be published but it is generally perceived as a major success, with supports for teachers above and beyond reduced pupil-teacher ratio, and an emphasis on arts in education. Schools which participated retain the reduced pupil-teacher ratio.

Early Start, a somewhat controversial scheme that began in 1994, is still a pilot project, with 40 schools participating.

The Early Start teachers and childcare workers in St Thomas's say that the scheme is excellent, but they work with two groups of 15 children, from 9 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. and from 12 to 2.30 p.m. This gives them half-an-hour break between two intense sessions and no planning time.

There is already a waiting list for next September, but the school is limited to 60 pupils. Teachers elsewhere in the school say they believe that the Early Start children have an advantage, in terms of confidence, that they carry through with them and it should be extended to all school entrants (see panel for less favourable formal evaluation).

If various schemes are working, why not extend them to all in need? If they're not working, why not close them down? Surely, that's the point of pilot projects. The penchant of various Ministers for Education to re-invent the wheel, beginning new pilot schemes and initiatives, while leaving others stranded, has got to stop if we're serious about ending educational disadvantage.