Your education questions answered.

My daughter is moving from primary to secondary school this September. During fifth class, and following over two years of effort on our part, we finally managed to have her assessed by an educational psychologist, who diagnosed her as dyslexic. She has been receiving additional educational support for the past year and is benefiting greatly.

We have only recently discovered that this support, which we fought so hard to get for our child, is not automatically transferred into her new school.

Do we have to start this process all over again?

I can understand your frustration. The first thing to realise is that educational provision in this State is given to the school on the basis of the number of children they have enrolled. It is only in recent years that the National Educational Psychological Service has been established to conduct individual assessments of children. These assessments have resulted in additional supports being given to specific children - while they remain in the school in question.

There is no link, at present, between the provision of support to individual children and the movement of these children from the primary to the secondary system. This is a glaring weakness in our education system.

As things stand, you should immediately notify the principal or guidance counsellor of her new school of the existence of a psychological report diagnosing dyslexia. You should request that the educational psychologist assigned to the school be contacted, with a view to assessing your daughter's situation.

If this step is taken now, it may be possible to have the additional supports your daughter needs in place by September. If, on the other hand, you wait until she starts secondary school, it could take up to six months for the various internal Department of Education processes to be worked through, and thus some time before she receives any additional support.

There is no guarantee, that she will receive such support. Only children who are deemed to be have special needs get individual tuition. All other students are covered by an allocation of remedial hours, which all schools received a number of years ago.

Some schools were in a position to use this allocation to appoint a remedial teacher. Others chose not to do so and used the allocated time for other purposes, while others still, because of decreasing numbers of students in the school, were never in a position to make such an appointment.

It would, therefore, be very important to ascertain what the situation is in the school in which you intend to enrol your daughter.

Do they currently have a remedial and or special-needs teacher?

If they do not currently offer these services in her prospective secondary school, I would advise you to consider your situation carefully, before entrusting your daughter's education to them.

Brian Mooney is president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors. E-mail questions to bmooney@irish-times.ie