The Fork in the Road

Examining the implications of the 2026/27 pause on SNA reductions

In my last blog, From SNA Freeze to 2025/26: A Preventable Crisis, I wrote that until there is honest acknowledgement of how we got here, we risk repeating the same cycle again.

I described this moment as a fork in the road for special education in this country.

You can read that blog here:

https://www.fromtinyacorns.ie/blog/from-sna-freeze-to-2025-26-a-preventable-crisis

Less than a week later, that fork in the road is no longer theoretical. We’re standing at it.

Last night’s announcement confirming that no SNA reductions will take place in the 2026/27 school year will bring genuine relief to many school communities. It will bring relief to SNAs who once again have found themselves caught in uncertainty created by poor communication, late announcements and the continued absence of a clearly published redeployment plan. It will bring relief to parents of children with additional needs, myself included, who have spent sleepless nights trying to imagine how their child would cope in school with reduced support.

Most importantly, it brings relief to the children at the centre of all of this. Children whose right to access education became part of a political storm they were far more aware of than they should ever have been. No child should have to wonder whether the support they need to succeed might simply disappear, yet many have watched that possibility unfold in real time.

School leaders and school communities have also carried an enormous burden this past week, often stepping into public advocacy roles they never sought simply to make visible what was happening on the ground.

For many people this announcement will feel like a weight lifted.

Relief matters. But relief is not resolution.

Reaction and Response

In school leadership we speak often about the difference between reacting and responding. A reaction ‘manages’ the crisis in front of you. A response addresses the conditions that created that crisis in the first place. In teaching and in leadership, you're taught the importance of always looking to respond, not react. 

The announcement last night came at 11.30pm. That matters, not for drama, but because it reflects urgency rather than strategy.

Last night was a reaction to mounting pressure. What we now need is a response grounded in leadership.

Nothing we have seen so far suggests that this will happen automatically. That is why continued advocacy remains essential.

We Have Seen This Before

We have already lived through this cycle.

In 2020 allocations were frozen.

In 2021 implementation was deferred again.

At the time those decisions provided reassurance and short term stability, but they also postponed necessary adjustment within a needs based system. Each delay allowed imbalance to grow quietly until correction became disruptive.

Without structural change, today’s relief risks becoming tomorrow’s crisis.

This Is Not a Win Yet

It’s important to say plainly that this pause is not a failure or a victory. It’s unfinished work.

Nothing fundamental has changed yet.

The criteria underpinning SNA reviews remain the same. The risk now is that schools seeking additional support may face even tighter restriction within an already constrained budget.

The interpretation of need remains narrow and the primary care needs model continues to fall short of reflecting the complexity schools are managing every day.

Developing schools remain vulnerable while new and emerging need continues to grow.

The underlying issues that created this crisis remain unresolved.

Keeping the Movement Together

Something important happened this week.

People mobilised. School communities, parents, SNAs, teachers, advocacy groups and leaders spoke with a shared voice. Advocacy became visible in a way it has not been. 

That matters because it shows what can happen when school communities refuse to remain silent.

Additional needs education cannot become a temporary cause that fades once immediate pressure eases. Many people entered this conversation because the issue suddenly became politically urgent. Those voices need to stay with us. They are needed now more than ever.

The work does not end here.

The Wider Crisis in Additional Needs Education

The SNA cuts did not create the crisis in special education. They exposed it.

Alongside this issue, schools are facing increasing pressure around special class and school designation, proposed changes linked to AON planning and growing uncertainty about the future of special classes and special schools.

Mainstream classrooms are managing increasingly complex need without proportional support while SET allocations continue to operate under a model that makes no allowance for complex needs. 

The system is under real and unsustainable strain. Children are struggling, staff are exhausted and school leaders are burning out from constantly trying to bridge gaps that policy has not kept pace with.

A Spark Moment

This week has been a spark.

Communities organised. Voices that had long gone unheard stepped forward and attention finally focused on realities schools and parents have been describing for years.

That mobilisation was necessary. Now it needs direction.

The planned protests across the country should continue, but their focus must now evolve. This can no longer be solely about stopping cuts. The focus needs to move towards reviewing the criteria used to determine SNA allocation and ensuring that all pupils’ needs, in all their complexity, are genuinely placed at the centre of decision making.

When children with additional needs are not properly supported, the impact extends far beyond individual pupils. Entire classrooms and school communities feel the consequences.

If this pause is to mean anything, it must be used deliberately.

The system has been given time again. The question now is whether that time will finally be used differently.

Minister Naughton and Minister McGrath now have an opportunity to demonstrate real leadership in an area that has lacked clear direction for far too long.

This period should now be used to:

• Review the criteria underpinning SNA allocation decisions
• Address the narrowing interpretation of care needs
• Provide interim solutions for developing schools and those experiencing rapidly emerging need before 2027/28
• Learn honestly from the administrative and emotional burden placed on schools during recent reviews
• Publish transparent allocation data
• Engage with schools before decisions are implemented, not after backlash forces reconsideration

Lessons From 2025/26

The recent review process has already shown that the workload placed on schools is unsustainable, trust between schools and the system has been damaged and communication arriving too late creates fear rather than confidence.

These lessons cannot be ignored before reviews resume.

The Fork in the Road

The fork in the road remains, but the direction chosen now will define the system for years to come.

This pause can become the beginning of meaningful reform or it can become another familiar period of waiting until attention shifts elsewhere and implementation quietly resumes unchanged.

If that happens, advocacy itself risks becoming meaningless. People on the ground cannot continue fighting the same battles indefinitely.

What happens next will shape the future of special education in this country.

In a year defined by national conversation about education, this issue must sit at its centre. Every child’s needs being met. No child an outsider.

Now is the moment for brave leadership.

Brené Brown says we can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we cannot have both at the same time.

We must choose courage now.

And those with the power to shape this system must choose it too, standing alongside school communities rather than working against them.