Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills
Caroline Keane, a solicitor with Community Law and Mediation (CLM), and a part-time lecturer in housing law in the School of Law, last week spoke to an Oireachtas Committee on the use of reduced timetabling, shortened school days and in-school suspensions as a
particularly prevalent form of school exclusion in secondary schools. CLM propose that the Committee seek legal clarity on the status of the practice of reduced timetables. It also recommends that the recording of a shortened school day or reduced timetable be
included in the annual mandatory statutory returns on School Attendance Data for Primary and Post-Primary Schools to Tusla, as per Section 21 of the Education (Welfare) Act, 2000. It also recommends the elaboration and dissemination of National Guidelines on the use of reduced timetables to all schools and Tusla funded organisations.
