Why was Special Education not fully incorporated into initial training when the course changed from 3 years to 4 years? Was that not an ideal opportunity to ensure every teacher was equipped to work with all children? Why is there no graded placement in special schools/ Autism classes for undergraduate teachers? The subliminal message is that this is not “real teaching”… no different to me being told by my peers 40 years ago that “I was wasting my qualification” by working in a specialised setting… and my work colleagues, if they were granted an interview in a mainstream school, being told they had been “babysitting” while working in that setting. Times have changed… but not changed at all! It is so important that all teachers receive same initial teacher education and that all educational settings are truly recognised for what they are… places of learning and teaching. These are the places where there is no “book”… where you spend every day adjusting every aspect of the curriculum for each individual pupil and where you need plan a/b/c/d/e and f for everything and where plan f may not work and you have to change all in a split second. These are the settings that manage three curricula- primary, Junior Cycle and Senior Cycle. These are the most exciting and challenging places to work where excellent teaching is needed!