Students with physical disabilities `enabled' by state-of-the-art school

President Mary McAleese, patron of Enable Ireland, has officially opened the organisation's £8.5 million state-of-the-art purpose-built school and clinic in Sandymount, Dublin.

Funding for the project was shared between the Department of Education, Department of Health and Enable Ireland. The official opening coincided with the organisation's name change from Cerebral Palsy Ireland to Enable Ireland.

The day school caters for primary and post-primary pupils from four to 18 years old who have physical disabilities and are from south city and county Dublin. Since 1985 it has taken students up as far as Junior Cert level and is very involved in NCVA (National Certificate Vocational Awards).

The 65 students and 12 teachers who are working in temporary accommodation on-site in Sandymount will move into new classrooms over the next few weeks.

The bright, airy and spacious new school is a welcome change from the original school building, built in the 1960s, where the doorways were narrow and two wheelchairs couldn't pass on the narrow corridors. According to principal Tony Jordan, though the school may have been two years in the building, it was 20 years in the planning.

"The Department of Education accepted for many years that the whole place needed updating and they then prepared for quite a few years to do that. It was a matter of time," Jordan says.

The school boasts a new library, named after author Christy Brown, its most famous former pupil. In addition to the eight classrooms there is also a gym, a general-purpose room for cookery and art and quiet rooms off each classroom, where children can go for one-to-one sessions or if they need time out.

In the "independent living" area, which is like a mini-flat, children and young adults can learn independent-living skills. An on-site swimming pool can be used by physiotherapists for hydrotherapy and for social swimming.

Enable Ireland's pre-school playgroup and Montessori school are integrated to accommodate able children alongside disabled children. The school also has a number of courtyards where children can mix safely outdoors.

Jordan is very pleased with what the Department of Education have done in the area. "In general the Department of Education have been putting terrific resources into special education in the last 20 years. The whole service has changed out of all recognition. Children nowadays get a terrific opportunity that they wouldn't have had before."

He notes that the pupil/teacher ration has decreased from 16-to-one to six-to-one. Jordan also said that there has been a huge increase in special needs assistance from the Department of Education, where a helper is assigned to each class to assist the teacher and help pupils.

Enable Ireland is the largest provider of services to people with physical disabilities. The organisation provides high quality services to 2,500 children and adults through 11 children's centres, five adult centres and three specialist schools. Enable Ireland's two other specialist schools in Bray, Co Wicklow, and Cork are also in for a revamp and the temporary accommodation currently in use in Sandymount will go to Bray as soon as the classes move into the new building.