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Our Pupils

Dorin Park is very proud of its pupils. Behaviour here is excellent and our older students provide great role models for our younger pupils, both in terms of their conduct and in the positive way in which they embrace school life and work around their difficulties. Our pupils are very welcoming to newcomers and children who are new to us always comment about how quickly they are able to settle in and make new friends.

All our pupils have a statement or EHCP. We cover a range of needs:

  • Physical difficulties, including visual impairment
  • Complex moderate learning difficulties
  • Complex medical needs
  • Complex needs

The vast majority of our pupils have several different identified needs i.e. complex. Most of them will have an additional communication need related to their learning difficulty. Our children are usually verbal or, in the case of our youngest pupils, they may be pre-verbal and showing intent to communicate. Most children here are either fully ambulant or ambulant to some degree but the school is fully adapted for wheelchair users and has support for pupils with all types of physical difficulty. Pupils in wheelchairs are fully integrated into classes of pupils with other needs but they also have their own bespoke physical programmes. Some of our pupils have a passport for urgent medical treatment and we are fortunate that we are situated only a short distance from the Countess of Chester hospital.

Children who are admitted to us in Reception or early primary years typically have one or more of the following: global developmental delay, complex ASD, complications following premature or traumatic birth, cerebral palsy, chromosomal syndromes, and physical difficulties associated with learning difficulties. Children with complex moderate learning difficulties are usually not admitted until Year 7 as their needs are generally met in mainstream primaries until that point but they can be admitted earlier at the request of the SEN team.

Dorin Park cannot meet the needs of the following:

  • Children with Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties; while we do have some children here with PMLD, we do not accept new admissions as it is no longer one of our designated needs categories and we recommend parents in the Chester area contact Dee Banks School who have excellent PMLD provision (see Useful Links)
  • Children who regularly exhibit physically challenging behaviour, particularly towards their peers; Dorin Park has a large number of children with a level of physical fragility or visual impairment who could not be placed in a class with a child with physically challenging behaviour