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Tuke Junior Training School and Special Care Unit
On 12th January, 1970, the new purpose-built Tuke Junior Training School
and Special Care Unit, 2a Harders Road, S.E.I5 was officially opened by the
Rt. Rev. David Sheppard, Bishop of Woolwich, who also unveiled a commemorative
plaque. The opening ceremony was attended by the Worshipful the Mayor,
the Mayoress, Mrs. Freda Corbett, M.P., members of the Council, Chairman of
Health Committees of neighbouring Boroughs, Medical Officers of Health from
other Inner London Boroughs, consultants from local psychiatric hospitals,
general practitioners; representatives from the Greater London Council, Inner
London Education Authority and Mental Health Societies; Council Chief Officers
and other staff.
The school's name was chosen by the Health Committee because the Tuke
family were associated with those concerned in improving the conditions and
treatment of persons suffering from mental illness at the end of the eighteenth
century. Daniel Hack Tuke, who died in 1895, was a physician who specialised in
mental health. The school provides accommodation for 95 mentally subnormal
children from the age of three and 20 mentally and physically handicapped children
of all ages.
The nursery wing, for mentally subnormal children of 3 to 5 years old,
comprises two classrooms. Each classroom has direct access to its own storeroom
and to an outside paved play area. The wing has lavatory accommodation
specially designed for small children, bathroom, linen store, utility room and
staff toilets. The classrooms for the older mentally subnormal children are
designed on similar lines; those for the 5 to 11 year olds have access to a
paved external play area but, because of the limitation of site space, the classrooms
for the 11 to 16 year olds are situated at first floor level. At ground floor
level two larger rooms have been specially equipped; one is used for domestic
instruction and the other, which has special noise dampening facilities, is used
for instruction in woodwork and similar skills.
The largest single space is the multi-purpose hall which is equipped with
gymnastic apparatus and has direct access to outside play areas. The kitchen
is equipped to provide mid-day meals by using either frozen foods or conventional
cooking methods. The head teacher's room, staff room, staff cloak room and
medical inspection room act as a link and a buffer zone between accommodation
for the mentally subnormal, and the mentally and physically handicapped.
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