View report page

100
severely deaf children on the roll divided into nine classes with an age
range of 2 to 16 years.
The children under five are accommodated in the Nursery building
and most important section of the school. This ensures a sound start
at an early age when an infant is "speech ready" and is reflected in
his work throughout school life. Unfortunately, the need for this
early start is not fully appreciated by everyone; the problem may be
further aggravated by parents being assured that their children were
partially deaf and ould speak normally after a short time, whereas
in actual fact these children were educationally severely deaf and only
clinically partially deaf.
Early in the year three boys took the entrance examination of the
newly opened Burwood Park Technical School for severely deaf boys.
All passed, the school thus taking three of the thirty-three places
available to the United Kingdom, a laudable effort as the school roll
is only approximately 1.5% of the deaf school population of the
country.
Throughout the year close co-operation with parents has been maintained
and the Parent-Teacher Association flourished. This is quite
an essential part of the education of a deaf child and much can be done
by such co-operation. A most interesting Parent-Teacher Association
lecture was given by Mr. Pierre Gorman, an Australian, born severely
deaf, who already holds two degrees of Melbourne University and is
studying at Cambridge for his doctorate.
Under the care of Dr. F. P. M. Clarke the aural health has been
excellent and there remains but one child requiring further treatment
for supperative otitis media. This is incredibly good for a school for
the deaf.
Educationally Sub-normal Children
The second largest category of ascertained handicapped children,
and the largest important group, is that of the E.S.N. (135 out of 616).
Most of these children attend day special schools, but where the home
circumstances are difficult, and this is not unusually the case, then the
child attends a residential special school. It will be seen by reference
to the Handicapped Pupils Table that 22 children were either not at
school or attending an ordinary school; of these, six were not of age
to attend a special school, i.e., seven years, but the rest were on the
waiting list for admission and in fact there has of late been some
difficulty in securing early placement of these children. The position
should be eased somewhat, however, fairly soon by the opening of
two new day special schools in Middlesex.
The Maladjusted Child
During the year the Committee on Maladjusted Children set up by
the Minister of Education issued its report which contains much
valuable guidance for those who have to deal with this problem.
Apart from the worst cases there is no great difficulty locally in
securing residential placement for maladjusted children. There are
no day schools or classes for these children but (to a large extent)