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THE HANDICAPPED CHILD
The care given to the handicapped child has for many years been a
source of local pride. Reproduced in my annual report for 1956 was the
letter from Miss Blanche Nevile describing the humble beginnings of
education of the deaf in Tottenham in the year 1895. In 1912 the school
moved to Ashley and Linden House and in 1924 to the present site in
Philip Lane. Because of the changes in educational concepts concerning
deaf children, a nursery unit was opened at the school in 1952 and later
the partially deaf were separated from the deaf and educated in special
but well integrated units at Devonshire Hill School (Juniors) and
Markfield School (Seniors). The scholastic record of children educated
at the Blanche Nevile School is of a high standard. The developing
science of electronics is begining and will continue to make considerable
advances possible in this field.
Classes for physically handicapped children were started at Parkhurst
School in Tottenham in 1924. Formerly these children were educated
at residential schools or managed in ordinary schools with great difficulty;
or remained at home with little or no education. In 1933 Vale
Road Day Special School for Physically Handicapped Children was
opened. After World War II the needs of the cerebral palsied child
became more obvious and a cerebral palsy unit was opened at the school,
appointment of staff preceding construction of the medical rooms.
The latter were occupied during 1957.
In 1930 Tottenham Education Committee acquired Suntrap Open Air
School at Hayling Island. After extensive rebuilding on the site, the
school was opened for the residential care of delicate children. Orchard
House and Downhills Park open air classes in Tottenham continued to
provide for those for whom residential care was considered unnecessary.
Before the Education Act 1944, arrangements were made in co-operation
with other neighbouring boroughs for the education of partially sighted
and educationally sub-normal children, and with voluntary organisations
for the care of the epileptic and the blind child.
The existence of widespread maladjustment among school children
was becoming increasingly recognised in the inter world war years and
many children failed to make the progress they should. In 1937 the
Tottenham Education Committee in co-operation with the Mental
Welfare Association arranged for an educational psychologist (Miss
Grace Rawlings, B.A.) to make a survey of Tottenham's need for the
setting up of a child guidance centre. Accepted in principle before the
outbreak of World War II in 1939, the first appointment was made of a
psychologist, though it was not until ten years later that the child guidance
team could be appointed in full. Events in Hornsey in establishing a
child guidance centre moved rather faster, the first educational psychologist
being appointed in 1944, and the child psychiatrist in January 1948.
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