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Should the child prove ineducable, the recommendation of the principal school
medical officer is sent to the local education authority who informs the parent of the
decision and indicates that the latter has a right of appeal to the Minister, provided he
does so within 14 days of the notification. Because of this time limit and the fact that
so many parents fail to understand the position properly, the notification is taken by an
experienced social worker of the health department who explains fully the implications
of what is proposed and, if the parent is obviously in disagreement, the letter is not
delivered to the parent until the senior medical officer in charge of this work throughout
the County has seen the papers and decided whether or not further examination of the
child or discussion with the parent would serve a useful purpose. If it is decided that no
further action on these lines would be of any use the official letter is sent to the parent
by registered post so that the official 14 days' grace only begins after all discussions are
over and the parent thus has the full statutory period in which to appeal to the Ministry
of Education against the local education authority's decision.
In such a case no further action is taken by the local authority until the Minister's
decision is known, except that if the child's presence in the school is a source of danger
to himself or the other pupils the headmaster may order his temporary exclusion.
The Education Act, 1944, subdivides the provision of special education for
educationally subnormal children into three types.
Special E.S.N, classes in ordinary schools—These are for children who although
educationally subnormal were not sufficiently retarded to warrant removal to a special
school, or in whose case the cause of the retardation was in doubt and there was a
chance that with tuition in small classes the child would improve sufficiently to maintain
himself in ordinary school environment.
The special
education
provision
for
educationally
subnormal
children
Experience indicated that E.S.N. classes housed in ordinary schools did not fulfil
their purpose. Two reasons for this became apparent. In borderline cases where a
diagnosis of educational subnormality was in doubt both the parents and the medical
officer were opposed to labelling a child E.S.N. for it to receive some unspecified special
education in its normal school. The classes themselves were difficult to control because
the amount and type of extra help given was not uniform and varied widely in different
schools.
A conference was arranged between senior officers of the public health and
education departments and medical and lay officers of the Ministry of Education. As a
result the abolition of the special E.S.N. classes in the County was sanctioned and a
system of special educational help which could be given to retarded children in their
own school on the advice of the principal school medical officer replaced them.
Children receiving this form of special educational help are not classed as E.S.N.
but are recommended by the principal school medical officer as fit for education in an
ordinary school with special educational help.
This is not an ideal solution to the problem of providing a uniform system of
special education by specialised teachers within the ambit of the ordinary school but
it does away with labelling a retarded child as E.S.N. within the meaning of the
Education Act unnecessarily. In practice it has the advantage that with the widening of
the I.Q. range for admission to special school, children really in need of prolonged
special education are more quickly received into special school instead of tending to
spend a longer period of trial in a special class with consequent late entry into their
proper educational environment should the trial fail.
Day Special E.S.N. Schools—London has day school accommodation for 3,608 pupils
comprising eleven primary day schools, five secondary girls' schools, eight secondary
boys' schools and two secondary girls' schools which also admit a number of children
of primary school age of both sexes.
Rose Cottage School at Welton Road, S.E.18, opened in 1958, accommodates 160
pupils of all ages and both sexes. This 'all age mixed school' does away with the necessity
of moving educationally subnormal children from primary to secondary special schools,
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