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54
The group of children now in the Unit range from 5-10 years old, and
present a very wide range of ability as well as a variety of learning difficulties.
This disparity presents a very real problem if each child is to be
fully extended and not merely contained in the Unit. The speech therapists
and teacher are increasingly aware of the necessity of working together on
a structured language programme designed to meet the needs of each child.
Programmed learning techniques are beginning to be used as a means to
more effective learning and better use of available teaching time.
Miss Fenn left to continue her studies at Cambridge. The staff and
children at West Thornton enjoyed her stay. Miss Evans has returned after
a twelve month absence on a Course and Staff and children welcome her and
are glad that she has decided to return here.
DELICATE PUPILS
In Day Special Schools - 35
In Residential Special Schools - 7
During the year three children were found to be delicate and admitted to
a suitable special school, and both this number and the total number of
children thought to require special educational treatment in this category
are the lowest yet recorded in Croydon. It is clear that from a purely medical
point of view this category is no longer necessary.
Children who are now brought forward as "delicate" present a variety of
medico-social and medico-educational problems. Two factors consistently
emerge; firstly frequent absence from school usually for real or assumed
medical reasons, and secondly considerable educational retardation often
associated with below average ability bordering on educational subnormality.
Clearly most of these children cannot cope in an ordinary school, so that
special educational treatment is indicated. The real problem is the type of
special education which should be provided. Even when medical factors are
prominent the children rarely require regular medical treatment. Some might
benefit from the regime of the former open air schools but as Dr. Thelma
Wield has pointed out, there is no open air school in Croydon. The considerable
building alterations at St. Giles' School, and the influx of large
numbers of heavily handicapped children have resulted in a school better
suited to the needs of the latter than to the non-handicapped child who is
not making the anticipated progress in an ordinary school. Moreover, whilst
remedial teaching facilities at St. Giles' School have been developed to a
high level to meet the multiplicity of handicaps from which the children increasingly
suffer, it would clearly be wrong to regard the school as a
remedial teaching unit for the education of any slow learning child whose
leight or weight happened to fall below the mean. Children are sometimes
put forward for consideration in this category when the level of intelligence
falls within the range associated with educational subnormality, and it is
difficult to understand why a school for the delicate rather than a school for
the educationally subnormal is suggested in such cases.