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34
PART III HANDICAPPED PUPILS
The result of the Ministry of Education and Science Survey of physically
handicapped children in ordinary schools was published just after the
end of the year under review. It included only those physically handicapped
children for whom special additional attention is required in the school or
who are unable for long periods to take a full part in all normal activities
of children of their own age. Thus it ignored many minor handicaps from
which probably the greatest number of physically impaired children at ordinary
school suffer. However, even within this criterion of at least moderate
handicap there were found to be 10,200 physically handicapped children in
ordinary schools in England, compared with 8,545 physically handicapped
children in special schools.
These children who are coping in ordinary schools with the understanding
and help of the staff and the encouragement of their parents, should not
be forgotten, though the following report deals only with children in special
schools.
This group of children includes those with handicaps of the psyche such
as maladjustment and educational retardation, a group accounting for just
over half the children needing special provision. It is possible, even likely
that a further survey of ordinary schools would discover many pupils there
who differ only to a slight degree from children so handicapped in special
schools. Such pupils may provide even more problems for their teachers than
the physically handicapped.
It is therefore all the more welcome that two new special schools opened
in the Borough in 1971 to provide for these children. St. Nicholas Day School
for educationally subnormal pupils opened in January, and Sir Cyril Burt Day
and Residential School for Maladjusted pupils with a Unit for children suffering
from the autistic syndrome opened in October. The hope last year that
the waiting lists for these two groups would almost disappear has not, however,
yet materialised. More children needing special provision for educational subnormality
are still being discovered during assessments by educational psychologists
and school medical officers, and Table 10 shows that there is a
sizeable waiting list even now. When the new school for maladjusted children
has its full quota that particular waiting list should be small, but there is a
certain number of such children for whom a school in Croydon is not particularly
suitable for various reasons, and some of these children are difficult to
place in residential schools not under our control and may have to wait longer
for the type of provision they need than can be considered satisfactory. Both
these problems are receiving further consideration from the Officers in the
Health and Education Departments.
The number of pre-school children already known as likely to need
special education has risen from 193 last year to 225 this year, but this is
possibly due in part to earlier identification by the child health service and
is not entirely a true increase in handicap.