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BENTRY SCHOOL
Educationally Subnormal Children
The school now takes educationally subnormal children mainly from the Dagenham
area and only a few from the surrounding districts remain, most of those from South
East Essex were admitted to the new school in that area. This has meant that those
children needing special education in Dagenham had a much shorter wait before admission
and school medical officers were able to recommend special schooling with more
confidence that the child would be admitted before reaching school-leaving age.
The school can, however, only accommodate those children so retarded as not to be
able to keep up with the slowest pace of the secondary schools. There remains a nucleus
of children in these schools recommended by the school medical officers for special
educational treatment. This may mean extra tuition in fundamental subjects, which as
yet is not adequately catered for; it is a pity that this demand for special educational
treatment outside the special school has not yet been met in the area. The Bentry
School is overloaded with children of the lower ranges of intelligence and this prevents
the admission of those for whom a short period of intensive tuition is all that is needed.
The physical condition of these children is well below the average found in secondary
schools and the lack of adequate physiotherapy and group exercises is badly felt. Postural
defects and mouth breathing with its resultant nasal and chest defects are present
in over 80% of the educationally subnormal children in the school. Much could be
done to prevent and treat these conditions if adequate physiotherapy was available for
this purpose.
Physically Handicapped
The total number of physically handicapped children in the school is 57, a large
percentage of whom are also educationally subnormal. This in itself creates a problem
as it slows the pace of teaching for the more intelligent physically handicapped whose
defect necessitates special schooling— and its corollary is that school medical officers
are reluctant to send physically handicapped to the school if they can, even with difficulty,
remain in normal schools. There are, therefore, a considerable number of quite severely
physically handicapped children in normal schools in the area who do not get the benefits
of physiotherapy and therapeutic swimming which the Bentry School provides.
Frequently, therefore, the intelligent physically handicapped, well adjusted to his
defect, remains in the normal school and it is the less intelligent child, less able to overcome
his disability, who finds his way to the special school because he cannot be dealt
with in the primary and secondary schools.
In these days of increasing unemployment it is becoming more difficult to place
these children in jobs when they leave school and it is the physically handicapped especially
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