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104
Section 31 provides as follows:—
" The duties of a local education authority shall include
a duty to make arrangements, subject to the approval of the
Board of Education,—
(a) for ascertaining what children within their area are
defective children within the meaning of this Act;
(b) for ascertaining which of such children are incapable
by reason of mental defect of receiving benefit or
further benefit from instruction in special schools or
classes;
(c) for notifying to the local authority under this Act,
the names and addresses of defective children with
respect to whom it is the duty of the local education
authority to give notice."
In Leyton hitherto no large number of defective children has
been dealt with in special schools; most have attended the
ordinary elementary schools and those who were subversive of
discipline or otherwise unsuitable for association with natural
children have been permanently excluded from school.
It will sometimes be impossible to state that a given child is
incapable of receiving benefit from instruction in a special school
if he has never attended any but an elementary school.
One result of the Act will be that the Council will have to
provide accommodation in special schools for a larger number of
defective children than it has done in the past.
The Council has adopted the Model Arrangements of the
Board of Education, which refer to the following classes of
children who are to be notified to the Local Control Authority,
that is, to the County Council:—
1. Idiots and Imbeciles.
2. Children incapable by reason of mental defect of receiving
benefit from instruction in a special school.