View report page

108
residential home at West Wickham, and have since been
discharged. One case mentally defective and partially
blind has now left the special residential school at Reigate.
Special School for Mentally Defectives.
The roll for 1930 included 11 Bromley children and
11 children from the Kent County Council.
This school is at present provided for by the
allocation of class-rooms at the Valley Council Schools,
where the children are taught a curriculum approved
for the mentally defective. The children are not
high grade mental defectives, but rather of the low grade
classification. This fact must be taken into account when
comparing the very excellent results that are being
obtained by the teachers. The children come from all parts
of the Borough, and are collected daily by a guide, and
conveyed to and from school by a motor conveyance. The
annual transport costs of these children is £240. The total
cost of the school is £864 0s. 0d., an average cost pel'
head of £39.
During the year the Committee had under consideration
the Hadow Report, and the recommendations of this
Report as it affected the retarded child. The Sub-Committee
approached the Beckenham Education Authority as
to the possibility of a joint school for the purpose of fuller
provision than exists at the present time. The matter will
again come under consideration when the re-organisation of
schools in the Borough becomes necessary.
The After-Care Committee, whose Annual Report
appears at the end of this Report, exercises supervision
over the children after they have left the special school,
and also any of those cases residing in Bromley and classified
as ineducable. No other local provision is made for
the latter child, and the question of the establishment of an
occupation centre would be a distinct advance, and fulfil a
need. The mongol and other low grade ineducable
children are left to the attention of private schools, or no
school at all.