London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Walthamstow 1933

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Walthamstow]

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60
Mentally Defective School.— Your Authority provides a Special
School with accommodation for 130 children. The After Car©
Committee does excellent work in watching the interests of the
children after leaving school.
At the end of 1933, the classification, according to the latest
available intelligence quotients, was as follows:—
Intelligence Quotient 80 to 89 7
,, ,, 70 to 79 14
60 to 69 26
,, ,, 50 to 59 14
,, ,, 40 to 49 4
Not recently tested 2
Total 67
A special visit is paid to the school at the end of every term,,
and all cases considered to be ineducable by the Head Teacher,
are carefully reviewed and, if necessary, excluded, and notified tothe
Countv Council for supervision.
It is hoped, by this procedure, gradually to eliminate all
ineducable and low grade children. By the end of 1934, all
children with intelligence quotients below 50, should be excluded.
Owing to the great scarcity of Institutional beds, and to the fact
that, failing Institutional admission, the only alternative is attendance
at the Occupation Centre on a voluntary basis, it is often an
irksome task to certify these low grade defectives as ineducable.

The following table shows the number of children who have either left or have been excluded during the past 4 years, and includes those directlv notified to the Countv Council:—

1933193219311930
Decertified211
Attaining age of 16 years8
Allowed to leave for employment1254
Notified to County Council as Ineducable65--
,, ,, „ ,, Imbecile961
,, ,, „ ,, Idiot2
Total288125

Miss Purcell, the Head Mistress, has kindly sent the followingreport
:—
"Shernhall Street Special School continues to be run on
family lines as far as is practicable. The aim of the staff is not
any specialised attainments, but an all-round development of all
the faculties possessed by the scholars so that in later life they