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Part III
HANDICAPPED PUPILS
From very early times, enlightened members of the community have accepted a responsibility
for certain handicapped children, the degree often determined by emotional reasons, especially
in the case of private benefactors, rather than by a rational approach to all handicaps. In Great
Britain, a school for blind children was established in Liverpool in 1790, although a school for
deaf children was already in operation in Edinburgh in 1760.
The passing of the Elementary Education Act of 1870 meant that large numbers of children
were now gathered into the schools. Within a few years teachers and social workers were drawing
attention to a number of pupils whose medical condition made the task of educating them extremely
difficult, if not impossible.
The first measure to secure special education was the Elementary Education Act of 1893
(Blind and Deaf Children) Act, which placed a responsibility on local education authorities for
providing education for blind and deaf pupils up to the age of 16 years. The Elementary Education
Act of 1899 (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act gave the local authorities the power to provide
education for physically and mentally defective, and epileptic children. Other special schools for
cripples and delicate children were established as the need for them was recognised, often by
private individuals, but also by Boards of Education.
At the establishment of the School Medical Service through the Education (Administrative
Provisions) Act of 1907, some 16,000 children were already placed in special schools because
of some handicapping defect. The medical staff of this service thus already had a large number
of children to assess and advise upon, although most Authorities had made arrangements with
local doctors or recruited a small staff to give guidance to their hard-pressed teaching staff. Medical
treatment was incorporated into the special schools and arrangements made with medical practitioners
and hospitals to give advice and special treatment in many cases. The Service developed
in the years up to 1944, Authorities taking on the task of providing for the needs of handicapped
children where obvious deficiencies existed.
With the inspection of children also undertaken by the School Medical Service, it was soon
apparent that many of these handicaps could be prevented by action taken early in the child's life.
Medical Officers in the Infant Welfare Clinics and School Clinics began to build up an impressive
medical expertise in the early detection of defects and thus a "new" faculty of preventive medicine
emerged and the rudiments of developmental paediatrics laid down.
When the Education Act of 1944 was passed the number of categories of handicapped
pupils rose from five (blind, deaf, epileptic, mentally defective and physically defective) to eleven
(blind, partially sighted, deaf, partially deaf, educationally sub-normal, epileptic, maladjusted,
physically handicapped, speech defect, diabetic and delicate). Later the Handicapped Pupil and
the School Health Service Regulations of 1953 included diabetic in the category of delicate pupil.
Section 34 of the Education Act of 1944 imposes a duty on all Local Education Authorities
to ascertain what children in their area may require special education and to provide it where
it is needed.
In the London Borough of Hillingdon there is a total of 1,217 children on the Handicapped
Pupils Register, an increase of 122 over 1970. Part of the increase in the total number is due to
the transfer of children attending Moorcroft School from the Health Department to the Education
Department as from 1st April, 1971. This welcome event has increased the number of children
in the educationally sub-normal category since they require special education suitable to their
abilities and aptitudes.
There were 442 children in Day Special Schools (364 in 1970, which did not include children
from Moorcroft School) and 25 in day special classes, compared with 22 in 1970. There has been
an increase of 16 children in residential special schools, 112 pupils in 1971 against 96 in the
previous year. The increase was mainly in placements of educationally sub-normal children, 36
in 1971, 12 in 1970. The total for 1971 also includes some previously designated severely subnormal
children now attending special residential schools. Five children received home tuition.
553 Handicapped children were attending normal schools with some variation of their
curriculum which permitted them to receive medical or paramedical treatment such as
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