View report page

were well attended and the play seemed to be well received by the invited audiences, as were the
programmes also produced by the school.
St. Michael's School is maintaining close links with the surrounding community, largely
through the agencies of local organisations such as Beta, Sigma, Phi, Round Tables, Rotary Club,
Residents' Associations, etc. The school also maintains contact with ordinary schools and to this
end pupils from Newnham School were entertained to a special performance of the Christmas
play."

The inclusion of all children who require speech therapy on the list of handicapped schoolchildren
is neither logical nor sensible. Although such children must have their education modified
by the need to attend a clinic for treatment, they are not significantly different from children
attending regularly for other forms of medical care. The handicap will certainly have an impact
upon educational performance in those conditions where language development is delayed since
the child with poor verbal vocabulary usually develops reading retardation and the prognosis of
this latter condition would appear to be gloomy. Nevertheless, the special educational treatment
of the child with poor verbal vocabulary is not qualitatively different from that of the normal child.
In order to clarify the objectives in categorising these children, it was agreed during the year
to revise the criteria for regarding a child as handicapped. It will be seen from the figures above
that only 0-4% of the children currently ascertained as speech handicapped actually required any
significant modification in the educational programme in schools. In future the criteria for regarding
a child as handicapped will be a permanent and substantial handicap which is having or likely to
have a significant effect on the child's education in school. Permanent is defined as a condition
continuing for longer than twelve calendar months. The application of these criteria is likely to
result in future years in a significant reduction in the number of children categorised as handicapped
pupils particularly in this category.

This category is the second largest of all the categories and contains children with handicaps
not dealt with under any of the others. It contains many who suffer from such diverse conditions
as asthma, diabetes, bronchiectesis, bronchitis, rheumatic fever, haemophilia, etc. Most of the
pupils (196) attend normal schools with a variation of education and are able to maintain progress
with the minimum of absence.
There are 27 children who are in residential schools for the delicate. Many of these suffer
from chest complaints and the education in a residential school is geared to allowing as much
outdoor activity as possible having due regard to the most important aspect of education.
Park Place School, Henley-on-Thames
This is a residential school for delicate boys at Henley-on-Thames and is maintained by the
London Borough of Hillingdon. I am grateful to Mr. Owen, the Headmaster, for the following
report:
160