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are removed from the register each year, because of the family moving from the Borough to another
area, having left school for employment, a disability causing ascertainment and inclusion on the
register which has now been modified, improved or cured, or death of the child.
Of these 1,121 children, 448 are educated in ordinary schools with special arrangements being
made as described above. This figure is over one third of the total number of children on the register
and indicates the degree of assimilation that is possible with an enlightened education staff. It is
possible that this figure can be increased as architectural improvement and equipment for the
handicapped within the ordinary schools improve. Integration into ordinary schools is already
proceeding with delicate, epileptic, some maladjusted and a few physically handicapped, partially
hearing and partially sighted children, although all these pupils have to be observed very closely in
order to be sure that educational progress is being maintained in this situation. It is interesting to
note some of the recommendations of the Vernon Report on the Education of the Visually Handicapped
Child which was issued in 1972. These recommendations cover many fields of activity,
including planning of educational services, consideration of children under five and the medical
service up to school leaving age, the organisation of schools, the school curriculum, further education
and occasional guidance, training of teachers and research. Many of the recommendations could
equally apply to most handicapped children. The report suggests that all children should be screened
for visual handicaps at child health centres as part of a general developmental assessment. At present,
all health visitors in this Borough are trained to screen young children for visual competence.
Another suggestion is that all visually handicapped children should be regularly re-assessed. All
children on the handicapped pupils register are annually re-assessed by medical officers in department.
It is recommended that visual screening of all children, including an annual test of visual
acuity, should be part of the school health services in all primary and secondary schools and all
special schools for other handicaps. School children in this Borough are to be tested for visual
acuity every two years, although it is not possible to increase the number of these tests with present
staff committments. However, an annual test should be the ultimate aim. The report urges the experimentation
with the education of visually handicapped children in ordinary schools either in ordinary
classes or in special classes within the ordinary school. Generally speaking many of the partially
sighted children begin in the normal infant classes, where their special problems can be contained,
but as the size of print in books becomes smaller the difficulties for these children increase. It should
not be beyond the ingenuity of doctors and teachers however, to provide means to keep them at
ordinary schools especially if places in the special schools for the partially sighted become harder
to obtain.