View report page

This category includes all those children who by virtue of some defect of health require special
education or a variation of normal education for their health and progress; and who are not included
in any of the other categories. Such children may suffer from chronic bronchitis, bronchial asthma
or other chest conditions; certain heart defects; rheumatic fever; haemophilia; diabetes mellitus, etc.
It is the second largest category and the majority of the children are able to be educated in ordinary
schools. Children in particular with bronchial asthma may need special education in a residential
school; indeed over half the children attending Park Place School for delicate children suffer from
this condition. The improvement in the health of the children so placed is not achieved without a
great deal of help and encouragement (and sometimes anxiety) from the teaching and nursing staff
of the residential schools and by careful supervision of a sometimes complex drug treatment by the
medical staff.
Park Place School, Henley-on-Thames
This residential school for delicate boys at Henley-on-Thames is maintained by the London
Borough of Hillingdon.
I am grateful to Mr. Owen the Headmaster for the following report:
We have 46 pupils on roll whose ages range from 11-17 years. Between Easter 1972 and the
end of the year 22 boys left to enter day schools, further education or employment.
The CSE results were encouraging. All 7 boys who took the course obtained passes some
attempting 3 subjects. One boy regularly attended an "0" level course and 6 boys have followed a
vocational course on one morning each week at the local technical college.
Our two resident nurses, with the full support of Mrs. Mahy the Principal Health Education
Officer and Dr. Jones, have undertaken the instruction and organised the discussions for the health
education programme. This has proved extremely stimulating and beneficial.
The school band has become well known locally through playing at different functions—
they have also been invited to play for other special schools in the Borough. Badminton, basketball
and canoeing have been added to the full range of activities which include photography cooking,
enamelling, pottery, woodwork, natural history, football, cricket, swimming, amateur radio, chess,
model making, rifle club, snooker, table tennis and a scouting group.
Regular use has been made of the school mini-bus to attend sports fixtures and concerts and
to make careers visits. Many hikes and weekend camps were arranged. A wet but successful
fortnight's camp of 24 boys was held at Rydal in Westmorland.
The scouts attended as helpers at both the cub and scout camps for the physically handicapped
at Sidlesham and Sandhurst.
Two camps for the school are planned for 1973—in Sherwood Forest and at Schmittbach
on the German Frontier. An exchange visit (one week) with pupils from Ashe Hall Delicate School
in Derbyshire has also been arranged.
Multiple Handicaps
In residential special schools 15
In day special schools 31
Pre-school children recommended for day special classes 1
Attending ordinary school 3
Pre-school placed in day nursery 2
Receiving home tuition 1
Children ascertained in 1972 16
Fifty-five children are reported to be multiply handicapped, but the primary handicapping
condition is regarded from the educational stand-point as being the most disabling. The placing
of multiply handicapped children requires frequent re-assessment by medical and educational staff
to ensure that any variation in the child's condition is recorded and the appropriate steps taken to
modify the educational placement accordingly.
166