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which is run by a former pupil of the school.
The waiting list for this school has increased
enormously since the boundary changes of the
Greater London Area took place, and now plans
are going ahead for the provision of more
classrooms to accommodate a further twenty
children.
Special Education for Retarded Children
and the Marjory Kinnon School
by Betty P Westworth MB ChB(St A) DObst RCOG
Part of the dissertation submitted for The
University of London Academic Postgraduate
Diploma in Public Health 1967
The Old School, Bedfont
(Renamed The Marjory Kinnon School in 1966)
'This school began in 1953 at the old village
school in Bedfont, Middlesex. A modern primary
school had been built next to it and the local
children between five and eleven years enjoyed
the new facilities it offered. Rather than demolish
the old buildings it was decided to use them for
backward children then living in the south-west
Middlesex area. Before this the only special
education provided had been one class in a
primary school at Spelthorne. On January 7th,
the teacher of that class was appointed deputy
head of the Old School and moved with her
eighteen pupils to Bedfont. The head mistress
appointed was Mrs Marjory Kinnon who had
already had twenty-one years of teaching
experience and the majority of this had been with
mentally handicapped and slow learning children.
Within ten months of opening the school she
increased her staff to seven teachers and had
one hundred children on the school roll. The
numbers grew to 140 children in 1957 and
following the erection of a timber annexe in 1963
the total roll increased to its present number of
160. There are twelve teachers in addition to the
head and the age range of children is from five to
sixteen years. Five of the teachers have
additional qualifications for teaching handicapped
children and their average length of teaching
experience is over twenty years.
I was appointed medical officer to the school
in 1961 when the local health authority was
Middlesex Area 10, and received a warm welcome
from all the staff on my arrival. I was soon
accepted as a member of the team and during my
weekly visits developed a close understanding
with staff and pupils alike. To begin with I am
sure that I learned far more from my visits than
they learned from me but because of their help a
very pleasant equilibrium was soon established.
My contacts with the children's parents also
developed and during our discussions the same
question kept re-appearing, 'Why is it my child,
doctor, who is handicapped?' I did not know the
answer so decided the least I could do was to try
and find out—so my survey began.
I grouped the children according to age and
sex and also according to home address (Table 1).
This latter division became more important when
Middlesex county council gave way to the Greater
London council for the old Area 10 was divided
into three segments. The Feltham/Bedfont area
joined the London Borough of Hounslow, the
Twickenham area joined Richmond, and the
remaining Staines/Ashford/Sunbury area was
absorbed by North Surrey. Prior to these changes
in 1965 the Old School had always received
educationally subnormal children over eleven
years of age from a junior ESN school at
Hampton but although this was now under the
jurisdiction of Richmond the transfers did
continue. This fact, however, will explain the
greater number of senior boys and girls in the
school.
My next aim was to divide the children into
the five social classes (as used in the Registrar
General's statistical publications), according to
the present occupation of their father, or mother
if father was not known, eg illegitimate children.
In this way it is shown that this school would
appear to have a more representative cross-section
of the population than is found in some ESN
schools in poorer urban areas, but I could not
find statistics for comparison. (Table 2)
In addition to noting the many and varied
additional handicaps that the children had, I also
separated those children who had experienced
some hazard that might place them more at risk
to any handicap. The difficulties experienced here
were at times acute for the majority of
information available about their mothers'
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