View report page

away but is conveniently sited for evening public
transport. Children are allowed to join after fifteen
years but it often takes some months before
they summon enough courage to attend. The club
meets weekly and although some of the teaching
staff attend, outsiders are not excluded. Members
are allowed to bring a friend and the usual types
of club recreation are organised. The present
leader is a twenty-one year old ex-pupil of the
school and he is proving an excellent worker,
interested in all aspects of the club. There is no
upper age limit so it does provide some form of
link with school after the child has left. Here he
knows all the faces and when informal advice is
needed there is no extra effort required to get it.
An annual reunion or party is also arranged and
past pupils look forward to contact with old
friends, some arriving with husbands or wives and
even their children!
The ultimate success comes to these individuals
when they achieve steady employment in a
suitable situation and so become adequate
personalities able to compete with others in everyday
life. They learn to take on the responsibilities
of marrying and having children, although for
this some of them will require some degree of
support throughout life. It is so important to
prepare the children before they leave school so
that they know how and where they can get help
if they need it. The girls meet health visitors and
go to welfare clinics so that they can understand
the reasons for their functions. They also discuss
how they can turn to such personalities as their
own G.P. or their local cleric if they need advice,
and also they meet and are given the address and
telephone number of their own mental health
officer who will be with them in the years ahead.
He generally visits the child's home and introduces
himself to the parents before the child
leaves school so that reasonable continuity of
care can be maintained.
The Future Outlook
A number of comparative studies on special
education have been carried out in efforts to
assess the benefits to the handicapped child, but
no general conclusions have yet been reached.
The apparent increase in numbers of ESN children
is indicated by the fairly constant figure of
those awaiting placement in spite of the increase
in the number of available places. One possible
cause for this rise may be the current demands
made by our present educational system, for as
our society becomes more complex and technological,
so the dividing line between normality
and sub-normality will be drawn higher and
higher.
The first region towards which efforts need to
be made then, is within our normal educational
system so that it can contain and help those
children who experience learning problems in
their early school years. Only by increasing the
scope of remedial classes can these children be
helped and of course this demands an immediate
increase in the number of teachers within the
infant and junior schools. Surely the resources of
the many ex-teacher/mothers could be tapped for
such part-time specialised tuition. Again, with the
advent of comprehensive schooling for,senior
children, would this not be the opportunity to
widen the scope of the schools for the border
line ESN and 'dull-normal' children? Special
classes for ESN children have existed in normal
schools in Scotland for many years now. The
wide range of subjects within the comprehensive
schools should make it possible for less severely
handicapped children to receive the special instruction
and treatment which they need within
that setting. Certainly the facilities for practical
subjects such as metal work and housecraft are
most likely to be available in the large comprehensive
schools. It is likely that in the future more
and more handicapped children will be contained
within the normal school system rather than in
special schools.
The more severely handicapped children,
however, will still need to be separated into
special units so that they can derive the most
possible benefit from their education. It may well
be though, that in the near future the severely
sub-normal children will be admitted into the
educational system, so abolishing the previous
dichotomous system that has little merit. For all
children to be looked after, taught or trained
by one department is not unreasonable. Why
should qualified teachers be excluded from
training centres or schools? And why should they
not be inspected by visiting ministry officials?
63