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Educational Social Workers
Case load carried over from 1970 83
New referrals during 1971 27
Cases closed during 1971 19
Home visits 560
Interviews at centre 74
Diagnostic interviews with psychiatrist 10
21 children have since been referred on to the C.G.C.
Staff
2 full-time educational psychologists joined the school
psychological service during the year.
Mrs Clare Wallis took responsibility for the Chiswick
and Brentford schools in January, and Mrs Jennie Seale
for those in the Feltham area inJune. In addition Mrs
Marie Tagg re-joined the team for one session per week in
September.
Mrs Marjory Kinnon, remedial teacher, reduced her
sessions from 5 to 3 in September, but these were taken up
by Mrs Susan Thrift, remedial teacher, who then worked 7
sessions instead of 5, so that the total number of hours
given to remedial work at the centre remained the same.
Mrs Ann Grigg and Miss Kay Fleetwood continued as
educational social workers, but Miss Fleetwood was
unfortunately ill for some months at the end of the
summer.
Mrs Edmonds-Smith and Mrs M Fisher continued as
part-time clerical officers.
New developments
Intellectual assessments, consultations with schools, parents
and teachers, social work with families, individual remedial
teaching for children with severe learning disability and
seminars for remedial teachers at both primary and
secondary level continued as in past years, but particular
efforts were made this year to tackle the problem of
reading disability in both its preventive and remedial
aspects.
Preventive measures included the work done by Mrs
Tagg in advising members of the peripatetic remedial
reading team working in infant and junior schools, and in
organising seminars in the teaching of reading at the new
Teachers' Centre where a variety of reading schemes and
reading materials are now available to all teachers in the
Hounslow schools. The underlying aim of this work is to
improve the standard of remedial teaching so that the
potentially poor reader is recognised and helped early in his
school career, before his attitude has deteriorated and
psychological resistances complicate the learnind process.
Remedial measures included work by the psychologists
with staff engaged in remedial work in the secondary
schools and involved seminars on remedial reading teaching
methods and the dissemination of reading material suitable
for the older pupil with poor reading ability, together with
consultations on specific cases. Individual work with very
severe cases of reading disability continued
at the centre and a system of close collaberation between
the remedial teacher working with the child and the
educational social worker working with the parents has
produced in some cases clear evidence of the interaction of
day-to-day home conditions on the mood of the child and
on his ability to apply himself to the learning situation.
Handicapped Pupils
The Education Act places on local education authorities
the duties of ascertaining which pupils in their area are
handicapped and of providing special educational treatment
for such pupils. The several categories of pupils requiring
special educational treatment are defined in the
Handicapped Pupils and Special School Regulations as
follows
Blind Epileptic
Partially sighted Maladjusted
Deaf Physically handicapped
Partially hearing Suffering from speech
Educationally Defects
sub-normal Delicate
For the purposes of these regulations, ascertainment
applies from the age of two years. A blind or deaf child
must be educated at a special school unless the Minister
approves otherwise.
Special educational treatment for other handicaps may
be provided in ordinary school with the stipulation that the
special educational treatment must be appropriate to the
disability.
With the transfer of mental health services to the newly
formed Social Services Department in April the former
junior training school became the responsibility of the local
education authority and children formerly dealt with under
section 57 of the Education Act 1944 became handicaped
pupils within the meaning of section 34 of the same Act.
The former Hanworth and Isleworth Junior Training
Schools were renamed the Lindon-Bennett School and
Oaklands School respectively and children in these schools
are now included in statistics relating to the educationally
subnormal.
The number of handicapped pupils and the arrangements
made for their special educational treatment are shown in
the table overleaf.
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