View report page

79
children, The partially deaf children are in the minority and virtually
constitute a separate group as, for various reasons, it is
not desirable to have both types of child in the same teaching
group. The children, whose ages range from 5 16, attend daily
from a very wide area of Middlesex The child who has the longest
journey to make at present comes from Harrow There are still a
few children in the school who live in parts of Essex and Hertfordshire.
Most children who live at a distance from the school travel
by coach. A number travel independently by public transport. A
waiting list of Middlesex children is kept for children awaiting
admission to this school and before names are added to this list
there is a full consultation on the medical and educational aspects
between the staffs of the two departments. The teaching of the
school is by oral method, i.e. the aim is to produce speech as opposed
to communication by the manual method Each year one or more
pupils gain admission to the Mary Hare Grammar School for Deaf
Children at Newbury by competitive examination
Nursery Class for Deaf Children.
Up to date the school has had two difficulties from the administrative
point of view:-
(i) the mixing of partially deaf with deaf
children.
(ii) the admission of children at varying
age -levels.
The latter is inevitable, owing to the possibility of the occurrence
of deafness in children who have been treated for tuberculous meningitis
with streptomycin; but the former could be largely obviated
by the inception of a nursery class admitting children at the age
of 3 years. The addition of nursery class accommodation has been
accepted and building is in progress. This will mean that younger
children can be admitted to the school and the partially deaf child
can be identified at an earlier age and admission sought if necessary
in other types of special school. It will thus be seen that
the nursery class is not only highly desirable per se, but will
assist in the organization of the remainder of the school, ensure
the more accurate future placement of deaf and partially deaf children,
and what is more important, ensure the initiation at the earliest
possible age of training in speech.