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106
The care given to the handicapped child has for many years
been a source of local pride. Reproduced in my annual report for
1956 was the letter from Miss Blanche Nevile describing the humbler
beginnings of education of the deaf in Tottenham in the year 1895.
In 1912 the school moved to Ashley and Linden House and in 1924 to
the present site in philip Lane. Because of the changes in
educational concepts concerning deaf children, a nursery unit was
opened at the school in 1952 and later the partially deaf were
separated from the deaf and educated in special but well integrated
units at Devonshire Hill School (Juniors) and Markfield School
(Seniors). The scholastic record of children educated at the
Blanche Nevile School is of a high standard,, The developing
science of electronics is beginning and will continue to make
considerable advances possible in this field.
Classes for physically handicapped children were started at
Parkhurst School in Tottenham in 1924. Formerly these children
were educated at residential schools or managed in ordinary schools
with great difficulty; or remained at home with little or no
education. In 1933 Vale Road Day Special School for Physically
Handicapped Children was opened. After World War II the needs of
the cerebral palsied child became more obvious and a cerebral
palsy unit was opened at the school, appointment of staff pre
ceding construction of the medical rooms. The latter were
occupied during 1957.
In 1930 Tottenham Education Committee acquired Suntrap Open
Air School at Hayling Island. After extensive rebuilding on the
site, the school was opened for the residential care of delicate
children. Orchard House and Downhills Park Open air classes in
Tottenham continued to provide for those for whom residential care
was considered unnecessary,
Before the Education Act 1944, arrangements were made in
co-operation with other neighbouring boroughs for the education of
partially sighted and educationally sub normal children and with
voluntary organisations for the care of the epileptic and the
blind child.
The existence of widespread maladjustment among school
children was becoming increasingly recognised in the inter world
war years and many children failed to make the progress they
should. In 1937 the Tottenham Education Committee in co operation
with the Mental Welfare Association arranged for an educational
psychologist (Miss Grace Rawlings, B. A. ) to make a survey of
Tottenham's need or the setting up of a child guidance centre.