Slow learners at school.

  • Department of Education and Science
Date:
1964
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Slow learners at school. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Act of 1921. ‘A local education authority shall, with the approval of the Board of Education, make arrangements for ascertaining... what children in their area, not being imbecile, and not being merely dull or backward, are defective, that is to say, what children by reason of mental or physical defect are incapable of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in the ordinary public elemen- tary schools, but are not incapable by reason of that defect of receiving benefit from instruction in such special schools or classes as under this Part of this Act may be provided for defective emidren). 23. It is significant that the education of the ‘defective’ was included in Part V of the Act, which dealt with ‘Blind, Deaf, Defective and Epileptic Children’, and not in Part III, which was concerned with elementary schools, or Part VI, with higher education. ‘Defective’ children were, in fact, relegated to a separate category quite distinct from ordinary children, and they had first to be ‘certified’ as ‘feeble-minded’ by a School Medical Officer before they could be sent to a special school or class, which had itself to be ‘certified by the Board of Education as suitable’. The phraseology used in the Act unfortunately gave rise to much prejudice (which special schools today are only now beginning to overcome); the term ‘defective’ was, understandably, regarded as a stigma, and caused distress to parents and, indirectly, to the children. Many special schools were opened between the years 1899 and 1914. The reaffirmation of the duties of local authorities in 1921 might well be expected to have led to a further increase in the number provided. In actual fact the 198 such schools in existence in 1922 seem to have been reduced to 154 by 1938, though the total number of places showed a slight increase. Some very small schools were closed, others amalgamated; the increase in the number of open-air schools may have helped to meet the needs of some very backward children; economic conditions at the end of the First World War and in the early 1930s did little to encourage the building of schools for those who seemed least likely to bring economic advantage to the country. Possibly the findings of the Wood Committee on Mental Deficiency* helped to paralyse action by its comments on the magnitude of the need. Though the inter-war years saw little or no material advances, this was a period of consolidation during which considerable pro- gress was being made in the study of children’s development and *Board of Education and Board of Control (1929) Report of the Mental Deficiency Committee (Wood Report) H.M.S.O,
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