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Plowden (1967) Notes on the text Volume 1 (page numbers in brackets) Preliminary pages (i-xxii)
Part 1 Introduction
Part 2 The growth of the child
Part 3 The home, school and neighbourhood
Part 4 The structure of primary education
Part 5 The children in the schools: curriculum and internal organisation
Part 6 The adults in the schools
Part 7 Independent schools
Part 8 Primary school buildings and equipment; status; and research
Part 9 Conclusions and recommendations
Notes (486-495)
Research and Surveys about Plowden |
The Plowden Report (1967)
A Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England) London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1967
[page 296] 834. However nearly we approach in future the ideals we have suggested, however small classes can eventually become, however well the learning of children within these classes can be guided individually, there will always be a minority of children in need of special help. A child may be handicapped mentally, physically, emotionally, or, as we have shown earlier, by his environment. The extent and seriousness of handicaps are likely to change in different medical and social conditions, but they are unlikely to be altogether eradicated. Indeed, although the incidence of some handicaps has declined the advances in many fields of medical knowledge have resulted in the survival of thousands of children who in rougher or more ignorant times would have died in infancy. The schools and particularly the special schools have therefore to face more severe and complex handicaps. At the same time society has created new stresses and strains. Modern society accepts responsibility for the welfare of its handicapped members to a greater extent than did earlier generations and much has been done during the last 50 years to enable children suffering from all kinds of handicap to take their place in society as they grow up. This is specially true since the 1944 Act, but much remains to be done. 835. We have not been able to study the education of children in special schools which is, in any case, the particular concern of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children. Our terms of reference, however, make it appropriate for us to comment on the way in which handicapped children, some of whom will eventually be in ordinary primary schools, are identified and on how their needs are met. The problems of backward children, most of whom are in ordinary schools, are of particular concern to us. 836. Under Section 34 of the Education Act of 1944 it is the duty of each local education authority to ascertain which children in their area require special educational treatment. To fulfil this obligation they may require parents to submit their children from the age of two 'for examination by a medical officer of the authority for advice as to whether the child is suffering from any disability of mind or body and as to the nature and extent of such disability'. When a disability is severe it is almost always recognised in early infancy and the parents themselves usually take the initiative in informing and seeking the help of the local authority. Children with handicaps such as blindness, deafness, severe behaviour disturbance and the more severe forms of physical handicaps are usually sent to special schools, where specialised equipment, small classes, and, usually, specially trained teachers are available to meet their particular needs. Other handicaps however are neither so serious nor so easily identifiable. A decision on the kind of schools most suitable for a particular child is not always easy to reach. There are borderline cases about which opinions differ. [page 297] 837. The policy of the Department of Education and Science is that each individual child should be placed wherever he has the best opportunities of developing his resources to the fullest extent. For most children this will be their ordinary primary school. Circular 276 (1954) gives clear expression to this view: 'No handicapped child should be sent to a special school who can be satisfactorily educated in an ordinary school'. Nearly all our witnesses supported this policy and we are in agreement with it. A handicapped child who will spend his life in the society of normal people and often in competition with them must learn to accept his disabilities and his differences though he needs the assurance that he is not alone in them and that help is available. The unnecessary segregation of the handicapped is neither good for them nor for those with whom they must associate. They should be in the ordinary school whenever possible. 838. Early and accurate identification of handicapped children is essential however slight or severe their disability. Rapid mental and physical development in the first four or five years of life makes their early environment of particular significance. Some children with physical handicaps will not develop residual skills unless they have been encouraged to use them in early childhood. For those children who are gravely handicapped in their intellectual development, whether by reason of hereditary endowment, their environment, or both, a wide range of experiences and opportunities is necessary, so that they may be enabled to realise their full potential. It might in this way be possible to help them attain a higher level of functioning than they do at present. 839. Full use should be made of the wide range of local authority, general practitioner and hospital services which may be available for the diagnosis and assessment of handicapped children from the time of their birth. Some authorities have established diagnostic classes and units for children from two or three upwards. In several cases children have been able to go from them into ordinary schools. These classes can provide opportunity for contact with parents under easier and more natural conditions than those in clinics and hospitals. The child benefits from being with other children and seeing other adults. But it is essential that the teachers have the full support of medical and educational specialists. Speedy identification and assessment must depend on the efficiency of the local authority whether in maintaining a risk register, in using the records of maternity and child welfare clinics or establishing diagnostic units or classes. When a child is ready to start school some handicaps indicate clearly the type of school needed. Others only begin to show or to carry obvious disadvantages after a child has started school. Partial sight and limited mental ability are examples of these. Teachers need to be alert to detect children and bring forward for expert examination without delay any child who fails to make satisfactory progress or seems to have sensori-motor, social or emotional difficulties. In this connection we are disturbed to learn that there are still a few authorities which do not test vision or hearing on entry to school. 840. As shown in Table 17 [on page 299] there are for purposes of administration ten categories of handicapped children. These are defined in Regulations made under Section 33(1) of the Education Act 1944*. However useful they may *The current Regulations are the Handicapped Pupils and Special Schools Regulations 1959 as amended by the Regulations of 1962. [page 298] be administratively they are inevitably somewhat artificial and children do not necessarily fit neatly into them. An acute and prolonged difficulty in learning to read, which does not appear in the list at all, may spring from a variety of causes. A large and growing number of children are found to have more than one disability. A deaf child may be mentally retarded; maladjustment is often a consequence of a physical or mental handicap; physical handicap can include a wider range of disabilities. Some of our witnesses have expressed concern over the lack of adequate provision for children with two-fold or multiple disabilities. 841. In addition to these handicapped children there are the severely subnormal children who are designated 'unsuitable for education in schools' and who are the responsibility of the local health and hospital authorities and of the Ministry of Health. Some witnesses have made the point that there can be no firm and accurate division between children who are suitable for 'education' and those who are not. From our knowledge of the difficulties of interpreting the response to intelligence tests and of distinguishing how much the environment contributes to children's effectiveness, we would agree with them.* These witnesses stress the need for the educational service to be linked with the health service responsible for junior training centres for the mentally subnormal. They have drawn our attention to interesting experiments in dealing with borderline children, which are the shared responsibility in some areas between the health and education services. 842. The assessment of a handicapped child is not simple and cannot be made with finality. It is a continuing process and because of the complexity of the task both the process itself and the treatment of the total situation demand teamwork in which teachers, doctors, psychologists and parents must co-operate. Assessment of handicap is needed not only for educational purposes, but also to ensure medical and social support. Parents 843. Teamwork is necessary between all concerned and in this connection we must stress the vital role of the parent. Legally, parents must be informed of their right of appeal to the Secretary of State against any decision about their child's education. There is an elaborate appeal procedure. But essentially this is a problem of human relations. Whether parents have discovered their child's handicap for themselves or not, they will be at least worried about it and they may feel acute distress, bewilderment, resentment or even shame. They will almost certainly need help, first in accepting that their child is not like other children and then in understanding his needs and in adopting a balance between excessive protectiveness on the one hand and indifference or even rejection on the other. All our evidence emphasises the need to advise and support the parents and to associate them as closely as *The British Psychological Society in 'Children in Hospitals for the Subnormal' (1966), a study of 403 children aged 1-15, found that 24 per cent had IQs over 50, 14 per cent over 70, and 4 per cent over 100. (155 children were testable). They recommended: 'The educational work of both Junior Training Centres and schools in hospitals for the subnormal should become the full responsibility of the Department of Education and Science. Pending the assumption of such responsibility, more flexible arrangements should be made whereby educational advisers, psychologists and inspectors of schools can advise staff of hospital schools and Junior Training Centres'. [page 299] possible with the education of their child. This is not primarily a matter for an official letter but for sensitive and sympathetic advice given personally by a familiar figure, doctor, health visitor, social worker or teacher whom they have learned to trust. The head teacher should regard it as a special part of his duties to advise parents and to bring about close contact between them and their child's teacher, and any medical or social staff who are involved. If it is necessary for a child to go to a special school, or still more to a training centre, parents need to be helped to accept and understand the decision, and they should always be consulted well before it is made. This is not only a question of courtesy and humanity; it has practical importance. The readier the parents are to help and co-operate, the more likely is the child's education to be successful. 844. There is need for an advisory or counselling service for the parents of handicapped children, which should be available when the handicap of the child is first identified, often before the child has started school. The service should of course report back to those who have referred parents or notified cases to it (1). It should coordinate those matters which are the concern of welfare, health, education and youth employment departments and it would be the responsibility of health visitors, doctors, teachers and hospital almoners to refer parents and to notify cases to it. Such a service would ensure continuity of help for parents and would enable them to make the best use of the services which are available. It would also give them support and encouragement and help them to feel less isolated.
Source: Statistics Branch, Department of Education and Science. [page 300] The Handicapped Child in the Ordinary School 845. We turn now to the provision made for the handicapped child in the ordinary school. No device or organisation will be much good unless the teachers concerned understand the nature and implications of the handicaps they meet. This is partly a matter of initial and in-service training to which we shall return later but it is also one of the 'climate' of the school and one in which the other children have a concern. If handicapped children, either as individuals or as a group, are looked upon as a nuisance, or with pity, they will not flourish. It follows that a school such as we have described in Chapter 19 is not only right for the normal but right for the handicapped, for their fundamental educational needs are similar though there may be differences in the way they are satisfied. The school must provide for and cherish all its members. Some handicaps evoke more sympathy than others. Blindness, for instance, excites almost universal sympathy, deafness much less, while maladjustment is often exasperating, and certain kinds of physical deformity are felt by many to be repellent. Not every teacher is able to overcome the emotional and psychological reactions which some handicapped children arouse. If children such as these are to be placed in a normal class it is essential that the co-operation of the teachers is secured, after the nature of a child's disability has been made clear. It must not be forgotten that even one or two severely handicapped children add greatly to the responsibilities of a busy teacher in a large class. In such instances some ancillary help may be essential. If relationships in a school are good and if other children have had the nature of the handicapped child's difficulty explained to them they will rarely be cruel or hostile, but they may express their concern by being too sympathetic and too eager to help so that the handicapped child becomes spoiled and excessively dependent. 846. Many children whose handicap is not severe are taught in ordinary classes. In some instances more severely handicapped children have been successfully placed in them too. For instance a number of limbless children including some from the thalidomide group are satisfactorily placed in ordinary classes. We have been told of one congenitally limbless child who, provided with powered limbs, has gone successfully through the junior school. It is significant that since the birth of this child his mother has been well supported by the consultant paediatrician and that all concerned have shown excellent co-operation. We have also been told of six children from a special nursery school who were transferred not to another special school but to the ordinary infant school. They included a child with spina bifida and a girl with cerebral palsy. The local authority made special sanitary arrangements for these children and provided ancillary help. They also ensured that specialist advice was available to teachers. In such circumstances some children can be fitted satisfactorily into primary schools, though their continuing development needs to be carefully watched. 847. It may well be that similar arrangements will be made more frequently in the future, but there will always be other children needing more specialised education either in a special school or in a special class in an ordinary school. The aim when such a class is set up is to concentrate on the learning disability in the special class and to allow the child to take as much part in the ordinary life of the school as possible. There are a small but growing number of special [page 301] classes in many areas for the partially hearing. There are also a very few for the partially sighted. The need here is, of course, for specialised equipment and for teachers trained in its use. The expense of the installation and the prevalence of the handicap mean that special classes must serve a wider area than the school's normal catchment area. 848. Fewer authorities provide special classes for maladjusted children, although referrals to child guidance clinics reach a peak at about nine. Difficulties often increase at adolescence. But demanding, aggressive, unco-operative or withdrawn behaviour may appear before this and teachers need to have sufficient knowledge of the emotional and social developments of children to notice it and to refer children when necessary. Check lists of children's difficulties, imperfect as they are, can be valuable in helping a teacher to describe a child's difficulty. In schools where there is absence of stress and generous attention to individual and group needs, disturbed children often remain and improve in their ordinary classes. One organisation in their evidence to us (2) estimated that 15 per cent of children in primary schools may at some time need special help and understanding from their teachers. But disturbed or aggressive children can be upsetting and disruptive and some authorities have established classes for them on two or three mornings or afternoons a week with considerable success. Similar arrangements have been made for children discharged from mental hospitals and psychiatric units in hospitals. This has helped them to settle down in ordinary schools. Slow Learners 849. By far the largest number of handicapped children who need special education are those described as educationally sub-normal. This term causes unnecessary distress to parents and we suggest that the term 'slow learners' is adopted instead. Both descriptions include children who are genetically poorly endowed as well as those of average ability who are seriously retarded in their attainments. Although it is doubtful whether it is yet sufficient, a great variety of provision exists for this large category of children. Some are educated in special ESN [Educationally Sub-Normal] schools, others are in ordinary schools either in special classes with special staffing ratios and specially qualified staff; others remain in the ordinary classes. In 1966, 45,000 such children were in special schools and at least another 10,000 in ordinary schools awaiting admission to special schools. 850. There is serious delay in identification of these children. In 1964 although one in four pupils in special schools for the physically handicapped was under eight, the corresponding figure for the ESN schools was one in 18. The needs of the slow learner, as we shall henceforward refer to him, are not so obvious as those of the physically handicapped and no doubt some of the discrepancy in age of assessment is attributable to this. But there are good reasons why all slow learning children should be identified early. Until an authority is fully aware of the numbers of these children, it is not in a position to plan adequately for them, nor is there any incentive to do so. Only after a full investigation is it possible to assess the needs of children in difficulties; the investigation should reveal ways in which the teacher and [page 302] the parents can be helped to meet the needs of the child, whether he remains in the ordinary school, or until he can be admitted to a special school. Some teachers are hostile to the idea of early referral for assessment and do not ask for children to be examined. This may be because they have found in the past that no action follows referral, because there are no vacancies at special schools or because, with some reason, they doubt the reliability of tests for young children. As it becomes clear that the special education selected for children depends on all their circumstances and not simply on an IQ or attainment score, and that assessment is regularly reviewed, teachers should become more ready to refer children early. To enrich their educational background is likely to be the surest way to compensate for earlier disadvantages. 851. Five per cent of the children in the NCDS sample (Appendix 10, Section 5(a)), were receiving some form of special education and heads estimated that a further eight per cent were in need of special help, 13 per cent in all. The Department have estimated that approximately one child in every ten aged over seven is sufficiently retarded to need special education, though this number is significantly greater in some areas. The vast majority of these pupils will rightly remain in their ordinary primary schools. Whatever the precise figure may be, and it is one that is bound to depend to some extent on personal judgement, it is clear that the ordinary school must make special provision for a substantial number of children, unevenly distributed in different areas. 852. Slow learning children in the ordinary schools are best served by the approach which characterises the most progressive primary schools of today. Somewhat different provision may be required by those children who will always develop slowly and those who, with help, should be able to make relatively rapid strides. Remedial or 'opportunity' classes are sometimes provided for slow learners and in other instances children join a remedial group only for a part of the school day. If they are good these classes or groups provide an effective education which enables the child to remain in the ordinary school. But to be educated in an unsatisfactory remedial class can be the worst arrangement of all for a slow learner. The danger of a remedial class or group becoming a place from which none escape and which perpetuates a sense of failure and hopelessness ought to be recognised. The aim should be to limit the stay of a retarded child in such a class and to regard it as a ladder back to the normal level. Even the child who will never catch up may profit from the stimulus of a change of teacher and companions and ought not to remain in the same 'slow learning' class for more than two years, if it can be avoided. Opportunities should be made for children in slow learning classes to mix with other children in the school. 853. Slow learning children, many of whom are emotionally disturbed, may profit even more than other children from movement, drama, music, craft and painting. Though they should have opportunities for choice, these may need to be restricted to some extent and the pupils patiently and consistently guided by teachers. They need many opportunities for talk about people, places and things. Though slow children may need a more gradual and explicit introduction to the world about them than other children, their interest is unlikely to be held by materials designed for much younger children. They often spend hours at home before the television screen and some of the [page 303] television programmes they watch may provide good starting points for discussion as also will some of the school television broadcasts. It is probable that programmed learning and other mechanical aids could help these children to overcome some of their specific learning difficulties. The Teachers 854. It is implicit in all that we have said that the handicapped child in the ordinary school needs an understanding and gifted teacher; children with certain disabilities need to be taught by specially trained teachers. Our main concern is with the ordinary teacher who in the ordinary school has to deal with handicapped children, most of them the slow learners who may be in a special class, or in a C stream, or in ordinary classes. Many teachers have developed a particular interest in handicapped children and become successful practitioners without having had any special training, but we think that more preparation is needed. Every primary school teacher will have to help slow learners sooner or later and should have sufficient knowledge to be able to recognise children who need special help and to provide it for the majority of them. If the problem is beyond his resources he should know clearly to whom to turn. There should be opportunities for teachers to discuss individual children with school doctors or educational psychologists. 855. Our evidence suggests that some colleges and departments of education encourage teachers to acquire a good deal of knowledge of the differing rates of children's intellectual, social and emotional growth, usually as part of the course in child development. This might be extended possibly by the provision of an optional course during the final year, so as to give young teachers more help in dealing with the difficulties of slow learning and other handicapped children in ordinary schools. 856. A number of one year courses are available to serving teachers who wish to teach handicapped children, and serving teachers should be encouraged to attend them. Even so, only a minority will be affected. We are, therefore, glad to learn of the increasing number of courses lasting one term, and of short in-service courses dealing with the needs of handicapped children; head teachers as well as teachers of handicapped children should be encouraged to attend them. 857. Many local authorities make use of part-time peripatetic teachers to give help to individuals or to groups of children who have difficulty in learning. Peripatetic teachers are particularly useful when they act as a bridge between the school psychological service and practising teachers. Some part-time teachers, however, are not experienced or knowledgeable in the methods needed to teach slow learning children. While the individual attention they are able to give almost always produces some beneficial results they could achieve more if they were given initial help and retraining. To these teachers the school psychological service can provide valuable advice and support. In some cases it has proved more successful for part-time teachers to take the normal children, releasing the class teacher to help the handicapped. 858. It must be emphasised once again that any arrangement that is made for the education of the handicapped child must be subject to constant review. Whether a child is sent to a special school or to a special class of whatever kind in an ordinary school the decision must not be regarded as final (3). There [page 304] must be no vested interest in preserving an arrangement which is no longer necessary and teachers, parents and psychologists and doctors must all co-operate in ensuring this. 859. Though we have viewed the problem of the handicapped child only from the periphery and have concerned ourselves primarily with the problem of the handicapped child in the ordinary school, it is apparent that children with similar degrees of disability are provided for differently. In one area a child may be in a diagnostic unit attached to an ordinary primary school whereas a child with the same disability in another area may be excluded from school as unsuitable. Some special schools have children who in another authority's area might be in a special class in the ordinary school. Some special schools and training centres are sited close together and are even under the same direction. We recommend a study of the needs of the handicapped child, including the slow learner, and of the provision made for him, with an assessment of the methods and organisation in use, and the extension of carefully supervised experiments and trials of new systems. Account should be taken of the changing pattern of handicaps, the new optimism about the educability of children once thought 'ineducable', the increasing ability of some schools to provide for children with very different handicaps and the increased number of special schools able to experiment in various ways. Recommendations 860. (i) Early and accurate identification of handicapped children from birth onwards is essential. Teachers need to be alert to children showing difficulty and to arrange for them to have expert examination without delay. 1. Department of Education and Science: Circular 9/66, dated 31st March, 1966.
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