Educational Provision for Retarded Children

The re-organisation of a national system of education is a complex process and one which involves the consideration of a number of problems. In the solution of these, other problems, hitherto hidden or only suspected, are often brought to light and demand consideration. The re-organisation which has been undergone by the English Education System began in the experiments of a number of pioneers and was systematised by the reports of the Hadow Committees. It can be considered from a number of aspects. There has been a re-organisation and reconstruction of buildings, a re-classification of children, a consideration of methods, and the use of new techniques. Of these, a number may be classified as physical re-organisation, while the others are more rightly termed psychological re-organisation. Generally speaking the former came prior to the latter and there is a very real danger that it may be considered as comprising the whole of what is meant by re-organisation. Its progress can be judged from statistics, while the latter is a factor which can be judged only by and through the spirit of those engaged in educational work and the atmosphere within the school. Of the various problems which have been clarified by the progress of re-organisation, that of the educational provision for backward and retarded children is one of the most important. In the older type of all-age school, using in the main mass methods of instruction, little could be done for those children who could not keep up the normal pace. They hovered about the middle of the school and their welfare was neglected in the attention given to the promise of the entrants and the needs of those about to leave. Almost all they acquired was an inferiority complex which they took with them into the world when they became of leaving age. But now the Heads of Senior Schools scrutinize carefully the product of the Junior School. And they find amongst them children who for one reason or another are backward. They have to find some method of dealing with! such children and the problem has been largely brought to a focus by the transfer at eleven plus, which has had the effect of making children of that age of real importance. And one result is, or should be, a recognition of the small amount we really know about retardation and its real causes, and the need that exists for …