Mentally Defective Children: School Accommodation in Greater Birmingham: Mrs. Pinsent’s Statement: At the Birmingham Education Committee, this afternoon, Mrs. Hume Pinsent presented the report of the Special Schools Subcommittee dealing with the special school accommodation for Greater Birmingham. The Committee pointed out that no such accommodation existed in any of the areas added to the city last November, with the exception of a small school for the deaf at Aston. A school for mentally defective children had since been opened in temporary premises at Fashoda Road, Selly Park. No other suitable temporary premises had been found, and the Subcommittee’s experience had been that the use of temporary premises for special! schools was not, as a rule, successful or economical. So far as was ascertained, the percentage of defective children in the school population did not differ materially in the new districts from the percentage in the old Birmingham area. Immediately prior the extension, the city, with a school population of 96,260 on the registers, had 832 mentally defective children in day schools, 51 in residential schools, and 210 for whom further accommodation was required, making total of 1,093, 1.1 per cent, while there were 297 physically defective children, 0.3 per cent. The existing accommodation was, and is still, not quite sufficient. Further accommodation was needed for 190 mentally defective children and for 65 crippled children at a number of schools, and these figures had been taken into consideration in forming a scheme for dealing with the whole of the defective children in the enlarged city. Six new special schools would be required, and the estimated cost of building them would be £30,500. The annual charge on the rates in respect of these schools when all were built and full would be £4,868 and taking off the net maintenance expenses in Farm Street, Road, and Little Green Lane, the annual charges on the rates would be £3,666. The question the committee ought to consider, said Mrs. Pinsent, was whether these special schools were desirable and worth the money they would cost. They of the old city never felt any doubt on this important but necessary part of the educational scheme. The committee thought it best to bring up the scheme as a whole and not school by school, and taking one district and then another, and they thought it right to let the City Council know the total amount of expenditure they were letting in for. Alderman Berry moved an amendment that the matter should be deferred until after the February estimates. Alderman Bird seconded the amendment. The amendment was put to the vote and lost, and the resolution was carried.
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Referenced
GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949