| AdminHistory | The Special Schools Sub-Committee was founded in April 1903 as one of the initial six standing sub-committees appointed by the Education Committee to undertake its work in the provision of separate educational facilities for children with physical and mental disabilities. As for all standing committees, the Chairman of the Education Committee was ex-officio a member of the Special Schools Sub-Committee.
The duties of the sub-committee were outlined at the first meeting. The sub-committee was to decide which children should be referred to schools for the blind, deaf or mentally ill and, to recommend to the Education Committee the terms on which the children were sent; to visit those schools both under the control of the Education Committee and other schools to which the sub-committee recommended children to be admitted; to arrange the boarding out of children attending schools under the control of the Education Committee, and for their transport to and from school; to recommend to the Attendance, Finance and General Purposes Sub-Committee (see BCC 1/BH/7/1) the prosecution of parents or guardians who did not send their child to school regularly; and to make recommendations to the Education Committee concerning the appointment of teachers, their salaries and the curriculum to be taught in these schools.
The School Board had set up a Special Schools Committee in 1898 and the Education Committee inherited a school on Dean Street for physically ill children and two schools for deaf children on Gem Street and Moseley Road. The first special school to be opened by the Education Committee was on George Street West in July 1907. The sub-committee concentrated on expanding provision following the extension of the city boundaries in 1911 as no special school provision had been made in the districts added to the city. The Education Acts of both 1921 and 1944 contained specific sections concerning the education of children who due to physical or mental illness needed to be educated in separate schools, and responsibility fell to the Local Education Authority to make appropriate provision for all such children. Other special schools mentioned in the minutes of the sub-committee include those of Little Green Lane, Fashoda Road, Edgbaston Royal Institution for the Blind, Bristol Street School and Ralph Road. The Home Office Schools and the schools of Marston Green, Erdington and Shenley Fields Cottage Homes are also mentioned.
The Special Schools Sub-Committee appointed its own sub-sub-committees, as shown in the description to catalogue reference BCC/1/BH/5. In 1927 there was a general reorganisation of the duties of the main standing sub-committees with the redistribution of some responsibilities between the sub-committees. With the discontinuation of the Attendance, Finance and General Purposes Sub-Committee in 1927, the administration and management of Industrial Schools was transferred to the Special Schools Sub-Committee.
With the passing of the Children Act in 1948, some of the welfare responsibilities of the Special Schools Sub-Committee and its sub-sub-committees (including the Shenley Fields and Erdington Cottage Homes and Shawbury Approved School, formerly known as Shustoke Industrial School) were transferred to the newly constituted Children’s Committee (see BCC/1/CT), although the practical transfer of duties and responsibilities took some time. Other welfare responsibilities transferred were remand homes, hostels, the boarding out and the adoption of children. With a slight reduction in the responsibilities of the Special Schools Sub-Committee (despite the additional work arising out of the management of the Monyhull Residential School and the three Hospital Schools transferred to the sub-committee under the National Health Service Act) the Education Committee decided to amalgamate the Hygiene Sub-Committee (see BCC/1/BH/10/1) with the Special Schools Sub-Committee and a new standing sub-committee called the Special Services Sub-Committee was founded in October 1949 (see BCC/1/BH/16/1). |