SPECIAL NEEDS AT CH

Anything that doesn't fit anywhere else, but that's still CH related.

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J.R.
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Re: SPECIAL NEEDS AT CH

Post by J.R. »

As one of my recently retired cousins told me, (a retired deputy head)....

"We aren't teachers anymore. We're business managers !"

How true.

Business first - Education second.
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
Westondonkey
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Re: SPECIAL NEEDS AT CH

Post by Westondonkey »

Further on 'Special Needs at CH' I remember reading somewhere that somebody did not want Dr Barnes Wallace to marry because they did not approve of his 'Eugenics'

Samual Pepys called in at Christ's Hospital after having been drinking in a public house with some very colourful ladies. Mr Pepys was very keen to avoid being seen with these ladies. It appears that some of the boys who were members of the Royal Mathematical School were not very happy about the teaching standards of the School ,so Pepys wrote to Sir Isaac Newton who recommended a Mr Sam Newton [not a relative] be installed as Master of said school.

Question!! Given Sir Isaac Newtons 'unstable' personality was he a 'Fit & Proper' person to formulate the curriculum of the Royal Mathmatical School ?

Were his problems down to Aspergers Syndrome or Mercury poisoning

Question? Was Samuel Pepys a 'Fit & Proper' person, I wonder what OFSTED would have had to say about the pair of them? Moral Terpitude??

Question? What was the problem between Sir Isaac Newton and Flamsteed? There is a strong rumour going round that Flamsteed paid for and supplied the telescope at the Royal Observatory and Newton slagged him off for not keeping it clean,who plagiarised whom? Wouldn't it have been better if S Pepys of Christ's Hospital had liaised with Flamsteed over his tables and also with Thomas Tompion about his clock!

As a member of the Royal Mathematical School [Sir Isaac Newton devised the curriculum] and as a City & Guilds trained Carpenter in Boatbuilding,Cabinet Making and Joinery [highest grade distinction] there is in my mind a high level of doubt that Dr Newton invented the catflap! Cambridge university doors at the time were massive, and there was a secondary door to act as a draught excluder. So show me the Joiners Rod and the cutting list and the plan for this Catflap!! as it would have been in Dr Newtons time! { I feel this is relevant to 'Special Needs' in general,do people at Cambridge tell the students that Dr Newton invented the catflap. Why do clever people believe in stupid things?']
Foureyes
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Re: SPECIAL NEEDS AT CH

Post by Foureyes »

May I respectfully correct a couple of points in Westondonkey's recent post?
First, the surname is Wallis, not Wallace.
Secondly and rather more important, the noted genetecist, birth-control advocate and author, Dr Marie Stopes had a son named Harry (b.1924) who fell in love with a girl named Mary Wallis, daughter of Sir Bames Wallis. Marie Stopes (the mother) objected strongly to the proposed marriage, wrote to Mary's father trying to stop it, and once it had taken place had nothing to do with her son or his family. Quite why the mother objected so strongly has never been made public, and the Harry-Mary marriage has been a long and very happy one - both are now well into their Eighties. Mary is a personal friend of mine and an active supporter of Christ's Hospital.
David :shock:
PS. In one of life's little ironies, Marie Stopes husband was the brother of Aliot Verdon Roe, owner of the Avro company, which built the Lancaster bomber, which dropped Barnes Wallis's bombs!
Angela Woodford
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Re: SPECIAL NEEDS AT CH

Post by Angela Woodford »

Foureyes wrote: more important, the noted genetecist, birth-control advocate and author, Dr Marie Stopes had a son named Harry (b.1924) who fell in love with a girl named Mary Wallis, daughter of Sir Bames Wallis. Marie Stopes (the mother) objected strongly to the proposed marriage ...quite why the mother objected so strongly has never been made public
I believe respectfully, Foureyes, that Marie Stopes wasn't a geneticist, but a plant palaeontologist. Still, it gave her a big advantage to call herself "Dr" when it came to propounding her birth control beliefs! I believe also that she protested vehemently that it would be a "genetic crime" for her son Harry to marry Mary Wallis because the poor girl was short-sighted and needed spectacles... oh dear!
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""
Foureyes
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Re: SPECIAL NEEDS AT CH

Post by Foureyes »

Angela,
OK, I concede on the palaeontology business - I had not gone further back than Marie Stopes' birth control activities. However, I find it very hard to believe that a person of such outstanding ability in a number of different fields could object to a potential daughter-in-law solely on the grounds of the latter's short-sightedness. It just seems very odd.
David
Angela Woodford
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Re: SPECIAL NEEDS AT CH

Post by Angela Woodford »

It is odd isn't it? :shock:

It's a while since I read the Ruth Hall biography of Marie Stopes, but a few things do stick in my mind!

Her really rather awful passionate poems to her younger lover Keith Briant. Her claim to be psychologically always 26 years old, and that she'd live to be 120. Her paranoid delusions of conspiricies against her - especially when her chow Wuffles had to be put down for attacking other dogs. Her deep loathing of Roman Catholicism.

But I'm sure I remember that it was her absolute conviction that her poor myopic daughter-in-law's short sight was a sort of hereditary defect that led to a complete cutting-off of normal mother-son relations for the rest of her life.

I must read Ruth Hall again. So interesting!
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""
YadaYada
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Re: SPECIAL NEEDS AT CH

Post by YadaYada »

Back to the original post (although the Marie Stopes stuff is really fascinating).....

My experience of CH and special needs is that they were fantastic with physical disabilities - the SENCO who has sadly now left was phenomenal in his support.

But I would agree that it is very much a place for people to independently get on and manage. Great life training if you have the ability to do that but not great if you need more support.

I suspect much comes down to individual house staff.
keibat
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Re: SPECIAL NEEDS AT CH

Post by keibat »

I have to say I think that Sarah's story is quite appalling. It would be perhaps important, and certainly helpful, to hear the school's 'take', but that's hardly likely to happen on the Forum, I presume.
Having been a successful pupil myself, it has been a salutary eye-opener to read some of the critical commentary here on the Forum about how the school – both back in my day (54-62/3) and subsequently – has been essentially uninterested in non-high-performers, but looking back I can see how it was indeed true. On the other hand I think we had our share of kids with various emotional and other mental issues, and I don't recall this leading to their removal from the school (Michael S, you may be able to correct me on this).
But as others have rightly commented,, the school today cannot be assessed on the basis of what it was like and what policies it followed half a century or even quarter of a century ago. Too many of the conditions have changed (which doesn't invalidate the Forum's function for revisiting old memories, and critiquing them too).
But to inform a pupil just a few days before the beginning of term that they are no longer welcome back – CH throwing up its hands and saying "Not our problem any more" – and even more so at the beginning of the GCSEs year: this is not just "bad timing" (JR's phrase). It is bad management (at least), and it looks very much like bad policy.
All in all, I find the management policies of the school at the moment quite disturbing. CH was not created to be a business, but to provide care and education for kids in need. Obviously, the definition of needs has changed radically in an age with universal state education – but surely the school should therefore now be able to focus on meeting more specific needs – and incontrovertibly so, to my mind, when those needs emerge for young people already at the school.
It was good to read 'YadaYada's' positive comments on the care for kids with physical needs – but the school's responsibilities don't stop there.
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