Past Imperfect, Present Superlative

Posted on Tuesday 13th September, 2011

A couple of weeks ago I found myself in the Cotswolds and so close to my first ever school - I was a boarder aged just five - that it would have meant a detour to avoid it.  So I made a conscious decision to show my companion where I had spent my first few years in full time education, from 1967 - 1970. 



Penhurst School was selected by my parents after an exhaustive search of 'special schools'.  The local authority was adamant that disabled children like me could not be accommodated by 'normal' schools, and that I would have to go away. 

The school was owned and managed by the National Children's Homes (NCH) - later to become Action for Children.  It was run along Christian (Methodist if memory serves) lines and encouraged a respectful but caring atmosphere for the 48 of us who went there.  Be that as it may, being wrenched from the cosiness of the familial home at such a tender age left me distraught, confused and, at times, angry and uncooperative. 

Thankfully, things have moved on considerably and people with the sorts of disabilities that we had then would be left at home to attend local schools with a bit of support here and there. 

Walking back into the grounds of the old, Victorian pile that was the main building back then, I suddenly got that sense of perspective that comes with growing up.  Yes, the house was large and imposing, but it was not gigantic.  The trees - tall and majestic as they still are - were no giant redwoods. 

I was curious to know what had become of the place - did it still accommodate disabled children, principally as day pupils?

No, Penhurst has been transformed into a state of the art facility for children with high support needs and profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD).  These are the sorts of people who - even with the best will in the world - can't be catered for in mainstream schools. 

To give you some indication, the school has a ratio of 160 staff (not all full time) to around 26 students.  The big old house has mainly been turned over to offices and the school's residents are accommodated in modern, low-rise, especially adapted buildings. 

In contrast to my days sharing a room with three other boys, today Penhurst gives a separate room to each and every one.  And although we were grouped in residential clusters - 'families' as they were called - this is now reinforced by each grouping occupying its own separate building. 

Of course, with so many 'vulnerable' children and young people on site (a much over-used term to describe older or disabled people), trespassers like me are soon intercepted.  A kindly member of the teaching staff shepherded us to reception - the physio block when I was there - and we were issued with visitors' passes.  And there was more: if we would care just to hang on for a few moments, someone would show us around. 

As it turned out, we got almost two hours with Della, the head of care at Penhurst.  We met several members of staff - of the caring as well as of the teaching variety - and shook the hand of the principal, Derek Lyseight-Jones. 

We visited familiar sites like my first classroom and the assembly hall and we also met several of the kids.  We were made to feel incredibly welcome even though I am now sufficiently advanced in years that no member of staff could possibly remember my younger self. 

With such a high staff to pupil ratio, places at Penhurst certainly can't come cheap.  And with the Osborne axe about to decimate local authority budgets, there will be increasing pressure to find less expensive alternatives. 

But I wonder what a less expensive alternative would look like: people whose support needs are as high as those of the Penhurst students need constant input from care staff, specialist teachers and other therapists.  For example, extensive use is being made of ICT in order to allow those who are able to use a simple switch so that they can generate a 'yes - no' response.  This may sound like a simple matter, but when your ability to communicate is so curtailed, it can bring enormous quality of life improvements. 

The school is now equipped with a hydrotherapy pool, medical treatment facilities, a cinema, two sensory gardens and a multi-sensory studio.  The alternative to providing these facilities is to leave the students unstimulated with just their basic physical needs catered for. 

Penhurst is open 52 weeks of the year since few families have the capacity and necessary infrastructure to support their children.  But there is a family suite so that parents and siblings can stay at the school at weekends in order to maintain contact. 

This is in stark contrast to my days at Penhurst: I was one of the lucky ones - I had a family who resisted the efforts of doctors to persuade them to, "leave this one in care and go home and have another child". 

Many of my cohort had been dumped in state care and were, frankly, probably very lucky to find themselves in such a supportive and caring environment.  Nonetheless, it was an institution. 

I had expected my visit to Penhurst to bring to the surface a host of troubling memories about my first years away from the family.  Certainly, those days still inhabit the darker recesses of my mind.  But as I walked away with my brochure and DVD - Penhurst, Passionate about Potential - I was more troubled about how the current and future students would be adequately supported in places that practise this degree of excellence. 

As Gandhi said:

A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.

It would be reassuring to know that the civil servants whose job it is to slash zeros from education budgets were aware of the consequences of their actions.