18 June 2024
Most of us at Caldecott in the days of Miss Leila would not get into Caldecott these days as children in circumstances now similar to those at our time.
She was a leader in the field. In the old days Caldecott often had to get fees from parents and these might be £4 per week each term. Through Education Acts and the Children Act 1948 children could come at Government expense. Her standing was such that she could be picky on which children would be admitted. The 1967 booklet said that many (most?) children had been sent by local authority children's officers, although not all. "Caldecott has to be selective; the children accepted must be basically sound, and of superior intelligence if they are to benefit from what the Community has to offer them. The healing process that the children experience depends to a large extent on the creation of a stable and closely knit community to which they feel they belong."
A 1950's brochure began by saying that the Community existed primarily for the care of normal children - generally if they were deprived of a secure home life because of certain family circumstances, or if otherwise considered desirable to have education in a boarding school.
"Children must be of normal or superior intelligence ....Ordered freedom and many activities and cultural interests help to give the Community a rich, organic communal life particularly suitable for the intelligent child."
Such children could be accepted via various routes or even on a voluntary basis.
There could also be not more than 25 (of the 100 children at Hatch) loosely described as maladjusted - up to a point.
"The Community only accepts cases likely to be amenable to environmental treatment. Cases of temperamental inability are not accepted where the constitutional factors are considerable and are likely to result in permanent inadequacy either intellectual, emotional or physical. N.B. There are only a few vacancies available."
Eventually that approach could not continue. Councils supposed that normal children could just be visited at their homes or otherwise be fostered full time, not kept in increasingly costly children's homes which were encouraged to gear up to take more difficult children of types not envisaged by Miss Leila.
Charitable donations are welcome, but the great majority of income comes from running a business to deliver what is wanted by those paying the fees. Most of us were a bit too normal to satisfy that requirement.