ABSTRACT
The lives of children were dramatically affected by the 1944 Education Act. It shaped the educational system of England and Wales for the next forty years and its impact extended into all areas of education. The Act itself says nothing about special education, other than establishing the Minister of Education’s authority to introduce statutory regulations for its organisation and management. However, this legislation was enormously significant in establishing, as it did, the fundamental proposition that (almost) all children were educable at the secondary school level, but that their needs and aptitudes were different. The introduction of universal secondary education meant that the expansion of the school system continued at a rapid pace.
