Schooling a problem for Richard, a child prodigy

Press, 6 May 1980, Page 17

Schooling a problem for Richard, a child prodigy

By KEN COATES in London Britain’s drastic cuts in education spending are .haying -some strange results. When Richard Janies, aged four, was discovered by. accident to have a staggering t.Q. of 170, educa--tion experts told his parents he should be at school. Unless he began his education early, they said, the. intellectual inactivity could turn him into a problem child. But the Warwickshire County Council decided it could , not find him a place 'at a State school, because of budget cuts. Richard’s father, Mr Dennis James, aged 42, who earns $l5O a week as a school caretaker, ‘ was determined to ensure his son got the best chance possible. He .went cap-in-hand to a number of private

schools, and finally got him placed at Emscote Lawn, Warwick, 16km from his home af Henley-in-Arden. After closely studying child psychologists’ reports on Richard’s abilities, the headmaster, Mr J. Riley, awarded him a special scholarship, reducing fees to $B5 a term, instead of the usual $2OO. Richard’s intellect was first discovered by a health nurse who called to see his sister, Sally, soon after she was bom 15 months ago. . She found Richard reading a newsaper to the baby for fun. Mr James says Richard taught himself to read when he was two. “He had a magnetic blackboard and began attaching letters to it which matched headlines in the newspaper,” said the proud father. “We did not help him, he just learned

to read.” These days young Richard reads books written for nine-year-olds. He sleeps for only five hours and is sometimes ‘found reading at a desk in his bedroom at 2 a.m. In spite of - the cut in schools fees, Richard’s parents will still have a struggle to pay all costs. His uniform cost nearly $4OO and they will have to spend $2 a day on petrol for the 32km- round journey. Mr James said he has no idea where his son’s brilliance came from. He left a- secondary modem school at 15 and worked in a Coventry car components factory before taking his caretaking job two years ago. He hopes to get his son into a public school perhaps Rugby, and he might eventuallv continue to Oxford or Cambridge.