Ron Dawson
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Dr Ron Dawson, born 13 March 1940, the illegitimate son of Clarice Joan Wheeler. At the age of two years, he was adopted by a canal boatman, Thomas Dawson, and his wife, Henrietta,and his name changed from Wheeler to Dawson. He was raised on the giant Kingstanding council housing estate in Birmingham and left school in 1956 with one 'O' level in Art. For the next nine years he had a succession of short-lived jobs, ranging from building site labourer, window cleaner, soft-drinks delivery-man, and power-press operator to door-to-door salesman.
Fortunately for the world of special education, an enforced nine month incapacity following a motorcycle accident led him reassess the direction his life was taking. He subsequently took a number of correspondence courses to gain sufficient 'O' and 'A' levels to win a place at St. Peter's Teacher Training College in Birmingham where he qualified as a teacher of maladjusted children. Within four years of becoming a teacher he was appointed Deputy Head Teacher of a School for children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties. By further part-time study,he went on to gain the degrees of BA., M.Sc., and PhD.
Following his work as Deputy Headteacher, he became Research Officer for the three year national Schools' Council Research Project, The Education of Disturbed Pupils and his statistical findings and analysis of the project were published in Special Provision for Disturbed Pupils (Macmillan Education, ISBN 0333284054.
He was then appointed Director and Research Psychologist of a five year reseach project, the '''Education of Disturbed Children''', an Urban Aid funded project in conjunction with the Barnsley Local Education Authority (LEA). The outcome of this project was the publication of The Teacher Information Packs (TIPs, Macmillan Education, ISBN 0333384385) a pack of one-hundred and twenty-three information units designed to assist teachers to work more effectively in relation to pupils across the whole range of special educational needs (SEN). In addition to being the originator of the Packs, he was the overall editor of the Published version and was the author or co-author of over eighty per-cent of the materials. A number of British LEAs installed TIPs in all of their schools as did a number of overseas countries. TIPs was described as an ‘Opus Magnum’ in a professional psychological journal review.
He has had numerous articles and research papers published in academic and research journals, has written commissioned reviews for the Times Educational Supplement, and had his own satirical column, 'The Dawson File',in Special Children magazine. He was also the author of two books, Handwriting 1, and 2, for the Macmillan Education Success series (ISBN 0333463110, and 111).
He was also the originator, author and co-developer ( with Peter Penrose) of The Baby Progress Guides (Psycho-Educational Products, 1982) a pack of assessment and developmental guides and equipment for the parents of infants from birth to two and a half years.
In addition to being a Registered OFSTED Inspector, he has been the adviser/inspector for Special Education in Hampshire, Staffordshire and Jersey. For nearly ten years he was Head of the Special Education and Habilitation Studies Department at King Alfred's College, which is now the University of Winchester. He was the Course Director for all post-graduate awards in Special Education, and was the Department's Principal Lecturer and Supervisor of PhD research. He was also a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.
Since retirement he has turned to writing fictional novels. His first, The Last Viking, (Trafford ISBN 1412086833) was published in 2006. Building upon his early experiences in Birmingham, it tells the story of the world's greatest heist.
