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67
London
Schools'
Swimming
Association.
Over 300 schools are now affiliated to the 16 districts which, combined, form the association.

It is interesting to note that, whereas the senior boys gained more certificates than the senior
girls, yet the position was reversed in respect of the juniors. Hackney heads the lists for both
seniors and juniors in the total number of certificates gained, but, if reckoned on the average
number of certificates gained, Stoke Newington comes first, where 9 affiliated departments gained
538 certificates, giving an average of 59.8 certificates per department.

The following awards were granted from the Royal Life Saving Society for saving or
attempting to save life from drowning: vellum certificates, 2; parchment certificates, 14. All
these were awarded to boys.
The association has expressed its keen appreciation to the Council for its action in adjusting
the rules governing the attendance of children at the baths, so as to allow junior schools to
continue their activities.
Provision of Meals.
Dinners are provided for necessitous children attending school, and follow menus
which have been approved by the school medical officer. Each dinner provides at
least 25 grammes of protein and 750 calories of heat value.
It is the function of the school care committee to place upon the feeding list
every necessitous case requiring additional nourishment in order to profit by
the education provided. It is considered reprehensible to wait until ill-nourishment
due to lack of food has occurred to the extent that it requires the intervention of the
school doctor.
The head teacher of the school is empowered immediately to place any
necessitous child provisionally upon the dinner list, without waiting either for the
care committee's consideration of the case, or for the school doctor's visit.
While children are placed upon the school dinner list as soon as there is social
need, and before malnutrition has had time to develop, additional nourishment in
the shape of milk or cod-liver oil is given to the children who are specially in need
of it, irrespective of financial or social necessity, on the advice of the school doctors.
These children are kept under continuous and careful observation and are
weighed regularly by the school nurses.
Much attention is now being given to the provision of milk for children in
elementary schools. The practice of giving milk under the powers of the Education
(Provision of Meals) Act, 1906, to children found at medical inspection to be debilitated
began in London in 1909. In the winter of 1909-10, Dr. Hawkes a part-time school
doctor working in Bethnal Green called attention to the children of one school
(Wolverley-street). Most of them belonged to large families dwelling in small
houses, in almost chronic destitution, the mothers often being the bread-winners and
the fathers out of work. At the medical inspection a list was recommended to the
school care committee as suitable for extra meals of milk and cod-liver oil. Of 91
children who had been assessed as "nutrition 4," i.e., definite malnutrition, who had
been placed on milk, only 9 were so assessed at the end of the year.