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DISTURBANCE OF SCHOOL ARRANGEMENTS.
This has been inconsiderable in the newer schools where a
special room can always be set aside for the purpose. In the older
schools much inconvenience to all concerned is more or less inevitable
though the head teachers have done their best to mitigate
it as far as possible.
Now that a considerable number of children suffering from
defective vision and other eye troubles are referred for further
examination and treatment, I suggest that the Committee should
obtain the consent of the Board of Education to reckon attendance
at the medical department, at the Town Hall, as attendance at
school. Though the gain in grant would be inconsiderable, such
an arrangement would be popular with the children and with the
teachers, as children who are in regular attendance, and are
qualifying for attendance prizes, are very loth to attend at the
Town Hall unless such attendance is counted. Article 44 (h) of the
present Code permits such attendances to be reckoned for school
purposes, and a similar recognition might be sought for children
attending the class for remedial exercises at Whitehorse Road
School.
EXTENT AND SCOPE OF MEDICAL INSPECTION DURING THE
YEAR.
For the most part children have been selected for medical
inspection in accordance with the requirements of Section 58 (b) of
the Code.
Further experience has strengthened my opinion that the group
of children about to leave school is the least satisfactory that could
be selected for inspection.
The number of actual objections to medical inspection continued
small. There was, however, a tendency in some of the
schools for children who should have been medically inspected to
be kept from school on the day fixed for inspection. Even if these
absentees are taken into account, there is no considerable interference
with the work of medical inspection, and I am of opinion that
both active and passive resistance will soon disappear if left
unnoticed. In several instances there is reason to believe that the
children were withdrawn from inspection because they were dirty.
When this is found to be the case, the difficulty can be dealt with
in other ways, and especially by examining such children at a
subsequent date without notice.