View report page

30
During the year the psychologist made 147 visits, allocated
to the different types of school as follows:
Nursery and Infant Schools 34
Junior Schools 56
Secondary Modern Schools 31
Grammar and Technical Schools 6
Special Schools 20
Four children have been visited in their homes.
The psychologist has continued to give coaching to children
with particular difficulties. Twenty have had individual coaching,
while two remedial groups for secondary modern girls have attended
after school hours for help in reading. Group tests of
intelligence and attainment have been carried out at three junior
schools at the head teachers' request.
When a class for illiterates over school age was formed in
Walthamstow , the psychologist helped in a voluntary capacity in
the initial ascertaining of reading levels, and later in teaching a
group, as the whole class proved to be too large to he satisfactorily
dealt with by one teacher.
Not the least important part of the work is lecturing to teachers
and parents. During the year a course of lectures was given
to teachers on "Psvchologv in the Service of the Schools."
Lectures to parents and youth leaders have been given on a
varietv of topics. These have been well attended and the great
number of questions asked shows clearly the need parents have
of such instruction, and their anxietv to do the "right thing" for
their children.
In the Spring term, a student psychologist from the Birmingham
University Remedial Education Centre did some practical
work in the Walthamstow schools under the supervision of the
psychologist.
(vii) Paediatric Clinic.— The clinic was continued under the
clinical charge of Dr. Elchon Hinden, Paediatrician to Whipps
Cross Hospital, who reports as follows:—
Work in the clinic has proceeded on the same fines as in 1951.
The bulk of the children seen have presented minor deviations
from the normal, or else have been suffering from behaviour disorders.
Acute medicine has, rightly, been absent; a pleasing
feature has been the very small number suffering from chronic
rheumatic heart disease. I have the impression that in height and
weight the children compare favourably with those born before
the war, and I think that the standard of parental care is rising
also. Poor housing still seems the major detrimental environmental
factor.
The radiological and pathological departments at Whipps
Cross Hospital have continued their welcome service to the clinic,