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113
Thirty-seven of our children were recommended for admission
to an open-air school during the year. It is the aim of these
schools to restore children to normal health and to inculcate in
them habits of personal cleanliness and health, at the same time
giving each child an education which is not beyond its physical
capacity. I cannot speak with authority of results on the
educational side, but judging by the number of children who
succeed in gaining scholarships to secondary schools, 1 should
think they are in every way satisfactory. On the medical side,
I am convinced that open-air schools not only succeed in their
function of restoring a child's health, but also in instilling in him
hygienic habits which he carries into the home and probably
never quite loses for the remainder of his life. The return to
health is moreover accompanied by a remarkable improvement
in the mental outlook of the children. This is largely due to
the fact that being backward educationally by reason of enforced
absence from school through illness, they are, at the ordinary
elementary school, too often at the bottom of their class, with
the result that a sensitive child often develops a sense of inferiority
and an intense dislike of school. On entering an open-air school,
they meet others in the same backward state as themselves;
less attention is therefore drawn to them in this respect, with
the result that they soon lose their haunted and worried appearance,
and become happy and contented again.
Stormont House School, situated on Hackney Downs, admits
pulmonary, non-pulmonary and suspected cases of tuberculosis,
and the ages range from 6 to 16 years. There are 88 on the roll,
and with two or three exceptions, all the children come from the
neighbouring Boroughs of Bethnal Green, Hackney and Stoke
Newington.
All Classes are held in the open air. Becords of weight,
temperature, etc., are kept by the Dispensary nurse, who attends
the school daily. I visit the school weekly, making frequent
examinations, and directly supervising the exercise and rest of
each child. A drink of milk, morning and afternoon, and an
excellent dinner are provided at a nominal charge, but no payment
is exacted in necessitous cases.
During the year 5 children were transferred to an elementary
school, treatment in an open-air school being considered no
longer necessary, while 8 children were discharged as fit for work
and placed in employment by the School Care Committee.
In accordance with the London County Council regulation that
all children attending an open-air school shall receive a summer
holiday, 53 boys and '26 girls, who would not otherwise have gone
away, were sent on a school journey to Bustington for two weeks,
The children, who are accompanied by their teachers and nurses,
continue with their lessons but as these largely take the form of