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minor behaviour problems, has been maintained. Obesity in school children remains
a problem and an approach has been made to new methods by the institution at
one clinic of a group for overweight schoolgirls of secondary school age.
Children with epilepsy present a special problem in the school environment.
Whereas most such children are well controlled and should be encouraged to lead
a normal life there remains the risk of such a child having an occasional fit. It is
unfair to expect a teacher in charge of a large class to give one child his undivided
attention in certain situations. For this reason, children with epilepsy are excluded
from swimming with the school, or participating in school physical education where
work on apparatus at a height is involved. In any community, some children will
have learning difficulties and will benefit from small classes and specialised teaching.
Some school doctors, with special training, undertake examinations to assess such
children and make recommendations for education in schools where such teaching
is available.
Special schools in the Borough are as follows:—
Meeting House School for the Educationally Subnormal
(Primary and Secondary) Roundtable Road, Downham
Brent Knoll School for the Delicate (Primary and
Secondary Mayow Road, S.E.23
The children attending Nansen School for Partially Sighted Children have been
transferred to a new school in Greenwich and the accommodation vacated by them
has been used to extend the accommodation of Meeting House School to take children
of secondary school age. The new educationally sub-normal school for children of
primary and secondary age is now expected to open in the Borough in 1971.
Children who have severe hearing defects, are maladjusted, have a physical handicap,
or who are blind, attend schools outside the Borough, but a partially hearing
unit for children of secondary school age is situated at Sedgehill Comprehensive
School and a unit for autistic children is attached to Brent Knoll School.
During the year the Health Department co-operated in a trial of a rubella (German
measles) vaccine. Parents of girls at a secondary school in the Borough were asked
to consent to the immunisation of their daughters. A blood sample was obtained
from each girl prior to immunisation and a further blood sample taken a month
later, to compare levels of antibody. The Department of Health and Social Security
recommended, later in the year, that rubella immunisation should be offered to all
girls between the ages of 11 and 14 years to protect them from the possibility of
contracting rubella in later life and in pregnancy, when the infection may give rise
to defects in the unborn child.
The Health Department also participated in a Department of Education and
Science survey of physically handicapped children who attend ordinary school. The
majority of such children are able to attend ordinary schools, sometimes with some
restriction on activities, with the help of school staff. The identification of these
children was facilitated by the existence of the Observation Register, which is maintained
in the Health Department. An index card is kept for each child in the Borough
who has a handicap and a confidential file contains information received from
hospitals, schools and other agencies. Regular review of the data on each child,
together with requests for review by school doctors, keeps the register up to date
and ensures that each child receives all the help and facilities which are available.
The register also provides statistics upon which estimates for future special education
are based.
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