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6
To the Chairman and Members of the
Hornsey Education Committee.
Mr. Councillor Grimshaw, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit the following Annual Report
on the work of the School Medical Department for the year
ending December 31st, 1931.
Although addressed to the Education Committee of the
Borough, this Annual Report is also for the information of the
Board of Education. The form of the Report and the tables
attached thereto are more or less prescribed by the Board of
Education in a Schedule entitled "Suggestions for the arrangements
of Annual Reports of School Medical Officers." This
Schedule indicates, by means of twenty-four main headings and a
certain number of sub-headings and explanatory notes, the
information desired by the Board. This plan has obvious
advantages from the administrative and statistical points of
view, but it has also certain disadvantages.
The chief disadvantage is the monotonous repetition
entailed in describing year after year the arrangements made
and methods adopted in carrying out medical inspection and
treatment; in securing the co-operation of parents, teachers, school
attendance officers and voluntary bodies; in following up
children suffering from defects; in ascertaining and dealing with
children who are defective within the meaning of Part V. of the
Education Act, 1921; in reviewing the findings of medical
inspection; and so on. Arrangements and methods do not change
so rapidly as to necessitate a yearly description.
In this Annual Report I have therefore omitted many of the
details given annually for many years and confined myself to a
brief account of the scheme of medical inspection and treatment
and the ascertainment of mentally and physically defective
children.
The Scheme of Medical Inspection.
Medical inspection of the elementary school children was
carried out in all the schools in accordance with the Board of
Education schedule of medical inspection. The boys' departments
are inspected by the School Medical Officer and the girls' and
infants' departments by the Assistant School Medical Officer.
A notice is sent to the parents of each child with an invitation to