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To the Chairman and Members of the
HORNSEY EDUCATION COMMITTEE.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit my Annual Report for the year
ending 31st December, 1940
The Board of Education have further reduced the statistical
tables and request that the Report should be as brief as possible
and concern itself mainly with the effects of the war on the
physical and mental welfare of the school children and with any
reorganisation of the School Medical Services which has been
found necessary to meet war conditions.
In Circular 1,490, dated 14th December, 1939, the Board
expressed anxiety about the condition of school children in
evacuation areas and urged that an intensive effort should be
made, especially in regard to cleanliness. In response to this
request, routine medical inspection in the first term of 1940 was
made to apply to all the children in attendance instead of the
usual selected age groups. It was very soon discovered that there
was no falling off either in the standard of cleanliness or in the
general health and nutrition of the children. Therefore in the
summer term we reverted to the normal procedure of medically
inspecting the four age groups—entrants, intermediates,
Secondary School entrants and leavers. In the third term of the
year, which is, in normal years, devoted to the medical inspection
of new entrants, the heavy night bombing and frequent day airraid
warnings led to evacuation of school children on a
considerable scale.
The medical and nursing staff were fully occupied in the
inspection of evacuees and so the new entrants in the autumn of
1940 were not medically inspected till conditions became quieter
in 1941.
The figures presented in the statistical tables refer to
inspections carried out in 1940.