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107
Number of classes.
Parks or
open spaces. Playgrounds.
Type A.—Delicate children from a group of schools 8 1
Type B.—Delicate children from a group of classes in
same school 18 15
Type C.—An ordinary class 14 38
Type D.—Ordinary classes in rotation 11 28
51 82
Reports were received from the school doctors on 35 of these classes.
In all the reports but one satisfactory improvement in the health and physical
condition of the children is noted. The less favourable report is upon the West
Square Infants' playground class, where the site is not very suitable owing to its
being shut in and getting no sun. Special note is taken of the excellent results at
many of the classes, especially those which are held in parks and open spaces away
from the schools.
Freedom from infectious diseases and colds, satisfactory increase in weight and
in physical measurements, including chest expansion, anaemia cured or improved in
many children, improved tone of the heart, improved posture and gain in alertness
are all points which recur frequently in the reports.
Especial mention may be made of the all-the-year-round class at St. Giles-inthe-Fields,
where many anaemic children were quite restored to health, of the
Rotherfield-street (B) class held in Waterlow Park, where special note is made of
the increase in chest expansion of the boys, the Farncombe-street (B) class, where
very marked improvement took place, both mentally and physically, the Nightingalelane
(R.C.) class, where the improvement in practically all the children was very
obvious, and the St. Peter's (G. and I.), Vauxhall, where the class was held in the
Kennington-park bandstand, and where the majority of the parents wrote to the head
mistress to say how much they appreciated the improvement they had noticed
in their children's appetite and general health.
Although children are not selected on account of health for participation in
school journeys, the increasing numbers of children who in this way receive a
country holiday must be noted with interest and satisfaction by the school medical
service. The duties of the service in connection with this movement are by no
means negligible. Applications were received in 1926 for the help of the school
doctors in connection with 396 school journeys and about 12,550 children were
inspected. Of these, 71 were regarded as unsuitable to accompany the parties; in
some cases these children were either suffering from contagious diseases or
susceptible of communicating such diseases to others.
As the school organisation is involved and the success of a journey is completely
destroyed by an outbreak of infection while away from home, or indeed even by the
development of an acute illness in a single member of the party, the overhauling
of the children by a doctor immediately before the expedition starts is a procedure
which should never be neglected.
Physical Training.
Mr. A. H. A. Gem, the Organiser of Physical Education, reports that teachers
are still in good numbers taking steps to make themselves more intimately
acquainted with modern requirements. Real progress has been made in the organisation
of games for the older boys; team-work and the house-system are being
progressively developed.
Further differentiation between the physical training of the younger and older
children is desirable. Miss G. S. Clark, the organiser of physical training for girls
and infants, points out that the work is not in general sufficiently progressive
throughout a school, exercises which form the basis of the work in the lower classes
still being taught in the higher ones. At present the majority of the children in the
School
journeys.