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give more individual attention to each child. All the teachers in charge have
attended a special course at the Council's Physical Training College, under the
immediate supervision of the Council's organisers of physical education.
The results of this special concentration upon children who are the most in need
of drill are excellent, but the difficulty of staffing in the schools makes extension of
these classes a slow matter.
The establishment of special health classes has been especially fostered by Dr.
F. C. Lewis, the Divisional Medical Officer in the N.E. division. He reports that,
in 1919, special remedial exercise classes were started in a few specially selected
schools where a teacher on the staff was qualified by special training, combined with
keenness, to take them. They were under the direct supervision of the physical
training organiser of the area, and when they were comparatively few in number it
was possible for the organiser herself to inspect them in conjunction with the
assistant medical officer in charge. On the reorganisation of the physical training
staff of the Council in 1924 it was found impossible for the organiser to supervise
the classes herself and the character of the classes was slightly altered.
At present there exist in the N.E. division 3 boys classes and 12 girls classes
(3 of these are temporarily suspended) which are taken by teachers on the staff
of the school who have attended a special course of lectures in physical training at
the Council's school and who are approved as capable by the organiser (Miss GrantClarke).
The selection of tables (progression of exercises given) is left entirely to
the discretion of the teacher in charge of the class, whilst the physical defect for
which the child was nominated to the class by the inspecting doctor is inspected
every term by him. This alteration is reflected in the nomenclature of the classes.
They are no longer styled "remedial classes," but health classes, and although
the child with postural deformities (kyphosis, scoliosis, flat foot, etc.) is included
as before, no specific exercises for these defects are given. Reliance is rather placed
on carefully and regularly given free-standing exercises, with the addition of a few
special balance exercises on forms. The classes are taken daily, and, in the case
of the girls, in a suitable dress and foot-wear, in contrast to the routine physical
training work of the schools. The size of the class is also limited to 20 or 25 scholars.
If a criticism be allowed, the present system, whilst enabling a larger number
of schools to start health classes, has somewhat impaired the corrective value,
owing to the absence of special exercises designed to meet the requirements of
children with postural defects. It has also widely increased the conditions which
should render children eligible for the classes; whereas formerly the bulk of the
cases showed actual spinal curves, there is now a large proportion with general
stunting and poor development of physique admitted. The more severe cases of
special deformity are referred to hospitals for exercises and massage, but the number
of these is small.
It would rather appear that the need for these classes is really a confession that
daily physical exercise is needed generally throughout the schools, but that only in
certain schools where there is a confident teacher and also a head who is willing to
make the necessary arrangements, is it undertaken.
What one would like to suggest is that in every school a certain number of
children adjudged by the inspecting doctors to be in need of daily physical training
should be in a position to get it. There should be a health class in every girls'
department, with special kit and milk if necessary, instead of, as at present, only in
schools where facilities exist.
Co-operation with Parents, Teachers, School Attendance Officers, Official and
Voluntary Bodies.
Parents.
The response of parents to the invitation to attend the medical inspection of
their children continues to be satisfactory. 150,662 parents took advantage of the