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16
The falling off in the condition of the teeth of the " leaver " children is not a
satisfactory feature of the school medical work. It is due partly to the fact that
skilled inspection of the teeth by the inspecting dental surgeons does not extend in
all cases to the children aged 12 and 13 years, but ceases at the age of eleven in many
schools. This defect in the system will be remedied by the increased dental inspections
which are provided for in the 3-year programme now being carried out.
The reorganisation of the tops of schools has also caused difficulty in the way of
following up the older children.
Co-operation
between the
school
medical
service and
juvenile
advisory
committees.
The Board ox Education forwarded an administrative memorandum (137),
dated 16th September, 1935, directing the attention of local education authorities to
the report of the Board's chief medical officer for 1933, in which he discussed the
question of co-operation between the school medical service and juvenile employment
and advisory committees. The Board had found that in many areas arrangements
for such co-operation did not exist or, where they existed, were not on the lines
which the chief medical officer suggested as likely to prove most useful. The matter
is one to which the Ministry of Labour and the National Advisory Council for
Juvenile Employment attach considerable importance.
The Board agreed with the opinion expressed in their chief medical officer's
report that the most useful form of advice is in terms related to the specific unsuitability
of certain children for particular types of work, and they expressed the
hope that local education authorities would be prepared to adopt the suggestion
that a list of such terms should be printed for use by the medical officer at the last
routine examination of the children.
This question had already been discussed between the London school medical
staff and representatives of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology and of
the Ministry of Labour, when it was unanimously considered that the method of
contra-indication was the best way of communicating the result of the examination
in those cases where choice of employment should be limited by medical considerations.
As the record card commences when the child enters school at 3 to 5 years of
age, it will be some years before the record cards of leavers will contain the printed
information but, in view of the Board's memorandum, it was decided immediately
to print and issue " choice of employment " slips for supply to school doctors, with
an intimation that a slip should be made out for every child who possesses some
disability which affects choice of employment. These slips show the following
occupational conditions and will be attached to the school-leaving form, thus being
available at the school-leaving conferences :—heavy manual work ; sedentary
confined work ; work involving exposure to bad weather ; work in a dusty atmosphere
; climbing; proximity to moving machinery; prolonged standing; eye
strain ; work requiring acute distant vision or acute hearing ; handling of confectionery
; food preparation.
Vaocination.
The school doctor indicates any of these occupational groups for which a child
is physically unsuitable.
Records are made of the presence or absence of vaccination marks when children
are stripped for medical examination, but no inquiries are made. The following
are the results of the doctors' observation of the percentage of children having
vaccinal scars; entrants, 45.8; 7-year-olds, 47.7; 11-year-olds, 52.7; and
" leavers " (13), 48.4 ; compared with, in 1934, entrants, 45.9 ; 7-year-olds, 50.4
11-year-olds, 55.1; and "leavers" (13£) 52. These figures show that the
percentage of children with obvious vaccination marks is less than last year, just
as last year's percentages were less than those of the previous year.
Audiometric
examination
in
elementary
schools.
In November, 1934, following experimental use, systematic audiometric examination
of children in the elementary schools, by means of the gramophone audiometer
was introduced by the Council. The object of this scheme is the ascertainment of
defective hearing in one or both ears, especially in its early stages, so that (a) by
means of timely treatment the defective condition may be remedied and permanent
deafness in later life averted, and (b) the suitable educational environment for the
child may be decided upon. One unit was established in the north-west division