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65
In order to effect improvement in the pre-school care of children, particularly
of those between one and five years of age who are not under supervision, the
Ministry of Health issued circular 1550 in May, 1936. This circular enjoins the
use of health visitors as attendance officers in connection with the " toddlers' clinics"
of the maternity and child welfare centres. It also advises maternity and child
welfare authorities to make, wherever possible, arrangements with local education
authorities for children of pre-school age to attend for the treatment of minor ailments
and dental defects at the school treatment centres.
Negotiations with the Council have been commenced in London by several of
the borough authorities with a view to implementing this advice, and the Council
has given a general authority for such arrangements to be made whenever practicable.
On the school side much attention has been given to improvement of the care
and attention given to the infant children in the Council's schools.
Of the 97,000 children between the ages of three and five in London, some
50,000 are in attendance at babies' classes in the Council's elementary schools. The
new standard planning adopted in 1934 provided for the increase by 25 per cent.
of the floor space per child in classrooms for the "under fives," with a separate
playground of 800 square feet or more near the babies' rooms. Classrooms for
babies are now designed to have 15 square feet per child. In place of the older
unconsidered furniture, babies' rooms are now provided with specially designed
tables and chairs.
Sleeping accommodation is provided for all "babies," and there are no less
than 60,000 beds in use. Not only are large toys, such as dolls' houses, push-carts
and other wheeled toys, supplied to all babies' classes, but it is the increasing practice
to supply to infants' departments apparatus such as climbing frames, jungle-gyms,
chutes, swings, etc.
In view of the concern felt regarding the need for care of the young infant, it
may be as well here to recount the advantages enjoyed by the infant child in school.
It is sometimes objected that only one medical inspection takes place during infant
school life, and that at the time of entrance. This is seriously to understate the
amount of attention given to their physical development. These children are under
the daily observation of skilled and kindly teachers. At the entrant medical
examination all those with defects and those whose condition does not wholly satisfy
the medical examiner are marked for continued reinspection at intervals of six
months, and they are not discharged until their health has improved to the satisfaction
of the doctor. Any child noticed by the teacher, school nurse or care committee
members to be in any way flagging is brought before the doctor as a special
case.
All are inspected by the school dentist annually and by the school nurse at
least once in every term. They have the advantage of the Milk Marketing Board's
scheme for milk in school. All those needing milk on nutritional grounds receive
two bottles a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, whether the parents
can afford to pay or not, and all these as well as those receiving school dinners are
inspected every three months by the school doctor. All children are weighed by
the school nurses at intervals of six months, and those not making satisfactory growth
are brought before the doctor.
They have the advantage of all the Council's arrangements for medical treatment,
including those for dental defects and minor ailments, treatment for ear
disease, etc., observation at nutrition centres, convalescent treatment, specialist
examination at the Council's general hospitals, and admission to the Council's
special children's hospitals, whenever there is need.
Compared therefore with the condition of the children to whom reference is
made in the beginning of this section, who are neither at school nor in attendance
for regular supervision at a child welfare centre, the children attending school are
"safe."
The three year programme 1935-38 provided for the establishment of experimental
"nursery classes" in connection with infants' departments, two in each year.