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9
Meanwhile, it appears that the average number of towels issued weekly is too
low and that it would be quite possible to obtain a better hygienic standard within the
present allowances under which the issue of two roller towels or their equivalent per
class per week seems quite easily managed by many schools.
Medical inspection
The foundation of the medical work in the schools continues to be the periodical
examination of the children in certain age groups prescribed by the Board of Education.
By agreement with the Board, so far as London is concerned, the age groups
selected are four. These are (1) all children on first entrance to school, (2) all
children in their eighth year, (3) all children in their twelfth year, and (4) all children
in the term before that in which they normally leave school. Elsewhere in the
country generally the age groups as prescribed by the Board are three, viz., entrants,
children aged 8 and children aged 12.
The additional age group in London is that of the leavers. Great importance
is attached by social workers to the examination of this group. It not only affords
an opportunity for a final survey of the results of the child-care activities in school,
but gives a last opportunity for pressing attention to defects which have been
ignored or have developed late, and, perhaps most important of all, provides for
advice upon the choice of occupation in relation to physical condition and needs.
The arrangement whereby the two intermediate medical surveys are made at
ages 7 and 11 brings the system of medical inspection into close relation to
the modern educational ladder and provides for examination at the most important
moments of school life—the promotion of children from infant to junior school at age
7, and from junior to senior school at age 11.
The examination at age 7 provides an earlier examination of the vision
of the school children at the best possible moment since such examination is not
possible in the case of entrants to school.
The change in the ages to be examined in London took place in 1933. The
12-year-old children in that year were ignored, as they would all be examined a
year or so later as leavers, and the 11-year-old children were examined instead.
It was, however, realised that considerable hardship would follow if the 8-yearold
children were similarly ignored, especially as this particular age group would
have gone through school life until the age of 11 without an overhaul since entrance
to school and without a general survey of their visual acuity. The 7 to 8 year
period is also one of importance physiologically, corresponding as it does to an
ancestral beach where profound alterations of bodily development attended by the
possible manifestation or unmasking of physical defects are taking place.
The plan was therefore adopted of rapidly screening over the 8-year-old children,
testing the vision of all, and referring for detailed examination only those who
appeared on ocular inspection by the school doctor to need it.
The time saved by this method was occupied by the doctor in carrying out a
detailed examination of as many children aged 7 as was possible. Such 7-year-old
children as could not be seen in the year were to be examined in the succeeding
year by the rapid method.
It was estimated that it would take 5 years to complete the change over from
8 to 7 without the appointment of additional staff. Owing, however, to the continued
fall of the numbers of children in the schools, it has been possible to complete
the change over in 3 years, and in 1937 the working of the routine inspections will
again become normal.
Several of the leading school medical officers in the provinces have recently
denounced the system of routine examination of school children, maintaining that
much time is spent in overhauling relatively healthy children and limiting the
amount of time of the school doctors which might be spent to better advantage.
If local authorities were to limit their staff to little more than the number required
to carry out the routine inspection, there is much ground for this contention.