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62
A medical examination and personal hygiene inspection of each child is carried
out each term by a medical officer and a nurse on the divisional staff.
SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
Organisation
The work of the School Health Service, largely dependent upon the duties
imposed upon every local education authority by the provision of the Education Acts,
1944-48, and the Handicapped Pupils and School Health Service Regulations, 1945,
made thereunder, was not, up to the end of 1948 greatly affected by the National
Health Service Act, 1946. The arrangements for medical inspection and the special
educational treatment of handicapped pupils will continue to be unaffected, but
those for specialist treatment have to be discussed with the Regional Hospital
Boards and the Boards of Governors of Teaching Hospitals.
At the end of 1948, there were four part-time consultants, for ophthalmology,
for diseases of the ear, nose and throat, for orthopaedics, and for psychiatry. There
were also senior medical officers available for consultation in connection with all
recommendations for special educational treatment.
Examinations under Sections 34 and 57 of the Education Act, 1944, were in the
main arranged locally in each Division, for children considered to be educationally
subnormal, physically handicapped or delicate, but centrally at County Hall for
children considered to be blind, partially sighted, deaf, partially deaf or epileptic.
The results of all such "statutory" examinations were considered by senior medical
officers at County Hall, and, finally, the School Medical Officer recommended suitable
action to the Education Officer.
Examinations were also carried out with a view to recommending special
educational treatment for children suffering from speech defects, diabetes, and
maladjustment.
Pupils on school rolls
The re-organisation under the Education Act, 1944, into primary and secondary
schools continued during 1948, and, at the end of the year, there were 939 county
schools and 401 voluntary or assisted schools (a department or combined department
under one head is regarded as one school).
There were 277,406 children of primary and secondary school age in county
schools, and 95,684 children in voluntary or assisted schools, making a grand total
of 373,090 pupils at the end of the year.
The average attendance during the last term of the year was 88.04 per cent.
Medical Inspection
The content of the tables for 1948 is unchanged from the previous year and
comparison is made with the years 1946 and 1947 and with the year 1938 (to provide
a comparison with pre-war conditions).
In comparing the years 1938 and 1946 with those of 1947 and 1948 regard must
be had to the change that was made in 1947 when the figures for the grammar,
technical and former central schools were, for the first time, included in the general
tables; formerly the figures for these schools were tabulated separately under the
title "Higher Education." This change concerns mainly the "Leaver" age group
which now includes all pupils examined prior to leaving school, irrespective of age
and the type of school. This means that the "Leaver" age group for 1947 and 1948
covers a group of pupils aged 15 years and upwards from both the former "elementary"
and "secondary" schools, whereas for the years 1938 and 1946 the "Leaver"
age group refers specifically to pupils of the former "elementary" schools examined
in their fourteenth year.