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108
At the end of the year there were 21 maintained day nursery schools with accommodation
for 1,250 children from 2-5 years, a nursery centre providing half-time education
for two groups of 40 children each, one attending in the mornings and the other in the
afternoons, and five assisted nursery schools with accommodation for 230 children.
School nursing sisters attended nursery classes and schools frequently, daily when
necessary, and each child was examined every term by a school doctor.
There was a total of 14,113 children under five years of age on the day school rolls,
12,298 being in the Council's schools and 1,815 in voluntary schools.
School journeys
Special arrangements for the inspection of pupils before departure on school journeys
or visits to holiday camps were continued. The Metropolitan Borough medical officers
of health were asked to co-operate by forwarding information when infectious disease
occurred in a home from which a pupil had gone on a school journey.

These figures are, of course, uncorrected for diagnosis, nevertheless they do indicate
the trend of infectious disease in the child community, and are the only figures available
in respect of diseases which are not statutorily notifiable.
When the number of cases of infectious disease reported from a particular school
indicates the possibility of an outbreak, special visits are made by a school nursing sister,
and, if necessary, by a school doctor, in order to investigate the situation and take
whatever control action is considered desirable.
This system of notification by the head, and careful observation of the pupils in
the school has been the practice for many years and is an important contribution towards
the control of the spread of infectious disease.
During 1953 the Advisory Committee on School Equipment had under consideration
the supply of towels to schools. It was agreed that the communal roller towel generally
in use was not satisfactory, and that alternative methods of drying should be used.
The precise type to be supplied would need to vary with the individual school, and a
choice of individual huckaback and terry towels, paper towels in fitments, or automatic
linen roller towel cabinets should be available.
Ringworm
outbreak at
Our Lady of
Dolours
School
A case of ringworm was found at Our Lady of Dolours School on 17th February,
1953, by the school nursing sister in the course of carrying out her routine personal
hygiene inspection of the pupils' heads. The sister found ten more cases in the next
fortnight in a systematic inspection of all the pupils in the school. All the infected
pupils were in the infants department of the school.
The school was visited by medical officers who examined all the pupils under
ultra-violet light with a Wood's glass filter. Only one more case was discovered by
means of this apparatus.