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SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
Pupils on school rolls—In January, 1963 there was a total of 417,320 pupils on the day
school roll; 231,934 in primary schools, 174,835 in secondary schools, 2,052 in nursery
schools, 8,146 in special schools and 353 in hospital schools. In January, 1962 there were
422,622 pupils on the roll.
Medical inspection
Details of medical inspections during 1962 are summarised and compared with those
for earlier years in the tables below. Since 1958 periodic general medical inspections have
been analysed by year of birth to conform with Ministry of Education requirements, but
to facilitate annual comparisons the year of birth has been turned into 'age' (by subtracting
year of birth from year of inspection) in the tables throughout this section of the report.
The Council's revised scheme for the medical inspection of schoolchildren came into
operation on 1 January, 1959 and one effect was to make the intermediate periodic inspections
a year later in the child's school life. It will be seen from the following table that
intermediate inspections now are each spread over two age-groups because the school
year begins in September. The number of children seen at periodic general medical inspections
in 1962 was 39.3 per cent of the school roll, compared with 38.7 per cent. in 1961 and
35.2 per cent in 1960. It is of interest that of the 11,339 special inspections, over half were
requested by head teachers, over a quarter by school health visitors and over one-tenth by
parents.
An experimental procedure for medical inspections was introduced during 1962 into
selected schools. The routine examination of the seven to eight years age group was
suspended to allow more time for the examination of selected children considered to be
in need of particular attention. It is too early to assess the full value of the scheme.