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7
The mothercraft and hygiene syllabus at Portland secondary
school was considerably widened and the health visitor, working
with the domestic science mistress, introduced the content of
the community health course. The health education officer continued
to give the full community health course to fourth year
boys at Ashburton secondary school and St. Andrews secondary
school and the domestic science mistress now includes it in the
domestic science course for St. Andrews fourth year girls.
At the end of one of the sessions on human relationships at
Ashburton secondary school it was decided to try including the
simple emotional and physical facts about pregnancy, labour and
puerperium and to illustrate the lesson with the ten-minute film
"Brother for Susan." The boys reported so favourably on the usefulness
of this that a shortened form of the course was given
to all five classes in the fourth year so that this lesson could
be included.
During the year two programmes on "Shoes for Teenagers" to
which parents were invited, were held in the girls' departments
at Portland secondary school and Archbishop Tenison's grammar
school and consisted of:-
(a) An illustrated talk given by the school doctor.
(b) A short talk and demonstration of the fitting of shoes
in a shop by a consultant fitter.
(c) The modelling of shoes by girls in each age group.
(d) Questions and discussion.
As a result of this one school was able to choose a suitable
type of shoe for school uniform.
Junior Schools
During the year the two evening sessions on the subj ect of
Growing Girls"-the first for mothers and the second for
Bothers with daughters in the fourth year group, were held in
twenty-six schools. Evaluation was extremely difficult but could
only be assessed by:-
(a) Head teachers wishing the meetings to become an annual
event.
(b) The attendance of at least some of the parents who would
not normally come to any school functions held in the
evenings, and
(c)Meeting some of the mothers again when the schools were
visited during the second year and learning that the
children were thrilled with the information and after a
day or two were equally thrilled with something else so
that this was no longer "news," it had been put into
Perspective.