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132 Co-operation of School Attendance Officers.
The assistance of the teachers, however, is now being
solicited in this important work of following up, by
asking them to make a note on a form, to be returned
within ten weeks to the School Medical Officer, of all
the children who have received treatment since school
medical inspection. By this means it will be possible
to single out children who should be visited at an
early date by the School Nurses, who in the ordinary
course of events would not discover the facts until the
home was visited some time after.
Co-operation of School Attendance Officers.
The Attendance Officers have continued to give every
assistance, especially in providing information regarding
children who are absent on account of conditions,
such as impetigo, ringworm, etc., without receiving
treatment at home or at the School Clinic, or who have
been absent either continuously or irregularly without a
medical certificate being supplied.
But the greatest assistance has been obtained from
the woman attendance officer, Mrs. Byles, the value
of whose work one cannot estimate too highly. Her
appointment was almost in the nature of an experiment,
for it was thought by some that a man might be more
suitable. But the experiment has been justified in every
respect. Whereas the two men attendance officers
divide the supervision of the ordinary absences in all
the schools except two, the woman deals with the
ordinary absences from the two remaining schools,
as well as the excluded cases in all the schools, the
conditions for which exclusion is called for being verminous
conditions, impetigo, ringworm and scabies.
There is ample evidence to show that by her visits
she has encouraged the mothers to cleanse or treat the