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17
NUTRITION.
In Table II the nutritional state of the children examined
at routine medical inspections is indicated in accordance with the
suggestions of the Board of Education in Administrative Memorandum
125 of 1935. Of the 6,552 school children examined 8.7
per cent, were classified as, of excellent nutrition, 88.9 per cent,
of normal nutrition, 2.4 slightly sub-normal, and one child, or .01
per cent, being classified as of bad nutrition. It would seem
therefore that the nutritional state of the children is being maintained
at a high standard.
The routine nutritional surveys of the children in school were
. discontinued during the year because it was felt that the time of
the medical officers could be better employed in other school
medical work, the nutritional examinations by reason of their
cursory character giving only a general impression of the nutritional
state of the children which could be obtained in the course of the
medical officer's visits to the schools for routine medical inspection.
This impression has continued to be a good one.
UNCLEANLINESS.
The improvement in the cleanliness of school children, signs
of which were noted in the 1941 report, has been maintained
during 1942. Up to November of 1942 the school population had
increased by 2,442 to 16,542, owing mainly to the return of children
from receiving areas. The school nurses greatly increased the
number of head inspections and it is through their efforts and the
exclusions from school that the improvement has been secured.
It has always been the policy in Ealing not to cleanse children
because it is considered to be the duty of the parents. Where
parents fail in this duty the Education Committee have no hesitation
in taking legal proceedings under the Attendance Bye Laws.
Ealing has always had a high standard of cleanliness among school
children, compared with other areas, and this standard can only be
maintained by vigorously upholding the principle that it is the
parents' duty to see that their children are kept clean.