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or two, by passing the entrance examination, proceed to the grammar school
each year. On the whole, however, the majority of the children enter the
Open Air School backward and/or retarded because ill-health has caused loss
of schooling. A sick child is rarely capable of sustained effort in school and
much remedial work has to be carried out as the child improves in health.
Each child is examined soon after admission to determine his Intelligence
Quotient and Educational Attainments. From these assessments and the
Diagnostic Tests that are periodically given, the pupil's needs and progress
can be gauged. In a large number of cases much hard work has to be done
and, often, little progress is made until the child's health improves. Many
children first arrive at the School with a fear complex concerning, or an active
dislike for school and our first task is to make them feel at home. This is
done by studying the child as an individual and by running the School as a
large family.
" A number of children are admitted with a nervous belief in their illhealth.
After the first little talk between the Head and the child when he
shows the boy or girl that he knows his new pupil is not fit, no mention is
made of sickness. Gradually each child is brought to consider himself quite
normal and to outward appearances he is treated as such by all on the Staff.
In time the pupil finds himself in a 'help yourself society' and the right mental
attitude is, in this way, brought into being.
"Generally speaking, the school day is made as informal and unacademic
as possible. The whole environment gives rise to a more practical type of
education than can easily be attained within the four walls of the ordinary
classroom.
Developments.
" Within the limits imposed by the school structure, certain developments
have taken place during the period the School has been open. An Ultra
Violet Ray lamp was provided some years ago. The lamp is situated in thfe
Medical-cum-Staff room and its use in these restricted and busy quarters
creates difficulties of one kind and another, but the tonic effect upon the
children, especially in winter, is of great value. In 1946 sixty children underwent
a course of treatment, making 1,207 attendances in all.
"Early in the war a start was made in giving children with Asthma and
Bronchitis special remedial breathing exercises. These were based on those
suggested by the Asthma Research Council and the groups are taken daily by
the School Nurse. The number of individual children treated in 1946 was
64 and the total number of attendances was 3,779.
"A Remedial Gymnast visits the School twice a week to take classes of
children with posture defects. The work of the School Nurse and of the
Remedial Gymnast is performed under difficult conditions, particularly in
winter, because of the lack of suitable accommodation. All the children in
the School are affected as the consequent overcrowding creates waves of
pressure throughout the School.
"When the School was opened it was realised that the Senior children
were without adequate Handicraft facilities and through the kind co-operation
of the Headmaster of Silver Street Senior Boys' School, the Senior boys of
the Open Air School are able to attend for one session each week at the Silver
Street Handicraft Centre. The principle of ' Maximum Fresh Air' cannot
operate at this Centre and the use of this Centre by the Open Air School is,
at best, a makeshift. Suitable handicraft facilities for boys and girls at the
Open Air School is an urgent need.
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