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"U" Children 1971
Twenty nine children were seen at routine medical examinations and were classified by the examining doctor as
"unsatisfactory" and these included many cases of malnutrition of different types. The total included eleven
obese children, and five children who were under-sized or flabby and therefore were alleged to be suffering from
some degree of malnutrition. In many instances the failure to put on weight was due to failure in secondary
absorption, either because the child was educationally sub-normal or suffered from constitutional disease, and not
from any failure on the part of the parent or school to provide the child with adequate food. The remaining
children in this category suffer from a variety of conditions including asthma, educational subnormality and
congenital defects.
Other Medical Inspections
The following are the numbers of special inspections and re-inspections carried out during 1971. A special
inspection is one which is carried out at the special request of a parent, doctor, nurse or a teacher, usually at a
school clinic.
Number of special inspections 3,070
Number of re-inspections 2,241
TOTAL 5,311
An analysis of the defects found at special inspections to require treatment or observation will be found in the
Appendix.
Medical Treatment
Details are given in the Appendix of treatment (excluding uncleanliness and dental defects) of pupils attending
maintained primary and secondary schools (including nursery and special schools), whether provided directly by
the Council or arranged through other agencies.
Handicapped Pupils
The Education Act 1944 places upon local Education Authorities the duty of ascertaining handicapped pupils in
their areas and of providing special educational treatment for such children. Although it is the duty of the local
Authority to ascertain these children from the age of 2 years, it is desirable, especially in the case of blind, deaf
and cerebral palsied children, that the defects be discovered before this age so that steps may be taken to help the
child to develop as normally as possible despite his handicap. Therapeutic education cannot start too early in the
life of a child and his parents, whatever the handicap.
The School Health Service and Handicapped Pupils Regulations 1953 defined the various categories of handicapped
pupils as follows:—
(a) Blind—pupils who have no sight or whose sight is likely to become so defective that they require education
by methods not involving the use of sight.
(b) Partially sighted—pupils who by reason of defective vision cannot follow the normal regime of ordinary
schools without detriment to their sight or to their educational development, but can be educated by special
methods involving the use of sight.
(c) Deaf — pupils who have no hearing or whose hearing is so defective that they require education by methods
used by deaf pupils without naturally acquired speech or language.
(d) Partially hearing — pupils who have some naturally acquired speech and language but whose hearing is so
defective that they require for their education special arrangements or facilities though not necessarily all
the educational methods used for deaf pupils.
(e) Educationally subnormal — pupils who by reason of limited ability or other conditions resulting in
educational retardation require some specialised form of education wholly or partly in substitution for
the education normally given in ordinary schools.
(f) Epileptic — pupils who by reason of epilepsy cannot be educated under the normal regime of ordinary
schools without detriment to themselves or other pupils.
(g) Maladjusted — pupils who show evidence of emotional instability or psychological disturbance and require
special educational treatment in order to effect their personal, social or educational readjustment.
(h) Physically handicapped — pupils not suffering solely from a defect of sight or hearing who by reason of
disease or crippling defect cannot, without detriment to their health or educational development, be
satisfactorily educated under the normal regime of ordinary schools.
(i) Pupils suffering from speech defect — who on account of defect or lack of speech, not due to deafness,
require special educational treatment.
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