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SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
No new schools were opened during 1972 The school
population at the end of the year was as follows:-
86 Primary schools 26,737 pupils
25 Secondary schools (inc.
Grammar schools) 17,708 "
2 Technical schools 1,512 "
3 Schools for E.S.N, pupils 401
1 School for sub-normal pupils 112 "
Total 117 Schools 46,470 "
Medical Inspection of School Pupils
Section 48 (1) of the Education Act, 1944, requires local
education authorities "to provide for the medical inspection, at
appropriate intervals, of pupils in attendance at any school
maintained by them" A series of regulations issued since the
Act have stipulated in more specific terms how local authorities
should meet this duty In the first instance, chi Idren were required
to be examined as soon as possible after entry to school, in the
last year of attendance at primary school and during the last year
before reaching compulsory school leaving age, but subsequent
regulations have allowed local education authorities more flexibility
in meeting the provisions of this section of the Act The
most recent revision (The School Health Regulations 1959)
omitted any instruction regarding the frequency of medical inspections,
but the accompanying circular advised that if a local
education authority chose to carry out its responsibility by means
of routine periodic medical inspections there should be three of
these during a pupil's attendance. At the same time, it commended
arrangements whereby only children brought to the attention of
the school doctor by parents, teacher or school nurse should be
examined, if the doctors were able to visit each school regularly
In 1964, the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of
Education and Science published a report which summarised the
situation at that time and pointedout that although routine school
medical examination of all school children at least three times
during their school life had been carried Dut for more than fifty
years, the necessity for continuance of this procedure was being
questioned by a number of experienced school medical officers.
Schemes of selective medical inspection had been in operation
before publication of the Chief Medical Officer's report and an
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