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67
THE FIRST ANNUAL REPORT ON
NURSERY CLASSES
for the
Year ending 31st December, 1931.
LOWER PLACE NURSERY CLASSES.
On the 20th April, 1931, the Willesden Urban District Council opened a Nursery Department
in Lower Place School. This school, built in 1915 to take 420 scholars, stands in an industrial neighbourhood,
where many of the mothers go out daily to work.
Four classrooms, a lobby and a playground in the Infant School have been used to form the
new department. Two of the rooms were converted into nurseries (green nursery and blue nursery).
The third was used as a store-room, and the fourth fitted up as a cloak-room, each child having,
and recognising by means of a special design, his or her own peg for hat and coat, shoe rack, facecloth
and soap, mug and tooth-brush. The lobby was made into a bathroom. The asphalt playground,
walled off from the other playgrounds, was so reconstructed that it contains two grass plots,
a sand pit and a shed to provide shelter for the beds in Summer.
The department is in charge of the Head Teacher of the Infant School, who has the Montessori
Diploma. She is assisted by two certificated teachers and a nursery attendant. Under the mothercraft
scheme a girl from the Senior School attends daily to gain experience in the management and
care of toddlers.
There is room for sixty children. At present there are, on an average, twenty-five in either
class.
The conditions of entry are as follows:—
(1) the child to be between two and five years old.
(2) the child to be normal, clean and free from infection.
(3) the parents to give one penny a day for milk, and co-operate with the staff for the
child's benefit.
One hour a day is allotted to open-air play in the playground, weather permitting, while an
hour in the afternoon, when the older children are in class, is devoted to sleep. Each child has a
half-pint of milk in the forenoon for lunch.
Arrangements have been made to examine the children medically once a year, the following
children being examined in any term:—
(1) Children admitted during the preceding term.
(2) Children who reach the age of 3 years during the preceding term.
(3) Children who reach the age of 4 years during the preceding term.
(4) Special cases.
An invitation card, stating that the child is going to be examined, is sent out to the parents
one week before the date of the inspection.
39 children have been examined up-to-date. Of these—
(1) 7 were between 2 and 3 years of age.
(2) 8 were between 3 and 4 years of age.
(3) 21 were between 4 and 5 years of age.
(4) 3 were 5 years of age.
The interest the mothers are taking in this part of the new scheme is shown by the fact that
30 attended the inspections, many of them getting time off from their employers to do so, while 4
who were unable to come themselves, but were anxious to know the result of the examination, had
arranged for the grandmothers to come in 2 cases, for an aunt in the third and for a friend in the
fourth.
Cleanliness.—Cleanliness of skin, hair and clothing was a noteworthy feature of all the children
examined.