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85
To the Chairman and Members of the Education Welfare SubCommittee.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
This year my letter will commence with an appeal, which at
least has the merit that unlike most appeals it will not touch the
reader's pocket! All 1 ask is that having started reading this
letter, you will continue to read it to the end. Surveying the School
Health Service broadly, the first point that strikes me as being
worthy of special mention is the fact that an all time record for
the number of school children examined at periodic medical
inspections in any one year in Bromley, was set up in 1956. It is
encouraging to note that of the large number thus examined,
slightly less than three per cent were considered to come within
the category of unsatisfactory, and this is surely a tribute to the
combined efforts of parents, teachers and school health service staff,
all of whom in their own individual ways have made their
contribution to this happy state of affairs. It will be noted that I
have mentioned parents first and this has been done intentionally,
as they are the most important factor in the development of their
offspring. It may well be that there are those who will say that
this is a statement of the obvious, but at a time when the state
tends to obtrude more and more upon the individual's responsibilities,
it would not appear to me to be out of place to stress this
point.
Having given the parents their just and due pat on the back,
my thoughts naturally wander off to consider how their already
excellent record can be further improved. One matter that has
given me cause for some concern during the past twelve months
is the fact that from time to time members of the staff of the
School Health Service have drawn my attention to the fact that
some of the children they have seen at school, have appeared very
tired, and I feel that 1 must stress here the importance of adequate
sleep especially for the growing child. 1 am not personally one
of those who could draw up a rigid inflexible scheme of so many
hours sleep for different age groups, as there is undoubtedly a
variation in the need for sleep in different individuals, and there
are occasions when the normal rules will be waived with every
justification, but I would advise that the " occasions " should not
be too frequent. In no other age, 1 suppose, has the temptation
to keep the young people up late been more insistent than it is
to-day, with the constant and ever growing appeal of the television
screen, but it is a demand that must be resisted if it is eventually
going to have a deleterious effect on the health of the next
generation.