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I am grateful to Mr. D.R. Barraclough, Chief Education Officer, for the
following reports on Physical Education, and the School Milk Meals Servicess-
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
During the last five years there has been a steady programme of installing
trampolines in all secondary schools. By 1971, all secondary schools will be in
possession of this valuable piece of equipment. It is the first piece of apparatus
other than the water in a swimming bath which allows the big overweight person to
work equally as well as the more athletically built youngster.
In the primary schools a similar programme of gradual supply of indoor
climbing equipment has resulted in a quarter of the junior schools possessing
this apparatus. This equipment enables these schools to carry on with
adventurous gymnastic lessons indoors throughout the inclement season. Prom the
point of cost efficiency it is a much better proposition that the outdoor equipment
which lies unused because of rain and cold for long periods of the year.
Many of the junior schools have considered the ability to swim as so
important that they have collected fairly large sums of money to build their own
Learner swimming pools. About a quarter of the Junior Schools already possess
their own pool and as a result they are successful in teaching almost all school
leavers to swim 20 yards or more. Children at schools without learner pools
roceive ten swimming lessons at the public baths in their final junior year.
Consideration is being given to supplying all-weather training surfaces
instead of the more traditional grass areas. These fine "granite chippings"
surfaces are invaluable for games that are played throughout the two hundred
days of a school year. A single grass pitch can be used for seven games a
week and even this cannot be allowed in wet weather whereas an all-weather
surface can be used twelve hours a day throughout the year without any deterioration.
When combined with floodlighting, these future pitches could be a boon
to the young adults of Bromley. One such pitch near Kennington Oval has served
the community there for over thirty years.
A great deal of the physical education programme is related to playing
games with other schools outside school hours. This involves the teaching staff
in many hours of after-school duties training the many squads from whom the teams
are selected to play at weekends, when the master or mistress again will be
involved in refereeing the game. In addition, many other activities are being
correlated with physical education. These include the Duke of Edinburgh Award
Scheme and such activities as camping, canoeing, rock climbing and orienteering.
The detailed preparation for expeditions involving these subjects are onerous.
The safety of young people taking part in these activities must always be a
care, responsibly borno. by the teacher and the Authority encouraging this
work. Members of the teaching staff have been encouraged to take the Mountain
Leadership Certificate which means that they have prepared themselves in a most
thorough fashion, and have been carefully assessed as persons capable of dealing
effectively and safely with hazards. Last year four teachers qualified for this
award.
SCHOOL MEALS AND MILK SERVICES
The average daily number of meals served during 1969 was 35>300 or
6,700,000 in the year. A return for a day in October 1969 showed that the
daily number of pupils (all of primary school age) drinking 1/3 pints of milk
was 23,306 in the maintained schools and 1,665 in non-maintained schoolsequal
to 1,040 gallons daily.
Canteens which came fully into use included Langley Park Boys who are
now producing upwards of 600 meals per day, and Kentwood Boys which moved to
the former Beckenham and Penge Grammar School premises in the autumn of 1969.
Convenience foods were introduced here for the first time at a Borough School,
and early impressions would appear to indicate general approval of this type of
meal.
During 1969 "the School Meals Service were asked to provide approximately
twenty meals daily to Stembridge Hall, and eighteen daily to the TTork Centre at
Beckenham.
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