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67
SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
Medical Examinations in Schools
A concerted effort was made throughout the year to clear the backlog
of school children due for the statutory physical examination during
their primary, middle and senior years, so that, as far as possible, the
programme for each school doctor would allow them to visit their schools
at least once in each term, in order to encourage a close liaison between
teachers and medical staff on an informal basis.
Special emphasis has been placed on the medical examination during
the child's first year of school, with particular reference to any emotional
problems. A close link has been built up with the Paediatric Department
at Northwick Park Hospital, and many teachers have furnished valuable
reports on children presenting both physical and emotional problems.
With the establishment of the Employment Medical Advisory Service
the third school leaver examination now takes place in the year of the
child's 15th birthday, so that Employment Officers have all the necessary
medical information before giving careers advice in the last three terms
of school life. The service now only requires a special form (Y9 and Y10)
to be filled in for children with some disability or severe handicap. This
has meant that far more realistic information is passed to the Careers
Advisory Service officers and the new service is working well in Harrow.
There is no doubt that the whole Question of the routine examination
of all school children needs a fresh approach, and it is hoped that the
Departments concerned will do this in the very near future. The present
system, devised in 1908 has altered very little over the years and the needs
of school children have shifted in a significant way from a service designed
to prevent and cure physical disability to one that will detect emotional
disturbances and learning difficulties at an early age.
It is to be hoped that in the near future far more attention will be
focussed on the crucial period when children first enter school, so that
greater insight into a child's development, learning patterns and the
identification of potential emotional problems may be possible. This will
mean far more time must be spent on each child and that medical officers
may well have to undergo a programme of further training.
During the middle years of the child's school life frequent consultation
between the school doctor and the teachers and repeated examinations
will continue to pick up defects of vision, hearing, etc. but with the
transition to a senior school, often of terrifying size and impersonal
atmosphere, other pressures and tensions and influences crowd in on the
young adolescent. Few children survive many years without some
emotional problems, some severe enough to be referred to the Child
Guidance Clinic—a service often overworked and understaffed and by
its very remoteness from the rough and tumble of school life, often viewed