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completion of the necessary isolation and the official disinfection of
the premises. Each school is provided with a supply of disinfectants
for general or special use by the Education Authority.
It was not found necessary to order the closure of any School,
or part of a School, on account of infectious disease, or for any
other reason.
Two Nursery Schools are in process of being built, and will
shortly be opened at Abbey Road and Rosetta Road, each to
accommodate 120 children. These buildings consist of three
classrooms, each for 40 children, with Head Teacher's Room,
Isolation Room, and Assistant Teachers' Room ; a kitchen, pantry,
store room, boiler house, lavatories and bath room. The buildThg
will be constructed of timber, lined on the exterior with weather
boards and on the interior with asbestos or Essex Board ; and the
roof covered with asbestos tiles or corrugated sheets.
Play Centres.
These are ccntres where during the evening children congregate
and pursue various games and amusements, under the organization
of skilled teachers.
The centres are established in schools so situated as to serve
different parts of the Borough. By this system, it is claimed that
children are kept out of the streets and the often unhygienic
houses, and given a change and diversion.
It has been constantly suggested that these centres are the
cause of the spread of infectious disease. I have made exhaustive
investigations into the matter and am convinced that there is no
truth in the suggestion. Over a long period the percentage of
cases of infectious disease arising amongst pupils attending the
schools used as play centres, did not show any increase over the
percentage of such cases in other schools (one school used as a
play centre certainly had an increased number of cases of smallpox
but this was due to the fact that the school was definitely in the
midst of the smallpox infected area, and the cases arising were
infected in their homes and not at the school).
I consider the play centres a valuable asset to the general
"well being of the school children.
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