Syllabus of physical exercises for use in public elementary schools, 1904.

Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Syllabus of physical exercises for use in public elementary schools, 1904. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    23 Brenthless- ilCSi. Physical Exercises for Infant ■Classes, little care on the part of the teacher, but it is not sufficient that they should simply be excluded from the exercises.* They should be excluded, of course, for the time being at all events, but such cases should also be reported without delay to the Education Authority in order that steps may be taken to find a remedy, where a remedy is possible. The breathing exercises in particular will at once disclose defects which should be reported without delay for medical advice or treatment. As regards the other children the only precaution which needs to be taken in ordinary circumstances is as follows :— 26. Occasional short and violent efforts even to the pro- duction of breathlessness are made by all healthy children in natural play, and if the teacher is sure of the healthiness of the children, an occasional fifteen or twenty seconds of hard running or skipping is entirely good. But the regular appearance of breathlessness in a child during the perform- ance of the exercises in this syllabus is a danger signal and an indication either that the child is too tightly clothed or that its health is such that the exercise should be much lessened for that particular child, and indeed that he should be medically examined. 27. The instruction of infant classes, that is, generally speaking, of children under seven years of age, in physical exercises—as in other subjects—is a matter which, subject to general directions, may probably with advantage be left to the discretion of the teacher. It goes without saying * When, from some malformation or for other reasons, many children are unable to perform the whole of the exercises with profit, they msy be formed up behind the other scholars and allowed to take part in such exercises as will not prove inj urious. •