The problem
nobody noticed.
A child who cannot read the board is not slow. A child who falls asleep in class may be anaemic. Our team comes to your school, screens every student, and tells you which ones need a doctor.
- Where it happens
- At your school, not ours
- A screening day
- Up to 300 students
- Every child leaves with
- A sealed report home
- Aligned with
- National school health
The children who need it most never come in
A family brings a child to hospital when something is obviously wrong. Nobody brings a child because they might need spectacles, or because their haemoglobin might be low. Those conditions are silent, they are common, and they quietly cost a child years of schooling. The only way to find them is to go where all the children already are.
- Children sitting at the back who cannot read the board, and nobody had tested them
- Untreated dental caries, by far the commonest finding at every age
- Low haemoglobin, especially in adolescent girls
- Growth outside the normal range in both directions, underweight and obese in the same classroom
- Hearing loss after untreated ear infections, mistaken for inattention
Nine stations,
one morning
Set up in a hall or two classrooms. Children move through in class groups, so no lesson loses more than half an hour.
Different
ages, different
worries
The national school health programme concentrates on Grades 1, 4, 7 and 10. We follow that rhythm and add what the school asks for.
For many children this is the first health check since infancy. Vision and hearing matter most here, because a child who cannot see or hear the teacher in their first year rarely catches up later. Growth, teeth and the vaccination card are checked, and any congenital problem missed in infancy tends to surface at this station.
Dental caries and weight are the story at this age. Diet and activity patterns set now largely persist, and this is the point at which a nutrition conversation with the parent still changes something. Vision is rechecked because short sightedness commonly appears between seven and ten.
The scoliosis screening matters most in this band, because a curve found during the growth spurt can often be managed with bracing rather than surgery. Anaemia screening starts in earnest, and menstrual health is discussed with the girls in a session of their own.
Physically this band is straightforward. What is not straightforward is sleep, stress, posture from long hours at a desk, eye strain, and for some students the first use of tobacco or alcohol. The wellbeing conversation carries more weight here than any measurement.
A pre participation check for any student in a school team: heart sounds and rhythm, blood pressure, a history of fainting or chest pain during exertion, previous injuries and joint stability. Sudden cardiac events in young athletes are rare and this is how the rare case is found.
Train the adults
who are there
first
When a child collapses on a Tuesday afternoon, the person kneeling beside them is a teacher. These sessions run free of charge for schools on the programme.
Dengue is a
school problem
The mosquito bites in daylight, which means children are bitten at school, not at home in bed. A single blocked gutter or a tray under a potted plant in the corridor can supply a whole class.
We walk the premises with your caretaker, mark the breeding sites on a plan, and hand you a checklist your own staff can repeat weekly without us.
- Roof gutters blocked with leaves after the monsoon
- Trays under potted plants in corridors and the office
- Discarded tyres behind the sports store
- Uncovered water storage barrels and overhead tanks
- Blocked floor drains in toilet blocks used rarely
- Bottles, cups and lunch containers in rubbish heaps
- Coconut shells and tree stumps at the boundary
- Unused tanks, buckets and basins in the caretaker's store
- Construction debris and cement mixing trays left standing
A screening
that ends in
a report is
half done
The point is not the data. The point is that the child with the low haemoglobin actually gets treated. Every flagged child is tracked until something happens.
Talk to the coordinator- Same dayAny child needing urgent attention is identified before we leave, and the parent is telephoned that afternoon rather than sent a note.
- Within 10 daysEvery child goes home with a sealed individual report in the parent's language, stating what was found and exactly what to do next.
- Within 10 daysThe principal receives an aggregate report with no individual names: how many screened, and what proportion had each finding.
- Two weeksThe coordinator calls the parents of every flagged child to check the referral was understood and to help book the appointment.
- Six weeksA second call for anyone who has not acted. This is the step most programmes skip, and it is the step that decides whether the screening was worth anything.
- Next termFlagged children are rechecked at the school, so a spectacle prescription that was never filled does not disappear into the file.
Fair questions
to ask us
One morning.
Every child
seen.
Tell us your student numbers and the term dates that suit you. We come and look at the hall first, then confirm a date. Schools in the Negombo, Katana and Kochchikade divisions are our priority.
- Student numbers
- Grades to include
- A hall or two classrooms
- Term dates
School screening complements, and does not replace, the Ministry of Health school medical inspection and the Public Health Midwife and Medical Officer of Health services in your division. Findings are shared with the school and the parent; onward notification follows the school's own arrangements with the area MOH.