SCHOOL HOUSING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 158, 10 May 1940, Page 5

SCHOOL HOUSING

NO RESPONSE TO REPRESENTATIONS ■ POSITION STILL SERIOUS Since Saturday the weather 'Jias been of the real winter 1 type, cold, with almost continuous rain, and colds and influj enza are going the rounds. It is fortunate, in these circumstances, that holidays give children a repite from attending school! 111 the iron and unlined shed ■which serves to accommodate the overflow at the Whakatane School. But the respite will be brief—only a fortnight, and then the children affected will t>e faced again with the appalling prospect of education under ■-conditions which cannot conform to even the elementary principles of hygiene. So far there has been no further development regarding the propos--a ed additions to the school build ing and there seems little prosi pect of any amelioration of the which is serious. Parents are viewing the existing -conditions with something more than strong disapproval and there are two instances where parents will not allow their children to attend school. Moreover they are prepared to defend their attitude should the Education Department endeavour to •enforce the law of attendance. Their view is that the temporary -accommodation which had to be found when over-crowding at the 'school became acute is not fit for the housing of children, who have ito sit for lengthy stretches in the 'dampness and cold, and they wiil not endanger their children's health. Residents of Whakatane, and .in particular, parents of the -town and district are well aware »of the efforts of the School Com mittee to bring about an im-* provement in the situation. The Committee has done everything} within its power. The negotiations and promises „are too well known to require reiteration and it is hard to understand the attitude of. the authorities concerned. OVER-LARGE CLASSES SCHOOL PROGRESS HINDERED 1 BY EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE PRESIDENT Another protest against the continuance of over-large classes in the rprimary schools of the Dominion -was made at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Educational Institute by the president, Mr D. C. Pryor. Mr Pryor said: "At present progress in our schools is being hindered by two important factors, which it is our duty as an Institute and as teachers to work t ! o our utmost to put right. I refer to the large classes still existing in -our schools and to the lack of cooperation between the school and the home. It is not my intention to eleborate the deadly evils of large classes. That has been done most capably by two of our past presidents in their presidential adclesses to this Institute. Those addresses were given 12 years ago and have been repeated since, but the evil is still with us.- • Our work is still hampered by classes of 40, 50 and 60 children, and the t,ime has come for us as an Inf stitute to say "this shall not be." Statistics Show In February of this year there were or six classes of over -60 pupils and 343 classes of between 50 and 60—actually a worse •of affairs than that pertaining at the same time last year. Lower in the scale we find 1150 classes of between 40 and 50."