MOTHER HELPERS AT SCHOOL AT FOXTON

Press, Volume C, Issue 29513, 15 May 1961, Page 2

MOTHER HELPERS AT SCHOOL AT FOXTON

(hew Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 14. Mothers of children in the infant rooms at Foxton go to school with their children—and stay and help. Mrs J. Pluck, of Foxton, last evening spoke to the National Federation of Nursery Play Centres annual conference about experiments there in “bridging the gap” between home and school. The play centre at Foxton had always taken its nearflves to visit the school, said Mrs Pluck, but after meetings of pre-school and infant services in Palmerston North, the Foxton infant mistress had called a meeting of mothers of primer-one children. A mothers' club and a “mother-helping” system in the infant room was started from that meeting. The mother-helpers assisted from 9 o'clock until 10 in the morning, during the children's developmental period. They helped the children with drawing and writing, and perhaps take them on an outing. Mother-helping was voluntary. and no pressure was brought to bear on mothers to do so, except from their own children, who were

usually most anxious for them to attend, Mrs Pluck said. One child who did not like school—he thought there were too many children there—settled (town well when his mother started mother-helping. The system had now been extended to primer two. Mrs Pluck said. The scheme had been such a success in Foxton that another Palmerston North school had started using motherhelpers. and yet another planned to do so soon.