1400 To Attend Waltham School Reunion

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 19

1400 To Attend Waltham School Reunion

Elbow room will be at a premium for the seventy-fifth 1 anniversary celebrations of ! the Waltham School next ' week-end. More than 1400 { have enrolled for the general 1 functions, the “limit” of 700 s for the dinner has been 1 stretched to 800, and more than 800 will attend the ball. 2 The secretary (Mr R. M. 1 Lewis) said it would be one 1 of the biggest primary school v reunions ever held in Christ- f church. Apart from wide- 1 spread affection for the r school, he believed that com- e mittee members’ experience s with other such events had v secured such large registra- ? tions. r The celebrations began last t evening with a teen-age dance 1 and the main ball will be held 1 next Friday evening at the r Addington Raceway tea kiosk. 11 The main ceremony, attended " by the Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella), will be at the ii school next Saturday after- a noon with a conversazione at 1 the raceway in the evening, a There will be a thanksgiving li service on the Sunday after- s noon and an open day at the e school on the Monday. I

The anniversary committee has prepared a comprehensive booklet with the programme, history of the school, records of the school committee, parent-teacher associations, headmasters, caretakers, school choirs, cadets, and many notable sportsmen. The original school to take 280 pupils was opened in July, 1891. Numbers increased rapidly. A “monster bazaar” was held in 1906 to raise funds for the swimming pool built in the same year. Remodelling in 1923 converted eight large rooms into 13 smaller ones. From 1928 onwards energetic committees secured many improvements in accommodation and amenities and modern apparatus. But in 1938 the Canterbury Education Board decided that rebuilding was more economic and new blocks were erected progressively. With the encroachment of Industry on the residential area after the Second World War the school roll dropped and Is now about 300. Further losses are expected when the school is decapitated on the establishment of the Opawa Intermediate School.