OPEN-AIR SCHOOLS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3183, 6 September 1917, Page 3

OPEN-AIR SCHOOLS

THE EXPERIMENT liN NEW ZEALAKP. ' A reference to the subject o£ open-ail schools is made in the annual report of the Education Department. "The erection of 'open-a.ir' or, more correctly, 'fresti-<air' schools has been '. prominently before the Department," tha report states, "and a circular was forwarded to the education boards drawinu their attention to the importance attached to the movement elsewhere, and indicating what had already teen done in New Zealand. The advisory officers of boards also have given much consideration to the same matter, and have prepared plans embodying important innovations in the construction of class-rooms with a. view to providing for a. more liberal supply of fresh air for the pupils. Such class-rooms form p«rt of tho ordinary school accommodation, and are intended for normal children pursuing tho usual course of instruction. They uro not, therefore, open-air schools in the strict sense of the term, which is commonly applied to 'recovery schools' or 'sanatoria' for solected children siifferin; from constitutional defects and undergoing special treatment, educational propress being in a great measurq subordinated to improvement in physical condition. Tho advances that have been recently made are, therefore, in the main in the direction of adapting structural featnres of open-air schools to ordinary school buildings, thus combining the advantases of the usual modern cliiss-Toom and the open-air school. Class-rooms on the open-air principle have been approved or already form part of tho accommodation at Wellington, Lansdowne (Masterton), Upper Tutaenni (Wanjranui), Tauranga, and Stanley Road (Tnranalri). Verandahs also have been erected in connection, with a number of Native schools to provide opportunities for out-of-doi>r instruction under suitable weather conditions. In addition to the above-mention-ed cases, tentative plans for fresh-air rooms have been submitted b,y education hoards in connection ttith proposed «dtlitions at several schools. There is. indeed, ample evidence to show that education boards and thejr officers are taking a verr keen interest in this important matter."