AGAINST DISMISSAL

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 140, 10 December 1929, Page 12

AGAINST DISMISSAL

HEADMASTER'S APPEAL

THE QUESTION OF EFFICIENCY

Evidence as to efficiency was given by the school inspectors at the hearing of the appeal of Ernest Marryatt, late headmaster of the Upper Hutt State School, against his dismissal from that post by the Wellington Education Board, which was continued this morning before the Teachers' Appeal Board —Messrs. E. Page, S.M. (chairman), T. C. A. Hislop (representative of the Education Board), and N. A. Foden (rpresentative of the A Tew Zealand Educational Institute).

Mr. H. A. Parkinson (secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute) appeared as advocate for the appellant, and Mr. T. Forsyth (chairman) for the Education Board. Andrew Nisbet Burns (Inspector of I Schools, Wellington) said that there was an annual review of all teachers in the Dominion, when they were given grading marks. In his eleven years' experience of grading no teacher had received more than twenty marks in any one year for grading.

GRADING MAKES. For the past five years Mr. Marryatt's grading marks had been 3, 0, 0, 0, ana a reduction of 3 marks this last year. But, on appeal, one of these three had been given back. The reason for such ""■& reduction, in the case of a headmaster, would be weakness of organisation and management, and weakness in class teaching if he taught a class. He had not had any serious complaint to make about ! the discipline of the school during the j past three or four years. He had' reported it as "satisfactory" to "very satisfactory," with the exception of two points .which came at the end of 1928. The various grades were "excellent," "very good," "good," "satisfactory" or "very fair," the two lat-! ter terms being interchangeable; and below that "weak" and "very weak." "Very satisfactory" was a little better ' than "very fair," but not "good." I At his visit on 29th November, 1928, he reported that the classes Standards ■1 to 1 needed the headmaster's assisttance more than Standards 5 and 6. That was put in partly on account of lax discipline in one or two of the lower classes. On the same occasion he reported that late-coming, particularly in Standard 3 and •£, was very common, and that organised games during schooltime should be in charge of a teacher. In September, 1926, he found that the teaching of English and arithmetic by Mavryatt in Standards 3 and i was I weak.

Lack of efficiency was also shown by his failure to enter explanations of punishments in the "log book," as required by the board's bylaws. "MOST DIFFICULT POSITION." To Mr. Parkinson: One of the most difficult positions for a teacher was that of headmaster of a grade 5 school, the reason being that he had to leave his own class sometimes to attend to his headmaster's duties. With good management, however, such absences should not be very frequent. To Mr. Forayth: For the last four years, as the grading marks showed, Mr. Marryatt had not shown progressive improvement. But he would not say that, previous to last year, there had been any falling-off. The reduction in marks was due to the happenings of last year.

Alexander 'Charles Blake (retired headmaster of the Lyall Bay School) said that ho had had 47 years' experience iv all. Lyall Bay was the largest school iv tho Wellington district. He was a member of the Education Board and of the board's special Committee of Inquiry. At the inquiry, in reply to a direct question by Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Marryatt stat.o.a that probably every school day this year he had punished the two Morrell boys. Mr. Fodeu: "We have had no direct evidence, so far, of the ilorrell boys being punished every day. Tho one who gave evidence did not say so." "LOST PRESTIGE AND CONTROL."

James Whitworth M'llwraith (senior inspector of the Wellington district) said that the tests of the pupils' work made by Mr. Marryatt himself before he left, revealed a most extraordinary degree of weakness in drawing, English, and arithmetic in the appellants' class. There was also an apparent lack of control of his class. Witness saw many schools each year, and did not think he had ever come across two schools where the work had been so "almost absolutely worthless" as the work of the appellant's class. At least two-thirds of the pupils were extraordinarily weak in their work. The drawing of his class was not beyond the level of a decent standard 1. Twothirds of the pupils were making no sincere- effort to produce good work. To account for such work, the headmaster must either have slacked in his work or lost control of his class. In the case of Mr. Marryatt, he would say he had lost prestige and control, with the result that the pupils were making with him no reasonable progress. Tho pupils were, in his opinion, capable of very much better work. In fact, such work was intolerable. He would expect to get better work out of a teacher who had been two years out of training college. If such work had been turned out in a grade 1 or 2 school, tho teacher would have been warned, or given notice.

To Mr. Parkinson: "Mr. Marryatt's own class, standard 5. should have been the model class of the school; but it is difficult to see how a class could have fallen off so much." He could quote a recent case, in which a teacher in a grade 1 or 2 school had been warned in that way. "EVIDENCE VERY DAMNING." Mr. Page: "Your evidence to-day is very damning of Marryatti"—"l am sorry to say. it is."

Mr. Page: "Why did you not embody those statements in your written report?"— The witness said that he had not wanted to make public unnecessarily his adverse opinion of Mr. Marryatt. Under such circumstances, they liked to spare the feelings of the teacher and not subject him to unnecessary humiliation. The reports were not public in the sense that they went out to the public, but in. the sense that they were open to inspection by the School Committee. After each visit, they made a confidential report to each individual teacher; but they had not made such a report to Mr. Marryatt in this case, as he had then left the school. The inspection was made a. week after he had left. To Mr. Forsyth: "It was not a special visit in view of the inquiry." The hearing is proceeding. The report of yesterday's evidence appears on page 0. _^ I