FOXTON SCHOOL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2857, 12 March 1925, Page 2

FOXTON SCHOOL.

SCHOOL HOME-WORK. Parents and children are reminded that written work, etc., done during Ihe week, should he delivered at the school to-morrow morning before 10.20. Children are warned against congregating in numbers at the school, and to avoid this it is suggested that the work might be delivered by adults or older children. Labelled benzine eases will be placed in the school porch as receptacles and delivery of work should he treated on the same lines as the posting of letters. All work should be carefully folded and wrapped and addressed to the,responsible teachers. .March Journals will he issued with returned work, which may he obtained after 2 p.m. tomorrow. A fresh assignment of work for next week will appear in Saturday's issue. SCHOOLS TO REMAIN CLOSED. Wellington, March 10. After n meeting of Cabinet, at which it was decided to adopt the Health Department’s recommendation to. keep all schools closed till March 3lst at least, Sir James Parr was asked what steps were being taken to utilise the teaching staffs in. the hope of securing some amount of education for the children. The Minister explained a very comprehensive programme submitted bv his officers, which ho had approved. Sir James mentioned that as there were still a fair number of cases of infantile paralysis at the end of February, it might mean the prolongation of the closing period by another week or two, including the Easter holidays. “It. lias to be remembered that there were 220,000 children who would he congregated in the various schools when they re-open,” said the Minister. “The Health Department is quite satisfied and the medical authorities amply support its view, that the greatest risk is in the congregation of children. Tn order to utilise the teaching staff and to -•.(■cure some educational benefit to Ihe children, f have approved a programme which involves asking hoards and other educational authori-

se- to use the correspondence tuition system as far as possible (Inf- ((*.'; tin- next three or four weeks. The effectiveness of this system, in connection with baekblocks children has already been proved and I consider that iis general application will mean time well spent by the children. It is proposed to ask for i!o co-operation of the daily newscapers in announcing the assignment of work. Already some impori.| dailies are publishing one column per week of work for each standard, and we are now asking ,-tli newspapers to help in view of ibis national emergency. Headmasters in each centre, with tho concurrence of their hoards, will be asked to.coiiler in selling the weekly assignment of work, which will consist of reading, transcription, mapping, essays, and the revision o| exercises in last year’s text books. Fupils will be asked to send io tin* teacher- once weekly Ihe work they have done, the postage to be paid by the parents. This latter will mean a very small amount for the individual parent to pay, but in the aggregate would mean a very large addition to the expense to which I lie department lias been pit! through this emergency. The Health Department will not approve of pupils delivering their exercises personally at schools, though parents may do so. Specially marked envelopes will he provided for teachers to return to the pupils corrected work and a copy of the School Journal. Cabinet, has authorised a special allocation of £I,OOO to be divided amongst the education hoards to defray the cost of institiiiino- instruction by eorrespomience. Headmasters should employ the whole of their staffs while pupil teachers and probadoners can do necessary clerical work and carry on their duties.”

The Minister added that a similar s,\ stem of instructing country pupils in their own homes would be carried out and it was proposed to leave it to the discretion of the corn,l ry teachers to carry out details, so long as (he pupils did not come lo the schools. He considered that in small country schools there was no reason wily a teacher should not go t" the pupil. District high school and secondary pupils should be communicated with individually as to liter course of study.

All teachers under the Wellington Education Board are under instructions to attend at their respective schools on Monday morning next to undertake duty in connection with the arrangements of work for the year and the proposed scheme of instruction of pupils by means of correspondence. At a conference laid this morning between the board’s inspectors and the Headmasters' Association, a small committee was appointed to draft the first assignment of work.