SCHOOL TERMS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 251, 20 September 1940, Page 3

SCHOOL TERMS.

A LTERATION A DVOCATED

Support for representations by the Dominion Federation of School Committees that the lengths of the school terms should bo altered was forthcoming in a report presented, to the monthly meeting’ of the Wanganui Education Board, on Wednesday, by the senior inspector (Mr B. N. .T. Blake). At a previous meeting of the board a letter was received from the federation on the subject and the senior inspector was then asked to report on the matter. Mr Blake stated, inter alia: The present first term was very broken and in reality neither heavy nor long. The February programme was now an adjusted one. The long Easter holiday occurred in it and there wero usually one or two special days for picnics, sports meetings and such purposes. The proposed longer first term would follow the longest vacation. It would be broken into two sections by the Easter vacation of six days and its strain thereby made negligible. It would synchronise 'with the slower .growing period of the child—the autumn “plateau,” an important consideration. The later first term vacation in June would approximate to the farmers’ slack period thus allowing for family holidays. While the proposed second term (13 weeks) was as now, the vacation following it would be later._ The child’s major growing period was in the spring and summer. During that period it was advisable that the strain of school work, if there was any .should bo reduced. Some medical authorities advised against examinations'in that period. The proposal helped in that' direction since between the end of the second term in September and the opening of the schools the following February, there would be only 12 weeks of school work. The term when more formal examinations are held and promotions decided, was shortened and the strain correspondingly reduced.. Mr Blake considered the federation’s proposal was not without advantages. He had not dealt with the articulation and synchronisation of primary school holidays with those of secondary schools, but this, though a- difficulty, was not insuperable. Mr. W. G. Black thought the time opportune to consider synchronising the holidays of the primary, and secondary schools as a help to persons with larger families. Mr Blake’s opinion was that the terms-should be of the same length as well as synchronised. He could never understand why the younger child should have the longer school year. Mr E. F. Hemingway (chairman) : Probably the longer third term is because of the examinations held at the end ?

Mr Blake: Examinations don’t loom in school life as they did. Mr Black moved a motion favouring the change in the length of the terms, Air Annabel seconded it and the board agreed. The terms at present are as follow: First, 138 half-days; second, 130 halfdays; third, 150 half-days. The proposal is that the first should be of 170 half-days, the second 130 and the third 120.

The school terms for next year were fixed as follow:—First term: Tuesday, February 4, to Friday, May 9. Second term: Monday, May 20, to Friday, August 22. Third term : Monday, September 8, to Friday, December 19. Less special holidays: Easter, Anzac Day, King’s Birthday, Labour Day, at discretion of school committees under By-law 34, six half-days.