PHYSICAL TRAINING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 90, 7 December 1931, Page 2

PHYSICAL TRAINING

DEPARTMENT EXTENDING SCOPE OF PRESENT SYSTEM. £ WORK IN SCHOOLS With' the object of improving the physical stamina of the school children throughout the Dominion, the Education Department is making special efforts to increase the scope of the system of physical training that has been operating in some primary and secondary schools for a number of years. . s ' A new manual for the guidance of teachers is being issued at the beginning of the year, and training college students will apply themselves to a knowledge of this science as a part of their teaching course. The Department has for some years been organising a modified system of physical training in the | schools, under the direction of Ml\ J. Renfrew White, the orthopaedic specialist attached to the Otago University. This system, which began in Dunedin, was for selected' third-year students of training colleges, who have been doing: useful work in introducing it throughout the schools at which they have been engqged. I Mr. White is shortly issuing a new manual for the especial use of teachers. This is expected by the-De-i partment to be available early in the j New Year. . The instruction given up to the present time has been based largely 1 upon the system adopted by the British education boards. The new system, which follows the Bwedish method of instruction, attaches great . importance to the posture of the child and to the exercises necessary ; to remedy physical defects. | In all the training colleges the stu- | dents are being trained in the new : system, and the Department hopes that in a few years' time it will be j firmly entrenched throughout the primary and secondary schools, and will have become a part of the educa- ! tion system of New Zealand. It is anticipated that this method of physical training, if properly and judieiously applied, will have a marked effect upon the physical bearj ing and the health of the pupils, particularly in those cases where slight | defects are shown qt the present time.