LIFE-SAVING TESTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 343, 2 May 1928, Page 1

LIFE-SAVING TESTS

TEACHERS AT DRILL WOMEN MORE ENTHUSIASTIC THAN MEN Primary school teachers and training college students in Auckand are at present undergoing their compulsory life-saving tests, and the first batch of eight aspiring women teachers from the Training College at Mount Eden were 4< put through their drill” under the eye of the examiner, Mr. Malcolm Champion, at the Tepid Baths this morning. Life-saving is now a compulsory subject in the teachers’ course, the object of the educational authorities being to raise the standard of swimming and life-saving among the children by ensuring that courses are taught by the teachers in the routine of school work. Approximately 150 teachers in the Auckland district are to go through the hands of the examiner, the women being taken first, and the men later on toward the mid-year holidays. A pass in the examination for the bronze medallion is set as the standard for the life-saving efficiency of the teachers, and it is toward this end that the chief instructor, Mr. Trendall, of the Mount Albert Grammar School, is working in the interests of his teacher-pupils. After the completion of their course, the teachers who become proficient in life-saving will be distributed to various parts of the Dominion, and will assist in promulgating the art among the young people. GIRLS ARE KEEN Extensive life-saving work is going on among the children themseves, and Mr. Champion expects to put through .approximately 300 from the district this year, as well as 200 from the Takapuna Grammar School. The examiner asserts that the women respond more enthusiastically to the facilities granted by the Royal Lifesaving Society than do the men, and in the tests upon which he has to adjudicate the women and girls show a greater comparative degree of efficiency. For this lack of spirit on the part of the men Mr. Champion blames the popularity of other outdoor sports. An interesting phase of life-saving work is that Auckland has not . hown the degree of activity that is manifest in the Southern cities. This, Mr. Champion says, is due to the fact that in Christchurch and Wellington the people are concentrated on to one or two beaches, whereas in Auckland the multiplicity of beaches leads to disintegration of the swimming community. “If we had one beach like Muriwai,” he said, “we would get them all.”