“ITS OWN DESTINY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 594, 21 February 1929, Page 6

“ITS OWN DESTINY”

GRAMMAR SCHOOL CONTROL FEELING ON NORTH SHORE The Devonport Borough Council was invited last evening by Mr. J. P. Kalaugher to support a scheme for a separate Board of Governors for the Takapuna Grammar School. He said that such a board would greatly benefit the North Shore residents and scholars at the school.

“By having its own governing body the school could express its own individuality, work out its own destiny, and have an opportunity of getting away from the purely academic lines and stereotyped methods now imposed by the fact that the five grammar schools around the city were under one board,’’ ho said. His proposed board would be comprised of representatives of the four boroughs, the parents of scholars, the Auckland Education Board and the Education Department. The fact that heavy financial support will bo needed shortly in further developing the school and that nearly all the endowments of the present Grammar School Board are elsewhere, seemed to- the council a grave objection to the scheme.

Mr. Walsh suggested that possibly a North Shore committee might advise and consult with the present board in order that North Shore’s peculiar problems could be studied. Mr. Aldridge: It seems that there is a move to make the school a Takapuna Grammar School in fact as well as in name. On the occasion of the recent visit of the Hon. H. Atmore to the school he was accompanied by the members of the Takapuna Council only.

Mr. Walsh: Let us have it named the North Shore Grammar School. On Mr. Aldridge’s motion. it was decided to ask the Grammar School Board of Governors to remember, when it is arranging official visits to the school, that there are four boroughs on the North Shore. Consideration of the scheme was stood over for a month. OVER 3,000 PUPILS GRAMMAR SCHOOLS’ PROGRESS An increased roll of 400 for the five schools was shown in figures placed before the Grammar Schools Board yesterday. Each school opened the year with an increased attendance and th© total number of children is now 3,173. The rolls, with last year’s figures in parentheses, are as follow: —Auckland Grammar School, 974 (868); Mount Albert Grammar School, 594 (512); Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, 581 (529): Epsom Girls’ Grammar School, 609 (556); Takapuna Grammar School, 415 (308); total, 3,173 (2,773).