Bracing Education In Model Schools

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 625, 30 March 1929, Page 16

Bracing Education In Model Schools

Auckland Makes a Shy Start With Open-Air Schools.

(WRITTEX for THE SVX by ALICE J. GREVILLE) HE work of Sir Truby King and the worldll wide adoption of Plunket principles to the rearing of healthy ‘ i wM babies needs no advertisement and has the sympathy and support of all thinking people. The direct and logical sequel to the success of the Plunket Society is the extension throughout New Zealand of the Open Air Schools League. On behalf of the school children of New Zealand the league urges that the Pluuket principles of hygiene, sunlight, fresh air and common sense should be applied through the medium of the open air schools. Under present conditions the Plunket system comes to an abrupt conclusion as soon as the child enters the public school. The recognition of this fact has led to the formation of the Auckland Open Air Schools League. The Open Air Schools League claims: (1) That the B.M.A. has expressed itself unanimously in support of open air schools: (2) that they are the only type of schools which are in keeping with modern teaching of hygiene: (3) that they permit of activity and exercise essential to the needs of the growing child; (4) that in Auckland the need for open air schools exceeds that of any other part of New Zealand, as we have here the highest incidence of ill-health among the schoolchildren of New Zealand; (5) that the climate of Auckland, with Its absence of extremes, Is particularly suited to open-air schools; (6) that the cost of open-air schools is considerably less than that of schools of any other type. The experimental classroom built at Fendalton cost £417. Experts estimate that an open-air classroom in Auckland can be built for considerably less than this sum. Allowing £4OO for the construction of a classroom to hold 60 children, and £1,600 lor central offices and lay-out, a school

for 660 pupils could he built for £6.000. The Open Air Schools League asks: (1) That all new schools be built on open-air lines; (2) that all special classes for retarded and subnormal children be conducted in open-air classrooms; (3) that all alterations to old school buildings be carried out in keeping with open-air principles. When, in 1908, the London Couniy Council started its first open-air school for delicate children no one foresaw l hat 20 years later the president of the English Board of Education, Lord Eustace Percy, would give it as his opinion that the open-air school was

the best type of school for all children. In England, by the end of 1927, 42 local education authorities had established day open-air schools, and 10 authorities residential open-air schools for delicate children. A good name for these open-air schools for delicate children is remedial open-air schools, for in them the main stress is laid upon the remedying of physical defects and the builidng up of the bodily strength. In the remedial open-air schools the school day is lengthened. In day schools in the summer time, the hours are from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon: nourishing meals are provided and due place is given to rest and exercise. Health considerations have the first place, but education, in its narrower sense, does not necessarily take a second place. Of the educational curriculum Sir

George Newman, chief medical officer of the Board of Education, says: “It requires much care and thought, in order not only that it may be suited to the needs of individual children, but also that full advantage may be taken of the special opportunities offered by the open-air school. The results are most gratifying. In Nottingham the educational age of all children attending the remedial openair schools is assessed by means of Ballard tests and over a period of 12 months it was found the average advance was 17.4 months of educational age. At last the good results obtained in the remedial open-air

schools are beginning to take effect in a wider spnere. ordinary school buildings in England tend more and more toward the open-air type, and in this connection Mr. George Widdows, architect to the Derbyshire Education Authority, has done pioneer work. Mr. Fred Broadbent, of Leeds, is another school architect who realises that open-air school buildings are required by the whole school population. The work of Miss Margaret McMillan, the originator of the open-air nursery school, which commenced its fight for existence in a crowded slum area, is beyond all praise. In England to-day’s position, then, is this: The remedial open-air school is an acknowledged success and an ever-increasing proportion of the

ordinary schools now being built are on open-air lines. To Germany we must give the credit for the first open-air school, which was started in Charlottenburg in 1904. Since the Great War the open-air schools movement has rapidly grown. In the United States there are more than SOO open-air schools in the extraordinary range of climates that prevail from Maine to California. Glasgow, Toronto and Montreal, and Florence (Italy) might be mentioned as further instances of the universal application of the open-air school system. There are many successful open-air schools in the South Island and the Fendalton School approaches the ideal type. It is specially built to suit the New Zealand climate; it allows the teachers to make the fullest use of the openair and sunlight, and it erects no barriers in the way of future developments in educational methods. The day must • come when our schools will become places of nurture, nlaces where each individual child will b^studied and developed in all parts of his native spirit, mind and bod> but till that time comes we must insist that the child during his school life at least has his fail share ot open air and j ,j R e VILLE.