SUNSHINE SCHOOLS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 June 1938, Page 9

SUNSHINE SCHOOLS

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL PROPOSAL. FRESH AIR FOR EVERY CHILD. Green Belt schools, in which every child will spend at least one day a week in fresh air and sunshine is the "high spot” in a great £5,000,000 Three Year Plan of the London County Council Education Committee, revealed recently. Semi-obsolete schools with their unhygienic classrooms are to be brought up-to-date, and there is to be a considerable increase in the number of nursery schools for toddlers. Explaining the scheme, Mr Charles Robertson, chairman of the Education Committee, said that it would involve capital expenditure amounting to: — £655,000 in 1938-39. £1,087,500 in 1939-40. £1,217,500 in 1940-41. £2,222,500 in subsequent years. The maintenance expenditure involved would be about £600,000 annually. The council, he said, had been keenly alive to the great need for giving London’s elementary school children a better chance of playing organised games in fresh air. The rapid growth of building in and around London had meant that the countryside had become less accessible to children every year, while the growth of traffic, with its accompanying dangers, also tended to restrict children more and more to the area immediately around their homes. ‘‘lt has now been decided to aim at the creation of a green belt of classroom playing fields all round London,” said Mr Robertson. Already 555 acres of land had been or were being acquired for the purpose, and a sum of £1,500,000 was to be spent on further purchases, lay-out and the erection of classrooms. Mr Robertson said that the building of seven new schools was also projected. It was also proposed to reduce the roll of infants’ classes from 46 to 44, and tha tof all junior classes from 44 to 42.