PRE-SCHOOL CENTRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1941, Page 4

PRE-SCHOOL CENTRE

DUNEDIN ESTABLISHMENT HEALTH & EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT. KINDERGARTEN AND PLUNKET WORK LINKED. (Contributed). A report of general interest was presented by Lady Sidey to the Free Kindergartens’ Association conference, held in Wellington last week. The report. was on the Pre-School Centre, in Dunedin. The centre has been established in Dunedin because it is there that the training school for Plunket nurses is located. The Pre-School Centre is run under the guidance of the Dunedin Plunket Society and the Dunedin Free Kindergarten Association. It combines the functions of a kindergarten and the training of Plunket nurses. Dr Dean. Medical Officer to the Plunket Society, examines each child; a balanced diet is drawn up and menus are made up for each day. The social and educational development of each child is recorded.

A capitation grant of £4 per child per year paid for Free Kindergarten work, was quite inadequate to pay a fully qualified teacher when only 15 children, or.at most 25, were admitted, to the centre. A deputation therefore waited on the Minister of Education and asked that the centre should be recognised as a special school, thereby ensuring the payment, of the teacher by the Government. This was finally approved in February. 1941. and Miss S. Hamilton, of Wellington, was appointed director. Miss Hamilton had lately returned from abroad where she had been studying for this work. Among other notable child psychologists under whom Miss Hamilton studied was Dr Susan Isaacs, whom many of us met and heard lecture in Wellington a few years ago. Now that the centre is a special school, the Government allows on the estimates £250 a year for the salary of the director. The Plunket Society has provided a building and has gene to a great deal of expense in fitting out both building and grounds for the purpose of this work. The curriculum includes outdoor and indoor play, toilet and rest periods, and meals from 9.15 to afternoon. The history of this development dates back many years to the days when Sir Truby King used the Kelsie Kindergarten in Dunedin for experimental work in the pre-school child. Later Dr Renfrew White did research work into the needs of the pre-school child. Finally this latest development in the reciprocity between the Kindergarten Union and the Plunket Society lias emerged. Sixty Plunket nurses, in groups of 20, enter Karitane each year and during their training they receive eight lectures on child psychology as well as practical observation in the pre-school centre. The object of this training is to fit the nurses to cope more fully with the problems of the tiny tots and younger children. The Education Department lias opened preschool clinics in some Plunket rooms which are visited regularly by the Department’s health officer. At present sixteen centres, including Masterton. are carrying out this work which, of course, is still in its experimental stages. Miss Fitzgibbon, of the Plunket Society, says: “Free kindergartens are doing a wonderful work for the pre-school child and for the mothers and doing it well.”

It is recognised that this work is the cheapest, voluntary work for the pre-school child in the world.