SCHOOL CHILDREN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 March 1942, Page 2

SCHOOL CHILDREN

PROTECTION IN EMERGENCY MASTERTON PROPOSALS. ORDERED DISPERSAL POLICY. Measures for the protection of children in Masterton in the event of an emergency have been fully considered by a meeting attended by representatives of all primary, secondary and private schools in the borough and district. The meeting’s recommendations have been adopted by the Masterton E.P.S. Executive. All parents are requested to provide identification labels for their children in the form of cards or by sewing the name and address on the clothes of children. The meeting agreed that the responsibility of digging slit trenches and erecting air-raid shelters rested with the Wellington Education Board in the case of primary schools and with the board of governors of secondary and private schools. The chairman of the E.P.S. works committee has been asked to advise the authorities of St. Matthew’s and Solway Colleges on the best means of erecting shelters. Headteachers or their deputies are to be appointed wardens of their own schools. In some districts doubts have arisen as to the relative authority of E.P.S. wardens and headteachers. This doubt should not exist if the headteacher or his deputy has been made a warden-or sub-warden of the local E.P.S. unit. It should be understood that ordered dispersal will be carried out in an emergency under the control of the local E.P.S. warden, in such a way that children will be exposed to the minimum of risk on open streets. It is understood that the final authority in the case of dispersal is the district warden of the E.P.S. It is considered that an emergency food supply is a provision which the parents, acting through the school committees, may well make for themselves. All pupils are being drilled for an emergency. One recommendation is that provision be made for the temporary accommodation of pupils in orphanages, hostels. boarding schools and homes. The chairman of the E.P.S. Accommodation Committee has been asked to communicate with the heads of the various churches, asking that accommodation be provided for the children of their own institutions through the members of their own congregations.