Schools for Schoolmasters

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 394, 10 January 1947, Page 13

Schools for Schoolmasters

REFRESHER courses for teachers afte to be held again this month by the Education. Department, but this year for the first time there will be courses for head-teachers. For postprimary teachers, there will be simultaneously courses in English at Feilding and Christchurch, and for head-teachers of primary, schools there will be simultaneous general courses at New Plymouth and Oamaru. H. C. D. Somerset, of Feilding, will be chairman at the North Island course, | to be held in New Plymouth Boys’ High | School, and David Forsyth (of Dunedin) will be chairman of the South Island course, to be held at Waitaki Boys’ High School. The North Island course is over-subscribed-280 head-teachers applied, but there is roorth for only 220, of whom 175 will be "boarders," There is not the same congestion for the Waitaki course. J. V. Burton, secretary of the committee which has organised these courses, told The Listener that the large number of applications signifies that head-teachers are aware of the changes occurring in education, and are alive to their responsibilities. Many of them, he said, come from the heads of the biggest primary schools. No "Laying Down the Law" The timetable, he said, will not be "a laying down of the law’-there will be ample provision for general discussion. And the lectures to be given during the mornings will not be "up-in-the-air generalisations." They will have practical application to the jobs in hand. All four courses will take place at the same time-Thursday, January 23, to Wednesday, January 29, inclusive. The timetable for the New Plymouth course gives some idea of what the headteachers will be. doing (the Waitaki timetable is very similar). For instance, on the first morning, committees will be set up to prepare special reports, and then there will be a lecture on "Principles of Curriculum-Building." The afternoon will be free. After the evening meal, a period on organisation, groupings of pupils, and use of specialists. And from 8.0 to 9.30 p.m., open discussion on the day’s lectures. Each day will be filled in roughly the same way-except Sunday-with two specialised lectures in the morning, a free afternoon, and discussions during the evening. On the Monday, after conveners have had the week-end to work in, the reports of the committees set up on the first day will be presented to the conference. The plan of the courses for postprimary teachers will be much the same as in previous years-except that the subject will be English (in 1946, it was General Science, in 1945 Social Studies), The chairman at Feilding will be James Thompson (University Liaison Officer at Auckland), and at Christchurch, W. J. Scott (Lecturer in English, Wellington Teachers’ Training College),