NEW DEAL FOR CHILDREN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 656, 1 February 1952, Page 7

NEW DEAL FOR CHILDREN

NZBS Supervisor of Broadcasts to Schools and Children’s Programmes (she was formerly Off-cer-in-Charge of Broadcasts to Schools), has been having a look at ‘children’s programmes during the past.month or two, Until now no one chad had overall control of these programmes, she explained to The Listener, when asked about her plans. A lot of good work had been done, but by advance planning it was hoped to give children better programmes in_ the future. That didn’t, mean that programmes would be imposed on local stations from headquarters. There should ‘always be some local interest in programmes broadcast to children, and this quality would be retained. 3 "The reorganisation of the children’s programmes will start with the four YZ stations,’ Miss Combs, said. "Station 2YZ has already reorganised its programmes, and the same is being done at 3YZ. But .1YZ, for which a completely new scheme has been worked out, gives perhaps the best idea of the sort of thing we’re aiming at." In the past the Children’s Session at 1YZ had been prepared by the station programme officer, but Janet Perry, a teacher at the Glenholm School, Rotorua, had now been appointed organiser. Associated with her were Miss Royal and, Miss Warbrick, teachers at a Maori school near Rotorua, who would continue to conduct the Maori session which COMBS, newly-appointed

had been running for the past few months. "Each half-hour programme will be part recorded material and part studio broadcast," Miss Combs said. "Recordings will give a link with similar material being broadcast from other stations, and the studio broadcasts will provide local interest. The first half of each programme will be for juniorschildren aged five to seven years-and the second half for children aged eight to 13-years. The broadcasts will be at 5.0 p.m., and on Monday, February 4, for example, the day the new programmes start, there will be recorded nursery rhymes for juniors followed by Sa presentation, Fun with Poetry. n the Tuesday the first of W. Sterndale Berinett’s series, Music with a Theme, recently recorded for the NZBS (see story on page 11), will be broadcast.. It will be followed by a studio story, Snow White and Rose Red. The recorded proramme for juniors on Wednesday will es "Snake Postman," from the Jamaican Folk Tales, told by .Amabel WilliamsEllis, Older children will hear from the studio a quiz and part of Castaways of Disappointment Island. There will be no broadcast on Thursday, and the week will end on Friday with the story of Clarence the Lift, read from the studio, and, for seniors, a BBC play about Shakespeare» and his family, Tyger’s Hart." The programmes would fcllow a pattern much like this each week, said Miss Combs, but among new regular features to be heard in the second week were a

junior quiz, senior and junior choirs, and (on Friday, February 15) the first of the fortnightly Maori programmes (conducted by Miss Royal and Miss Warbrick) to be heard in the reorganised programmes, The Maori programme would include some _ recorded features, including a series of stories by Ruth Park. "We also hope to develop between the Children’s Sessions an exchange of locally recorded programmes," Miss Combs said. "One of this type which 1YZ will broadcast and record is Ramblings in Rotorua, which will introduce places of interest around Rotorua." W. Sterndale. Bennett’s programmes, Music with a Theme, will start, playing from 3YZ also early this month; and among the new programmes from 2YZ is a dramatised

serial, The Jhree Pen- : guins, produced in the studio. Written by Bryan O’Brien, it is about the life of the penguins when the Byrd Expedition visited the Antarctic. When we asked Miss Combs if, she could tell us anything about changes

that might be made*in children’s programmes from other stations, she said that the new scheme was being confined ‘to the YZ stations at present. But she made it clear that lessons learned at these stations would later benefit others.