SCHOOLS BROADCASTS FOR 1955

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 814, 4 March 1955, Page 16

SCHOOLS BROADCASTS FOR 1955

HE days when schoolboys crept unwillingly like snails to school are past. Instead, lessons which are entertainment in themselves are on the air each weekday through the Broadcasts to Schools arranged by the NZBS. Talking over their plans for 1955 with The Listener the Schools Broadcasts staff produced a full schedule of programmes, beginning on Monday, March 7, at 1.30 p.m. There are old favourites among the classes-notably the Singing Class which is to be conducted this year by George Wilkinson, Lecturer in Music at Dunedin Training College. This is the first year in which the use of wide-band lines linking stations has made it possible for the School Singing Class to be conducted outside Wellington. Ernest Jenner is to continue his Music Appreciation lessons and for the first time the selection, arrangement and editing of the musical extracts used in the Musical Booklet has been entirely in his hands. Jean Hay and Keith Newson, of Christchurch Training College, will continue to put the smaller fry through Rhythm for Juniors. Nature Study talks for Standards 3 and 4 will be given on Fridays during the first m by D. Beggs, followed in the second term by a BBC series, Travel Talks. This year, too, there are several

more programmes in the Commonwealth Exchange Scheme-from South Africa, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ceylon. Another BBC series gives pictures in sound of Scenes From English Life-of the Farne Islands the Scillies, East Coast fishing, Cornish lifeboatmen, and life in the Yorkshire dales. Standards 3 and 4 will hear productions of Charles Kingsley’s stories of the Argonauts, and also the tale of Ali Baba, in their Literature lessons. For older children Rachel Huson has written The Singing and the Gold, the dramatised story of how two children discover poetry. Social Studies for the Senior School contains Man and His Environment, a series of programmes about the world we live in; and A Town Grows Up, a study by Lesley Farrelly of the growth of a typical New Zealand town from the two-men-and-a-dog stage to the moment when the local 20,000 Club has to change its name to 30,000. The pronunciation exercises -in this year’s French Broadcasts to Schools will be given by Meredith Money, and part of his instruction will be given. in English for the purposes of comparison. The time of the French Broadcasts has been

extended and they will now begin at 2.40 on Mondays. As_ usual the main part of each programme will be in French and will consist of a story, or dramatised reading, by French people. A French teacher who was in New Zealand last year, and who has since returned to Paris, has arranged with the New Zealand Chargé d'affaires, Miss Jean McKenzie, for six programmes to be specially recorded in France for the NZBS. There are lively versions of a day in the life of a French schoolboy and schoolgirl, and two extracts from classical ‘tragedy and comedy, A programme of interest to parent-teacher associations-on a recent refresher course in music for primary school teachers held at Wanganuiwill be heard at 9.30 a.m. on March 7 (YAs, 3YZ and 4YZ).