Rich Variety in Schools Broadcasts

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 8

Rich Variety in Schools Broadcasts

PROGRAMMES broadcast to schools ate so rich and varied these days that even The Listener, after quite a few years on the job, is never quite sure where to start talking about them, so this year again we climbed the stairs up from Featherston Street and asked Broadcasts to Schools to tell us their own story. The new Supervisor of Broadcasts to Schools and Children’s Programmes, Keith Hay, took over the section only a few months ago-readers will be able to meet him in Open Microphone in our next issue-but already his office had that year-getting-under-way look, and he talked to us across a busy desk on which copies of the Broadcasts to Schools booklets were conspicuous. We started off with a question about these booklets, and Mr, Hay told us that for 1957, with 2350 of New Zealand’s 2596 primary schools taking one or more of the broadcasts, the total printing would be 124,000. School broadcasts are, of course, an NZBS effort, but there is close co-operation with the Education Department, whose School Publications branch produce the

booklets, This year there have been one or two changes in these publications. In particular, teachers will find all subjects except music covered in one book-let-a very practical loose-leaf affair which can be divided up between teachers and classes. Seven thousand copies of these teachers’ notes and of a teachers’ junior song book and 6000 copies of a teachers’ booklet on music have been printed; and there will be about 64,000 copies of the pupils’ music booklet and 40,000 copies of an illustrated pupils’ booklet on social studies. These figures, Mr. Hay said, gave some idea of the interest in the broadcasts. Notable among those who will have a hand in this year’s broadcasts is Dr. Martin Shaw, the veteran English com-poser-now over 80-who, commissioned by the NZBS, selected and arranged most of the songs for Standar¢? 4 and Forms 1 and 2. Dr. Shaw is especially interested in English folk music and has composed a number of songs in its spirit and idiom, and he wrote the music for stage productions of Brer Rabbit and Mr. Pepys. Introducing the songs for these classes to young listeners this year will be Keith Newson, of the Christchurch Teachers’ Training College, and the studio class to be heard singing them will be made up of children from the Heaton Street School, Christchurch. Familiar to schooltime listeners a few years ago, Lesley Farrelly-formerly Lesley Colemanwill make a welcome return to the session when she takes over Music Appreciation for Standard 4 and Forms 1 and 2. Formerly on the staff of Broadcasts to Schools, Mrs. Farrelly has been associated with the 4YA Children’s Session, and three years ago was responsible for Royal Tour reports in Children’s Sessions, In Rhythm for Juniors a new voice will be heard from the second term when R. Perks, lecturer in music at Christchurch Teachers’ Training College, joins Jean Hay. Miss Hay has taken part in school broadcasts since the early 1930s. Singing for

Juniors will be conducted by Joan oss in association with Claire Newman, whose voice will be known to YC listeners, One of the key subjects for citizens-to-be, Social Studies for Forms 1 and’ 2

gets a specially lively introduction this. year with an attractive booklet to illustrate the points made in the broadcasts. The first term series, from the BBC, is on Tudor people, but after that the studies come right home. "Know Your

New Zealand Cities" aims to present @ picture of New Zealand cities as they are today, and to provide material for a social study by school classes of their nearest city or town. One aspect of a city dweller’s life will be dealt with in each programme. The White Continent, which aims to widen the knowledge. of children about the Antarctic, is another series of special interest ‘to young New Zealanders. Other programmes will discuss the English village today and aspects of Australian life. Tales of adventurer-explorers to be told in Social Studies for Standards 3 and 4 in the first term all have an historical basis, but they have been selected first for their appeal to childrenMagellan, Willoughby and Chancellor, Cartier, and so on down to Amundsen in a recent past that a great many of us still remember. "Adventurer-Explorers" will be followed in the second term by BBC "Travel Talks," and later by "Wild Life of the Commonwealth" and "Stories from World History." The approach to books old and new through the broadcast of dramatised excerpts will continue in the popular Here Lies Adventure-a series which aims to provide an initial interest in books which teachers can foster. In a similar way Have You Read? will present dramatised stories for younger children not yet able to read fluently for themselves, while Storytime for Juniors will begin the approach to imaginative writing for the youngest group of all, Completing the programme of broad. casts ate The World We Live In, 2 weekly newsreel of current events and items of interest, and the French broadcasts for post-primary schools, Broadcasts to Schools will go on the air for the first time this year on Monday, March 4. Dee