GIRLS' SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1938, Page 19

GIRLS' SCHOOLS.

BRITAIN AND N.Z. i TEACHER'S COMPARISONS. i HARDER, WORK IN ENCKLAND. Up to the matriculation year, the standard attained in English second v schools is much the same as in New Zealand, but in the two years spent at school after matriculation the English pupil reaches a standard much ahead of the New Zealand pupil about to enter the university. Such was the opinion formed by Miss V'ula Shed dan, M.A.. who after spending three years in England has written, in the C'liristchurch "Star-Sun" an article comparing conditions and achievements in schools in the 1 nited Kingdom and the Dominion. While in England she taught in three types of schools, a limited time in a girls' grammar school nnd in a London County Council high school and two years' experience in a girls' public school of hitrlt standing with three hundred pupils from the ages of five to IS. It is after the matriculation year that the difference in standard becomes really marked. Miss Sheddan wrote. The average age for matriculation is lri. The pupil intending to go to university spends the next two years preparing for higher certificate with intermediate exemption. Here again we find the difference between generalisation • and specialisation. For New Zealand university scholarship five subjects are compulsory, and for higher certificate the pupil takes two main subjects and one subsidiary. Inevitably when the subjects are fewer a higher standard is reached in each one. I believe that it is in mathematics that the difference in standard is most marked, a girl of 18 doing work that would be reckoned B.A. standard in New Zealand, but in languages too the difference is very marked. The English syllabus for higher is a very heavy one, there being in addition to the historical English , work many books set for detailed study and many for general reading. The examination questions set are very searching, and the quality of answer expected very high indeed. Hard Work; Simple Life. . Finally, and here I run the risk of having all my old pupils in New.Zealand rise up and call me traitor, the English schoolgirl' works mueh harder that the New Zealand one. In some schools, I believe, she works much too hard; in my school which was attended on the whole by wealthier children there were very few outside distractions in term time, and little was allowed to interfere with the two hours' preparation from 5 o'clock to 7 every evening, and from 9 o'clock to 11 every Saturday morning. These were the regular preparation periods for tlie whole senior school. The examination girls, of course, worked still harder. The boarders got all their amusement from inside the school, and lived a very simple life, j Much advantage is taken in English j schools of special coaching lessons. | As soon as a child shows weakness in a i subject she is given special lessons, so that she will be able to keep up with her form. General Comparison. The school of the public | school class 'aire very - like New Zealand children, "they pay a lot (about £200 a year) for their education, but they have all the advantages that extensive playing fields and an outdoor life can give. They are full of individuality, friendly, fairly unspoilt and very fond of sport. They are well developed, and their health is carefully looked after. A country school child has not, of course, these advantages, but it would surprise many to see how well equipped to-day even a London East End school is. There can be no doubt that since the war education in England has made vast strides forward. I doubt if even Scotland will be able for much longer to look upon her educational system as immensely superior to that of Eng* land. \

In New Zealand we have much on which to pride ourselves. ..I, for one, shall never cease to be grateful to the schools, Government" arid private, where I received education, but we suffer from all the disadvantages of isolation, disadvantages which in this modern world "of close contacts we, must constantly strive to overcome. ' .