SCHOOL WORK.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18186, 24 September 1924, Page 12

SCHOOL WORK.

SUBJECTS FOR PRIMARY CLASSES.

Subjects -taught in primary schools -were dealt with, at an educational conference under tho auspices of tho "W.E.A. in tho

Trades Hall last night. Mr "W. Newman presided over an attendance of about forty-five educationists and others.. Dr. !£.. Marsdcn, Assistant Director of Education, and Mr "W. E. .Spencer, officer in charge of education buildinjrs, wero amongst those present. Miss D. Bastcr, infant mistress at the Normal Training School, speaking of subjects in infant schools, said that tie proper plan was to discover a.child's natural interests and build up his education on it. As had teen stated, the start should bo made from a certain inner want of a boy. Tho first essential was to move, and he should ho allowed to move in the schoolroom as much as possible, ar.d '.bo encouraged to dance, sins, and take part in games. Speech, drawing, handwork, interest in plants and a,nimals'and in anything that enowed life, stories, poems, the necessity for reading, also, ehould conio into tho Tho school age should "be raised from five to six years. Professor J. B. Condliffe said that it was unwise to hand to children chunks of unrelated adult information, which caused mental indigestion. There was too great a tendency to emphasis© utilitarian subjects, to make too much of the "three R's." More attention should be given to education m crafts. . , Dr. Marsden said that discovering and encouraging a child's interests brought it along- quicker than was done by the closed class-room methods. Miss Baxter's ideas were on tho right lines. The Department now wn.3 considering whether or not it could afford to introduce the junior high school svstem, wliicb. tended to introduce natural interests and to educate children through them AU other educationists took off their hats 'to tho infant mistresses, who had made good, and to whom tho infant classes safely could be left. . . Tho proposals wcro discussed by atout six speakers, some of whom spoke against home-work and 6ome for it.