THOUGHTS ON WINTER TERM

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28906, 28 May 1959, Page 10

THOUGHTS ON WINTER TERM

The winter term began this week. It is the one which demands most in co-operation between teachers, parents, and pupils. A united approach to the problems of frost and rain can do much to avoid seasonal illness, lost and dirty clothes, and frayed tempers.

It is also the term in which the shorter hours of daylight can be capitalised in really hard work at school and study at home. The first term inevitably starts slowly with shaking down of new classes and the extra activities possible in summer; the third is a rush toward end-of-the-year examinations and breakup functions; the middle one gives most opportunities for solid achievement.

A round-up of parent-teacher opinion this week produced the following thoughts for the winter term:—

Teachers Ask Please ensure that your child gets to school dry and warm. Few children today are inadequately clothed; but they are not always sensibly clothed. By taking your child to school once this term you may see lots of freshly practical ideas. If a child arrives wet or cold, work will suffer and there is always the risk of a chill. Please don’t send your child to school too early. The time before teachers are on duty is the period when mischief is done and when accidents can happen. It is also the worst time when shoes get soaked and clothes get filthy. Please instill in your child the fact that pegs are provided for coats and hats and that each child usually has his own. In this way you will save yourself money for dry-cleaning trampled garments or replacing lost ones. Make sure that belts are anchored to side loops or stitched to a back seam.

Please provide your child with a handkerchief and teach him how to use it. Running hoses may not be mentioned in polite company and they may be a problem at home. Imagine the possibility that a teacher may have to cope with 40 of them with many fewer handkerchiefs. With very small children, who may lose them, some parents safety-pin a corner inside a cardigan or jacket within reach of the face. Pockets in cardigans and jerseys are also a help. Please Consider the problems of lunch at school in winter when more pupils have to be superlt is appreciated that many parents prefer to send their children to school with a cut lunch, rather than risk a wetting; but the teachers on duty can not watch all the children all the time.

Parents can help by appealing for the best behaviour, urging tidy eating, care against spills, and pride in placing refuse in the proper place. Parents may have to supervise a table of four or five. Teachers may have to manage the meal of hundreds.

Please check when your child may be expected home in the afternoon.. Discourage loitering and keep your children off the streets. Traffic hazards increase in winter and children are better at home anyway in cold weather. Parenls Ask Will teachers please try to keep their charges as clean as possible. We know boys will be boys; but they often come home looking as though a studied attempt had been made to get as dirty as possible. Please explain in the next school newsletter or at the next P.T.A. meeting any way in which we can help overcome this problem.

What are the school rules about playing on muddy grounds? Coiild play-time games be confined to paved areas and those on the grass limited to supervised matches? We recognise the problems; but feel that a lot of dirty clothes atise I from the rough and tumble. Can anything be done about overcoats which appear to have reposed on the floor? Please assist with, your fullest authority to prohibit walking in puddles. We have to dry and clean (the shoes.

j What provision is made in modem buildings for out-of-class 'Periods in showery weather? Don't you think there were some points Ito the old-fashioned open-ekded

shelter shed where children could play in the open without getting damp? I like the “Canterbury plan" with verandas; but can’t understand the modern trend -toward detached blocks without linking covered ways. Could a stiffer check be made of the appearance of pupils before they leave for home? It appears to me that it is ip this particular that private schools scoreLheavilv over the State Cquld prefects, perhaps, wash-up and brush-up ensure that children are neatly dressed before going on to public streets?