SCHOOL IN THE HIGH COUNTRY

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29367, 21 November 1960, Page 13

SCHOOL IN THE HIGH COUNTRY

These 12 children go to one of Canterbury’s remote schools. It is the Mesopotamia school on the station of that name which lies in the headwaters of the Rangitata river some 32 miles inland from Peel Forest. Four of the 12 children attending the school are the children of the owner of the 100,000 acre station, Mr M. V. Prouting, who is also chairman of the school committee. They have to run only two hundred yards or so along a tree-lined pathway to get to school.

The other children come to the little school from the neighbouring Rata Peaks, Stew Point and White Rock stations. They are driven in a bus by their teacher, Mr W. Duncan, who comes from New Brighton. Mr Duncan stays at Coal Hill station and can pick his pupils up as he drives to Mesopotamia each day. He has now spent almost two years teaching at Mesopotamia.

The school is now in its fifth year. Before it was opened Mrs Prouting used to live at Peel Forest during the week so that her children could go to school there.

The school lies in a beautifully sheltered spot close to the station homestead with its spacious fenced playground surrounded by tall trees. The children have most of the amenities of a school much closer to civilisation. In the playground the children have a volley board, a sand pit and gymnastic equipment. The school has a flagpole, given by Mr and Mrs Prouting. Pupils of the Mesopotamia school are very proud of a recent sporting achievement. Hanging on the wall of their ciassrooriY is a shield won early this month at a combined country schools' sports meeting at Geraldine. Martin Connelly explained to a recent visitor to the school that Mesopotamia

had come out on top in the competition in which the points gained by competing schools were divided by the number of pupils attending the schools to determine the winner.

The new and old exist side by side at Mesopotamia. Across the fence from the school is a stone and four posts marking the site of the homestead of Samuel Butler erected on that spot in 1861. The children are naturally interested in the history of the country in which they live and in the work room or store room where the boys receive some rudimentary woodwork instruction from Mr Duncan finger posts were in the course of preparation last week to show visitors to the station the way to the grave of Dr. Andrew Sinclair, at one time Colonial Secretary who was drowned while crossing the Rangitata river in 1861. The grave lies on the flats close to the river and the homestead.