About 71,000 Children To Return To School

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30045, 1 February 1963, Page 11

About 71,000 Children To Return To School

About 56.600 children In primary, intermediate, and district high schools under the Canterbury Education Board will go back to school on Monday, and another 15.000 pupils will begin the new year In district State post-primary schools, mostly on Tuesday Most of them will be in permanent classrooms because the days of serious building shortages are now gone This does, not mean that there are not schools with building proposals before the Education Department, because it is unlikely that at any time accommodation will exactly match rapidly changing needs One indication of this situation Is the movement of prefabricated buildings at this time of the year The Education Board has recently moved 13 of these classrooms —many of them from Christchurch schools —to the country, where rolls are rising again School committees do not like the idea of having these temporary classrooms instead of permanet additions but, as places to teach, they have served their purpose very well New schools to open nett week are the Cobham Intermediate School, in Fendalton. and the Avondale Primary School, in Breezes road Another new primary school in Cults road. Upper Riccarton. is not yet ready, so until the second term the foundation roll and staff will operate as a unit ta prefabricated buildings in the Avonhead Primary School grounds to save a change in organisation later The Governor’s Bay School is being rebuilt on another site, and these buildings will be occupied also in the second term. Two district high schools

are being upgraded. That at Hokitika becomes the Westland High School, and that at Geraldine becomes the Geraldine High School, with pupils from form I to form VI, under a scheme described earlier this week

No completely new high schools will open in the area this year, but new blocks will be available at a number of those in Christchurch.

The beginning of the year is also the time of most staff changes. and there will be considerable movement this year through retirements, promotions, and the entry of an increased number of trainees into the profession For all schools the start of this year will be even busier than usual. Immediately they will have to complete arrangements for pupils to attend the civic welcome to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in Christchurch on February 16; classes, courses, and time-tables will have to be settled; summer sports arranged; and inaugural meetings of parent-teacher associations planned. It may be a month before schools can settle down to work in earnest.