Burnside Parents Want Single-Sex Schools

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30570, 13 October 1964, Page 18

Burnside Parents Want Single-Sex Schools

A new single-sex school in the Memorial avenue area is favoured by the Burnside Primary School ParentTeacher Association. It does not support the proposal that the Burnside High School should be allowed to grow to a roll of 1600. The Christchurch Secondary Schools’ Council is being informed of this view. Earlier this month a meeting of more than 60 members of the Burnside P.T.A. found that about 280 of their children had been rejected from the post-primary high schools of their first choice. A large number of these appeared te have been rejected by singlesex schools. The president (Mr J. Havard) said yesterday that when parents had to give an undertaking that they were applying for only one school it was possible that the demand for single-sex education was even greater, particularly among middle and lower-stream pupils. The eastern area of Christchurch was served by the Shirley Boys’ High School

and the Avonside Girls' High School for single-sex education, Mr Havard said. There were no single-sex schools in the north-west, the Christchurch Boys’ High School complementing the Christchurch Girls’ High School for the central area. Mr Havard said that, with only five dissenting, his meeting of more than 60 favoured a separate school being built alongside the Burnside High School in Memorial avenue to make two single-sex schools. Hamilton and Dunedin were cited as precedents for such an arrangement. The meeting also urged the Secondary Schools’ Council to give more serious consideration to parents’ wishes in this matter. A previous poll in the area favouring co-edu-cation was not now considered valid, as the choice then was for only one school in the area. Mr Havard said there was distinct opposition to the present Burnside High School growing bigger, as it was felt that individual interest and “intangibles” would be lost, i