School Inspection Post

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31112, 15 July 1966, Page 14

School Inspection Post

Mr H. W. Findlay, district senior inspectior of schools for the Education Department in Canterbury and Westland will retire at the end of September. Mr B. J. Wilson, senior inspector and Mr Findlay’s immediate associate, has been appointed his successor. The district post involves professional oversight of 317 primary, intermediate, and

district high schools under the Canterbury Education Board, special schools, and more than 70 primary departments in private schools. Mr Findlay has been district senior Inspector since 1962 and was previously senior inspector under his predecessor, Mr L. J. Broomfield. Throughout that period Mr Findlay's service has been distinguished by the inauguration of a massive in-service training scheme for teachers (said to be the best in New Zealand), considerable curriculum development, and the establishment of a “climate of co-operation” in all branches of education. Mr Findlay was educated at the Christchurch West and Christchurch Boys’ High Schools, trained at the Christchurch Teachers’ College, graduated from the University of Canterbury and also took a diploma in education. He was assistant master and pioneer music specialist at Linwood North School from 1930 to 1942, and then served at the Christchurch South and Shirlev Intermediate Schools and Woolston School before becoming an inspector in 1949 As a staff inspector he worked in Auckland and

Otago before returning to Canterbury in 1953. Mr Findlay is one of the three men who started the Christchurch school music festivals in 1937, being musical director and secretary. He was also chairman of the Christchurch Male Voice Choir led by Dr J. C. Bradshaw. Mr Findlay was one of the original executives of the

Christchurch Civic Music Council and is still a vicepresident. Mr Wilson is the son of a teacher subject to frequent transfer and his education was chiefly at Fairlie, the Lyttelton Primary and District High Schools, and St. Andrew’s College, Christchurch. After a variety of jobs during the depression he trained at the Christchurch Teachers’ College, graduated 8.A., took a diploma in education at the University of Canterbury, and taught in country school before five years’ war-time service with the 2nd N.Z.E.F. Afterwards he had charge of the Kowhai Bush, Broomfield, Woodbury and Springston Schools, was visiting lecturer at the Teachers’ College, and organising teacher on the West Coast. He was appointed inspector in Invercargill in 1957, inspector in charge of special education in Christchurch in 1964, and senior inspector in 1964. Four years ago he visited Britain on a British Council fellowship to study teacher training in preparation for the inauguration of threeyear training in New Zealand.