To Oversee Secondary Schools In S.L

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31167, 17 September 1966, Page 19

To Oversee Secondary Schools In S.L

Mr F. N. Wylde, a senior inspector of secondary schools in Christchurch, has been appointed district senior inspector in succession to Mr M. Hewitsom, who has become Director of Secondary Education. He will take up immediately his new duties, which involve supervision of secondary schools over most of the South Island. Born and educated on the West Coast, Mr Wylde has spent most of his career in Christchurch.

After attending the Greymouth High School, he trained at the Christchurch Teachers’ College, taking an extra specialist year in science. At the same time he completed a bachelor of arts and bachelor of science degrees at the University of Canterbury. Under the Canterbury Education Board he had sole charge of the Waitaha School in South Westland, and then taught at North Brighton and St Albans. In 1942, Mr Wylde was appointed to the staff of the Christchurch Technical College to teach mathematics and science, and for nine years he was in charge of all sports and was senior coach of Rugby and athletics. When the Linwood High School opened in 1954. Mr Wylde became head of its science and mathematics department, and on the change of principals in 1957 he became first assistant.

He joined the secondary inspectorate in 1958 and was appointed senior inspector in 1963. For many years he was secretary, then president, of the

Canterbury Science Teachers’ Association and secretary of the Secondary Schools’ Sports Association. In 1964 and 1965, Mr Wylde held a fellowship of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation

as adviser in science and teacher training to the Government in Western Nigeria. Mr Wylde said that he had a special interest in the average pupils, who formed most of the school population. With the attention now given to both the bright and the backward, it was important that the major group be not forgotten. Mr Wylde said he had high regard for secondary school principals in his district, who knew their schools and districts and were valued by the Education Department. “We don’t make policy in a vacuum,” he said.