Rangiora H.S. after 100 years

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 20

Rangiora H.S. after 100 years

Rangiora High School, 1884-1984: A Centennial History. By David Gunby. Rangiora High School Centennial Committee, 1984. 274 pp. Illustrations. $l2. (Reviewed by Eric Beardsley) Rangiora was not always well served by its high school. The school board had to ask for the resignation of the first head, it saw the second depart after only three years, and it had to sack the third — a clergyman who, it was said, looked upon the wine when it was red. But under its subsequent heads, especially its fifth, Rangiora High School flourished. Indeed, it became a model for a high school in a country centre, neither excessively rural in its outlook and concerns, nor yet apeing its urban counterparts; and it retains much of that special character as it begins a second century of endeavour. As the school served North Canterbury well, so Professor Gunby has served the school. This is not the formal, scholarly — and often dull — history of an institution, nor the unconnected anecdotes and jottings about japes and jokers that sometimes pass for a school history. It is rather an ambitious, and on the whole very successful, attempt to illustrate how the school found its own course, rather different from the mainstream of New Zealand education, while at the same time celebrating in a readable way the life of the school and the lives of those devoted to it. Clearly Rangiora has much to celebrate this week-end. Professor Gunby is perhaps more fortunate than most authors of the standard, respectful, centennial volume, who set out to show, often on flimsy evidence, how unique was the school, how individual its members. Most New Zealand schools founded in the wake of the first Education Act had striking similarities rather than differences because they were moulded by the pressures of a hard-working and generally penurious colonial society.

They were, in a word — and what a word! — autochthonous. But Rangiora had J. E. Strachan as head from 1917 to 1948. In no time he had the atmosphere fizzing with a kind of educational champagne as he set the school on a very different course. Recognising the need for agricultural education in a rural area he established a school farm; recognising the importance of the home and the need for child-care he established a nursery school; and recognising the importance of democratic institutions he abolished the school oligarchy and established a school council with its own judicial committee responsible for discipline. These innovations, radical, controversial and far ahead of their time, gave the school a character which it has retained, though the Strachan reforms and philosophy have been set aside somewhat under the pressures of numbers. Controversial though the reforms might have been, they attracted staff who were of like mind and who appreciated and followed the head’s philosophy. Strachan gained the respect and affection of pupils with his personal style. Who could resist a head who took them on “school walks” along the Ashley, chatting about flora and fauna, history or geology? Or persuaded the caretaker to fill the tennis court with water in frosty weather to provide a school skating rink? Or joined wholeheartedly, on the side of the girls, in a school snowball fight? Or sing to the whole school at assembly? He was, it seems, like a loving father in a large and happy family. Jock Strachan, surely the most remarkable of the country’s school principals, was convinced that adolescents would, if given the opportunity, encouragement and trust, take responsibility for their own behaviour and accept the help of a competent and friendly teacher. Education rather than schooling was the goal. The cane had no part in the

school for Strachan believed he would have been failing had traditional punishment become necessary. One wonders how successful Strachan would have been in dealing with a later phenomenon, teen-agers, with such methods. His secret seemed to be to keep his school, staff and pupils, interested in what they were doing; and at that time it was enough. His successor, J. F. Moffat, inherited a different school from those he knew and steered it back to orthodoxy. The school council disappeared and prefects appeared. An unashamedly academic course was introduced. Population growth rather than these changes caused the roll to treble and Moffat’s attention became focused on buildings, staff and equipment. His successors, T. M. Penny and C. A. Macintosh, were able to restore something of the Strachan atmosphere and to make the school rather less formal and hierarchical. Their sensitivity to history and tradition resulted in the establishment of close ties with the community and the school’s mana remains very high. If headmasters have a powerful influence on a school, so too does the staff; and Professor Gunby has been at pains to assess their impact. Strachan always emphasised the collective responsibility of all the staff and their contributions are not overlooked here. Their photographs, some faded snaps that could only have been produced by a Box Brownie, provide a sort of authenticity a studio portrait could not achieve — though some could surely have been enlarged just a little more. Like the school, the history has its tedious patches. Past and present pupils may find interest in details of the acquisition of hostels, the care of buildings and grounds, plans and construction, the board of governors and the P.T.A. But those who have had no personal connection with the school will still find the story highly engaging. R.H.S. has had an interesting history. It has been well told.