Many school playgrounds may need improvement

Press, 11 October 1986, Page 3

Many school playgrounds may need improvement

Many of Canterbury’s school playgrounds may need to be improved or even dismantled to meet a new code of play equipment standards, according to the Canterbury Education Board’s general manager, Mr - Keith McNeil. The board has received the New Zealand Standards Association’s new set of guidelines on play equipment and a directive that its building supervisors inspect existing play equipment. Mr McNeil said it would take about three months to inspect the board’s 350 school playgrounds. From casual observation it would appear that many playgrounds did not meet the new standards and would need modifications, particularly in the type and depth of ground cover, he said. Schools would be given

three months to improve playgrounds where necessary. Mrs N. J. Johnson said at yesterday’s board meeting that she agreed the schools should get rid of unsafe equipment. Most school playgrounds had been built by school committees with the school’s authority and often using Government subsidies, she said. Accordingly the board should ask the Government to pay a share of improvement costs. The Education Boards’ Association will be asked to approch the Education Department for special national funding to assist with costs. Intermediate pupils Board members are concerned about suggestions by the Post-Primary

Teachers’ Association that secondary schools take over the education of Form 1 and 2 pupils. They reaffirmed yesterday board policy that Form 1 and 2 pupils be educated in primary and intermediate schools. The affirmation was prompted by a letter from the New Zealand Educational Institute calling for a- campaign to assess "Primary priorities — your priorities.’’ The focus would be on Form 1 and 2 education, curriculum review, and teacher effectiveness and accountability. A board member, Mr R. F. Armstrong, said the P.P.T.A. suggestion came as rather a shock. It appeared to want the integration of Form 1 and 2 pupils in secondary schools to bolster falling rolls, keep up the job quota, and maintain

salaries for secondary school principals. Staffing ratios Staffing ratios were causing some confusion, according to the board’s district senior inspector of primary schools, Mr Les Cramond. People often thought that a ratio of 1:20 or 1:31 meant that each class had one teacher to 20 or 31 pupils respectively, he said. Staffing ratios were used to determine the number of teachers each school would be given. Class sizes might vary dramatically from 10 pupils in a new-entrant class to 35 pupils- in a class with an experienced teacher. Extra teachers might also be employed under the ratio to work on a one-to-one basis or with small groups outside the usual class system, he said.