LEARNING BY POST

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 70, 15 December 1939, Page 6

LEARNING BY POST

Correspondence School Work Surveyed

BREAKING-UP CEREMONY The heartfelt thanks of parents throughout New Zealand for the wonderful work the Correspondence School of the Education Department is doing were expressed at the breaking-up ceremony held in the Wellington Town Hall yesterday morning. There was a large attendance of pupils of the school and parents from all parts of the Dominion. Pupils of Rongotai College attended, and, under the baton of Mr. J. T. McCaw, with Mr Fernie at the organ and piano, opened the proceedings by singing the National Anthem and “God Defend New Zealand ” The Rongotai College Choir was also heard in the sea shanties, “Johnny Boker” and “Eire Down Below,” and the numbers, “Wisdom and “Jerusalem.” Headmaster's Report. The headmaster of the Correspondence School, Dr. A. G. Butchers, who presided, in his annual report said that the school was established in 19-2 to meet the needs of children unable to attend school. The secondary department was established in 1929, and the enrolment at the end of the year was. Primary, 1705 (including 501 in the primer classes) ; secondary, 1108, total, 0813 This year there had been a marked increase in the number of boys taking the course in woodwork. A course in physical education had been tried with a limited number of pupils. In the secondary department the schoo, had continued to provide vocational as well as academic and social education of a vital kind? The practical nature of the school’s work would be evident from the numbers of students in the following selected groups: Agricultural courses, 217; commercial, aba; needlework, 986; home management, 318; art, 239; woodwork and allied courses, 160; science, 174; craft, 134; school clubs and societies, 1087. The number of students enrolled on the ground of physical disability was 286; K’.'t-time students (students in employment), 347; adult students, 302. Among these were many of the parents of full-time pupils—fathers taking agricultural courses and mothers dressmaking and housecraft. Other considerable groups comprised 190 junior officers of the Post and Telegraph Department, and 43 teachers of grade and Native schools. Smaller groups indicated new fields of worthy service openin'’' up; in hospitals and sanatoria, 27; in prisons, 20; in Public Works camps, 12.' The high standard attained by Correspondence School pupils in previous years had been maintained during the past year, and no fewer than 246 pupils achieved successes at the public examinations or the award of various school certificates. The expansion of the work had necessitated the appointment of additional teachers in the higher grades and specialized departments of the school. Ten new permanent teachers would commence duty at the /beginning of next year, bringing the total staff to 120. These new appointments included a number of primary teachers with special qualifications in art, handicraft, and nature study, and two with special qualifications m woodwork and building construction, trade, and instrumental drawing and allied subjects. Sii- Harry Batterbee’s Advice, “I take peculiar interest in the Correspondence School because I was once a correspondence scholar myself,” said Sir Harry Batterbee, High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in New Zealand, addressing the gathering. “During my time at Oxford I was obliged, owing to ill-health, to leave the university for a time, and to pursue my studies at home with such help as 1 could get by corresponding with my tutors. I always look back on the year which I spent pursuing my studies in ibis way as one of the most valuable of my life. I am not sure that during that year I did not acquire more real knowledge than I did during any other year of my education-” . , , , Directing his remarks particularly to the children, Sir Harry Batterbee said: “The first object of education is to learn to do your job well, whatever your job is. When once you have felt the pleasure of having done a piece of work really well—whether doing a sum, or writing an essay, or doing a piece of needlework, or drawing a picture, or batting at cricket, or swimming—when once you have experienced the real thrill which you can get out of putting your whole heart and mind into a thing and doing it with all your might, then you have learnt what it is the chief thing iu education to learn. Choose for your life work the most interesting job you can, and get your- parents and teachers to help you io choose an interesting and worthwhile job. Do not choose the easy job—there is no fun whatever to. be got out of that. It is the difficult jobs —the jobs which mean that you have got to put your whole back into them —those are the jobs worth doing; go for them.” Thanks to School. The director of Education, Mr. N. T. Lambourne, conveyed to the headmaster and the staff of the school the thanks of the Education Department for the devotion they had given to their work during the year. The gratitude of the parents’ association was expressed by Mr. 11. F. Robb (Manutuke, Gisborne), and Mrs. Hawthorne (I’irongiahau), who both referred tp the close interest the teachers of the school took in the pupils. The headmaster specially thanked the principal of Rongotai College for allowing his pupils to attend the break-ing-up ceremony.