CONCENTRATION AT SOUTHBRIDGE

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LX, Issue 89, 9 November 1939, Page 3

CONCENTRATION AT SOUTHBRIDGE

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT'S

DECISION

Below is given the copy of a letter sent by the Canterbury Education Board to school committees in the Leesto'n and Southbridge on the question of manual training for senior primary pupils. It gives an extract from a letter received by the board from the Education Department on the same subject, as follows: — "The Department's attention has been drawn to recent press reports of a conference of school committee members from Dunsandel, Brookside, Killmchy, Lakeside, Sedgmere, Southbridge and Leeston and it is noted that a ballot should be taken throughout the county on the question as to where the manual training centre should be. In this connection the importance of the fact that the district already has a well-equipped manual training centre at Southbridge (only 5 miles by good road from Leesto'n) does not seem to have been taken sufficiently into account. "It is difficult to see exactly what the delegates had in mind in their desire for a postal ballot. The holding of such a ballot might be thought to lead to the supposition that the removal of the centre from its present position would be agreed to apart from the difficulty of deciding what body of persons would be the right one to consult if the result of a postal ballot were to be accepted as having a bearing on the position; but it appears to be unnecessary to raise this question at a time when there is no necessity for considering the replacement of the manual training facilities either in their present location or in some other part of the district.

"I shall be glad therefore, if the board will consider the practicability of arranging for the provision of manual training instruction for the Leeston school children at the existing centre and possibly of including also the Killinchy and Lakeside children, if the difficulties about timetable and instructors could be overcome. The department's buses already in the district could no doubt be used to convey tHe children. The department supposes that there" will be no difficulty in arranging the work of the staff at Leeston so that one of the teacherdrivers (or both, if necessary) could be relieved of his ordinary teaching duties during the time that the Senior pupils would be absent for manual training."

"In view of the foregoing the board proposes to arrange for manual training instruction in the Ellesmere district to be carried on in Southbridge. The postal ballot will not be proceeded with."