SCHOOL HOURS CHILDREN'S MIDDAY RECESS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 78, 2 April 1914, Page 8

SCHOOL HOURS CHILDREN'S MIDDAY RECESS.

(»T TIIBGRtPH.— SPHHAL TO IHJ POST.) AUCKLAND, This Day. The question of the hours to be observed in the city .schools, which was the subject of a considerable controversy early this year, was revived at a meeting of the City Schools Committee last evening, when a letter from two parents was^read complaining that the fifty minutes (12 o'clock to 12.50 p.m.) at present allowed for lunch was not mifficient to allow their children to eat a hearty dinner. The children, they said, rushed into the house as a rule, bolted their food, and rushed out again, often with the food in their hands. Last year they had been in the habit of giving the children lunch to take to school; but they considered a hot dinner at midday to be much prefei'able. The letter provoked a good deal of discussion, some of the committeemen taking the view thatmore time was needed, and others that an hour would probably b© enough, provided the teachers were restrained from keeping the chikheh in 7 It was pointed out, however, that this last point was not one on which tho committee could dictate to the teachers. The suggestion that with an hour and a-half or two hours of liberty the children might get into mischief did not meet with general approval,, and eventually it was decided unanimously to rescind the resolution passed in January last (but not enforced) fixing the school hour* at 9 a.'m. to 12 noon and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. It was then resolved to make the afternoon hours 1.30 p.m. to 3.30 p.m., leaving the morning hours as above, and to give effect to the change at once. This decision gives the children, an hour and a-haH for the midday meal.