SCHOOLS COLUMN.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 4 April 1925, Page 2

SCHOOLS COLUMN.

PRIMARY SCHOOL WORK.

Comments By “Teacher.” The work sent in to teachers for marking has varied very pinch in quality; some showed evidence of care and thought, while other work displayed 'the greatest carelessness, both in thought and in writing out. in arithmetic maiiy pupils still show very little of the workntg. If you can do the work mentally, set down the various steps by which you get your answer; but if you have actual figuring to do, write that neatly in your righthand working column. ' In standard five the bills were usually wrong. This should not be so,'for there is nothing which even stnnctard three cannot do. When working out an item, first make a rough estimate of your answer. For instance, lOlbs. of cheese at Is lid per lb, would not be very different from 201 bs.' at Is per lb, that is £l. Then if your answer is not somewhere near .£l, you know you must be

wrong. If you come to a sum you really cannot do after trying hard, say "so on your paper. The teacher will then explain it to you, .either when your papers are returned or when school recommences (which I am sure we iifl hope will he soon). Be vei’y carefu] to set out sums neatly. Put the proper •exercise and letter on the top, and the number of the sum in the margin. Leave a clear space between two sums. In English some of you wrote very poor essayff. If you are in standard rive or standard six you should not hand in work that we might, expect rroni standard three.or standard four, v ary your sentences, especially the beginnings, using phrases freely and connectives like “and” much less often. Other words used far too often were these i —Got, then, lot, so. Think of other words to save these from being worked to depth—poor things, jiiev de° serve a rest. Have you heard of Mark Twain? Millions have laughed over his books,' for he was one of the world’s greatest humourists. It is not generally known that lie had a, wonderful descriptive style. Note these phrases, used by hini in describing the ascent of a mountain : —“Tramping leisurely up the .eafy mule-path”; ‘‘Glimpses from inder the overhanging boughs”; “As ffiarming as glimpses of fairyland”; ‘Our elbows projecting over bottomless vacancy”; “The cloud-barred disc if the sun”; “Limitless expanse of ossing white caps (mountain peaks)”'; ‘Draped in imperishable snow’’; “Sun ances of diamond dust.”

These phrases are well worth record,ng in your' note hook. From them you nay choose suitable phrases when writing future essays. If you make fuller use of participles the—ing words) your sentences will be more compact. This is one method of giving “and” a rest. In grammar your chief difficulty seemed to be analysis. Standard six l vere not asked to divide clauses' into subject, predicate, etc.—only fo write mt and name the clauses. It is not sufficient to say about a clause that it tells when, or where. Show its connection with another part of the sentence.

Similarly with standards Jive and .our who are asked to give the use arid Part of speech of ce.rtain words. Don’t be satisfied to say that' “I,' stands for a noun; pronoun.” Say the noun it takes the place of. The following are all wrong in the same way—“was walking, makes a statement, verb,” “on our holiday, tells where, adverbial phrase.” ' .

The answers to some of the questions in reading showed that you either had not read the lessons thoroughly, or had not understood what yon read. Once more, do not be satisfied to send in work not up to the standard of the class you are now in. For example, what class would you expect a boy to, be in who wrote this sentence about a microscope, “I see a microscope?” Is it not qpite simple even for a standard ope boy? Yet if was sent in from standard five. Make a sentence which shows you know something about the world: e.g. “Py examining the dust from a moth’s Wing under a high-powered microscope,’ the boy was able to see that it consisted pf beautifully marked scales.” . - :

Do not forget that your school work is to continue on from what you' are now doing Those pupils' who are not sending jn work are running a big risk of remaining in their present class for another year. If school were open, you wo.uld he putting in 25 hours a week; the work you are now asked to do could be done in less than half that time; make up your mind this week to' send in the best you can. Your teachers will not expect you to do more than that.