PARENTS’ DAY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 307, 11 December 1931, Page 7

PARENTS’ DAY

HASTINGS WEST SCHOOL INTERESTING AFTERNOON. PUPILS’ WORK DISPLAYED. Yesterday was Parents’ Day at the Hastings West School and several hundred parents and friends availed themselves of the opportunity to sec what the children had been doing the past year. Tho work was viewed with considerable interest and admiration. A welcome was extended by Mr S. J. McKee, chairman of tho school committee. On behalf of tho committee be congratulated the headmaster and teaching staff on the excellent results obtained by tho school in respect to tho examinations. Mr McKee took the opportunity to express the committee’s thanks to Mr G. A. Maddison for his untiring services in restoring the school after the disaster of last February. There had been many calls made on Mr Maddison, he said, and the work of restoring all the devastated schools was tremendous and Mr Maddison had earned tho heartfult thanks of all for tho wonderfully successful results of his untiring labours. Hastings West had every reason to be particularly pleased as the new school was one of the best schools in tho North Island. After expressing his thanks to Mr McKee for his eulogistic remarks, Mr Maddison, chairman of' the Hawke’s Bay Education Board, extended bis congratulations to tho school committeemen for tho way they hud taken up the task of restoring the school grounds. Their work was the continuation of the very fine service given by the previous committee and the effect had been > have a school that auy town might well be proud of. Mr Maddison also congratulated the teaching staff on the particularly good results attained at the examinations. He pointed out that despite the serious interruption and inconvenience arising out of the earthquake Hastings West had gained a 74 per cent, result Of the 31 candidates who had sat for the proficiency examination 23 had parsed. This result is very satisfactory, taking into consideration that tho general percentage for Hawke’s Bay was approximately 60 per cent. Despite the assurance of tho Minister and Director of Education that the proficiency examination papers had not been marked more severely than in the past, he was of the opinion that the examiners hud set a particularly high standard. The headmaster (Mr W. B. Roe) briefly replied expressing his thanks for what had been said of the staff and himself. Ho thanked the pupils for their work and expressed himself as being pleased with the result. He then called upon Mr Maddison to present to Master William Young the dux medal. The visitors were then given an interesting programme of part songs and folk dancing by the various classes, the standard of the singing being very good and the dancing greatly admired, the movements being executed most gracefully. The programme, which which all too short, was as follow:— Reap the Flax by the whole school, March, song and dance by the primers, Ace of Diamonds by Standards 1 and 2, Calopede and “We won’t go home till morning’’ by standards 3 and 4, Half Moon by Form 1 and 2 girls and a Country march by Form 1 and 2 boys. The school buildings were then thrown open to the visitors who wandered from classroom to classroom admiring the splendid display of needlework, drawing, cooking and woodwork. Afternoon tea was served by the ladies social committee, who also conducted a number of stalls and organised various competitions.