PRIMARY SCHOOL WORK

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 12 July 1921, Page 4

PRIMARY SCHOOL WORK

j —♦• SOME OBSERVATIONS ON NOTEBOOKS, ETC., AT THE WINTER. SHOW. The Winter Show«of 1921 has come? and gone. The many fine exhibits; that were on view last week have beem referred to in these oqlumns from time; to time, but one section has been reserved for special comment, namely-the; school notebooks, graphs^, drawings,, et«., that were sent in from our primary schools. At the commencement- it i may he said that notebooks were sent, ; in from far and wide, and they con- , tamed work of great meritr—better tha» has ever been seen here before. It was* very unfortunate that it was not possible to set them out to better effect - ; they were much too crowded where theyj were and the public were, consequently,, : not able to fully appreciate the quality^ j of the work that the children had been* at such pains to do. "The notebook ( work of Standard V was the outstandj ing feature; .it ,was easily the best col- . lection of notebooks this standard had cve r produced, and superior on tbe> J average to those presented by St ndard* j VI. Vera McCarthy's (Matapu Scho:l> , showed splendid work right th« ou^-H and was very neatly written up, whiles the drawings were particularly welK ; je ,V The first ten- in fact > in Standard V were all particularly good books, and the judge had to go itffirough them* very carefully before arriving at a de— ■ cision. Standard VI books did not indicate any falling-off Jn the quality of their work, but were somewhat over— •shadowed by the great'advance madein Standard V. Maude Wilcox (Toka--ora) had her notebook complete in every respect, but her graphical work was herBtrong point. The weather records were-; particularly well done in all the Toka--ora books. sThe Ohangai books'werelargely given to individual observational drawing work, and in that respect the work was very well done. Okaiawa and Ngaere wereweaker in observational work, but stronger in records of actual work done. T^at was the position through all ,the classes. Ohangai was easily the,. best in nature study, but-the others: were, in most cases, better school garden record books. In the nature study note books,for grades .1 and 2 schools., (all standards), Oakura were placed: j first, second, and third. Their work wa ß j very good and the drawing excellent. J. These same bdoks won at the recenti New Plymouth Show. In Standards 1,. J 2 and 3, Ohangai^ scored first and se-^-I cond with note books entered by two-* Maori children. The work in both these,, books was particularly good, the draw- - ings especially so. In the plan of school grounds, Rangi Aka, of ,Ohangai, won with a very well executed plan. In thi»section the work was mostly good excepting where water.colour work was. attempted. For the most nart this colouring was poorly put on and the colours, did not blend. The work of the** winners was in ink tinted with crayons. The graph of variety trials with, pota^ toes, sent in from the Ngaere school, was beautifully done and the best everput in a show here.. The graphs of herd y3e!ds all came rrom Okaiawa and showed great im-- : provement, both in number and quality. I The work was nicely done and the whole- | formed a very good class. In the single- : iierd graph, carried on ftfr a series of -T? ars ' that sent in V William Guy oF Matapu, came in for special mention. It was very neat and particularly welF • done. The,same may be said of Vera Jackson's (Okaiawa) graph of district. factory returns-of milk test and butter-. rat fo.r season. -" ;■ In the Boys' and Girls* Agricultural" Club sections, it was remarked that theorizes were all given for one phrase of the work only; the most important part the educational feature, the actual records was omitted from the prize list. Manaia, .Ararata, Ohangai, and Rawhitiroa all sent in good graphs, but.. that sent in by Rangi Aka. of Ohangai was the pick of them all. Not only were the records all carefully set out, but thesketehes of roots, individuarand collective, sections of roots, stages of development^ implements used in sowingand cultofation were all neatly drawn Jiyery school was supposed to send ii giaphs, but unforunately, many djd not. vnlf •' AP^'fe 1 of the educational value of j the exhifot was lost througK not having complete charts giving 2r mformatioivi-egardirig the production of" the crop This is a phase of the wort we would commend to the consideration or those controlling these competition^ in future. — ■ • -■' ■ Altogether, the scholars attending ourschools are to be highly complimented1* on the class of work they are doing; that exhibited at the Show was mostlyof very high ou'ality and exhibited great care and keenness in the work: and skill in execution, reflecting great, credit on both scholars and teachers