JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL.

Matamata Record, Volume VIII, Issue 597, 15 January 1925, Page 4

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN’S EXPLANATION.

Both Scholars and Teachers Benefit.

“ As there is a good deal of misapprehension in the Matamata district regarding what is happening in school matters, I have the following statement to make,” said Mr. E. C. Banks, district member of the Auckland Education Board and chairman of the Matamata Junior High School Committee, w-hen speaking of the coming Matamata institution: —

“ The' whole of the children who have recently passed standards 4, 5 and 6 from the Waharoa, Turanga-o-moana, Okauia, Selwyn, Te Poi, Taihoa and Hinuera schools will be motored in to the high school every day, free of charge. Those from the Mati school will ride in and receive lOd per day. Children living within three miles of the high school will not receive any benefits with regard to transport.

“ The greater benefit will be to the one-teacher school, wiiere a lady teacher is doing her best to teach eight classes at present and keep the bigger boys in order. By taking away the tw r o upper classes she will he able to do far better work with six classes of younger children. In the two-teacher school the teachers will each have one class less to teach, aind will be able to do far better w'ork. In Matamata the sth and 6th standards with about 40 children, have been well taught, hut the teacher would do better work still if he had only one class of 40 to teach, and that is what he will have to do in the high school which is just being established. There will be one teacher to take care of all the children who have just passed the 6th standard, another teacher for those who have just passed the sth, and a third for those who have passed the 4th standard, a fourth teacher for those who have attended the secondaiy department of the district high school for one year, and a fifth teacher taking those who are going to sit for the Public Service, matriculation and other examinations. The difference it will make is obvious. Take for instance, a clever boy or girl who ha» been sole pupil in the 6th standard of a one-teacher school where the teacher with 30 children in eight classes is able to give very little attention to individual teaching, and that same child in a class of 40 under a first-class teacher competing with the other 39 children. The teacher in the one-teacher school is doing splendid work under the conditions in which he or she is placed, but it is impossible for them to do such good work as can be done by one teacher with a single class of 40 children.

“ Matamata is now to have educational facilities, for all children between the ages of 12 and 18, that wall compare favourably with the best education given in Auckland, and the parents of children in the Matamata district should take full advantage ol it, and see that their children have a better education than they themselves had the opportunity of acquiring. A good education is easily carried, and is of far more value than money.”