A “Model” School

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 71, 25 March 1936, Page 3

A “Model” School

LOUD SPEAKERS IN EVERY ROOM. The Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr. Downey, recently opened a new Roman Catholic school at Birkdale, near Southport, which, he said, was regarded by education authorities as a model. The latest hygienic appliances, such as commodious cloakrooms with fittings so designed that the children’s clothes would be kept warm and dry, had been installed, and the school had been furnished with an up-to-date medical room. Each class room had a loud speaker inset in the wall, controlled from the head master’s room, where a microphone had been installed and from which wireless programmes of educational value could be relayed. “It is most gratifying," he said, “to know that the local education authorities in Southport pursue a sympathetic and enlightened policy with regard to denominational schools. They have done all in their power for us in the present unsatisfactory state of the law governing elementary schools in this country.

“We had hoped that a National Government true to its name would have given us a national settlement of the education question. Obviously the time has come for a revision of the 1902 Act in view of the basic alterations in the conditions of life in ths country. The cost' of procuring sites and of building schools has gone up enormously since the war, the Board of Education has kept on continuously increasing its requirements, and we are now faced with a costly scheme of reorganisation and the raising of the school-leaving age.”' Dr. Downey claimed that in Liverpool last year the Eoman Catholic schools had cost the ratepayers £66,000 less in administration than the council, schools