SCHOOL HOURS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18021, 21 February 1922, Page 6

SCHOOL HOURS.

Although their procedure has perhaps not been orthodox, the action of the teaching staff at the Mount Albert school will probably break down the tradition that laymen are i competent to decide whether the full course of studies can be carried out in our schools during the height of the summer without injury to the health, physical and mental, of the children. Although all the other city and suburban schools are opened for the morning session only, the Mount Albert committee sought and obtained the sanction of the Education Board to .resume the full-time hours as from the beginning of last week, its reasons being that the health of the children would be better safeguarded by being in school during the hottest hours of the day as the school is well ventilated, and that the work of the school has been affected bybrpken time through sickness in past years. Whether the committee had any authoritative advice, even of the toaching staff, to justify the first of those two reasons is not clear. However, it has since been informed that in some, at least, oi the schoolrooms the ventilation is not good, producing conditions that wouW be undesirable in the winter, while in view of the over-crowding " work in the afternoon must be detrimental to the health of the children." It is certainly surprising that the committee should have relied upon its own judgment to reject the specific warnings of this medical report, but its decision may yet have good results if it directs the attention of the Education Board to the danger of leaving a matter of so much importance to suclr. casual examination. By a strange anomaly, a headmaster may dismiss his school at

mid-day if rain is falling, but ho is not permitted to exercise a similar I discretion in regard to such extreme conditions of heat and humidity as those in which the Mount Albert school was compelled last work j to make the experiment of working , full time in February. The question , of school • hours in the summer months is not, however, fully answered by a decision between halftime and full-time. There are schools in which over-crowding and structural defects render the conditions as prejudicial in the forenoon as they are intolerable in the afternoon. There is no need to seek for means of escape from these harmful influences, but if the education authorities hesitate to order a general adoption of open-air teaching they should at least refuse to sanction any extension of hours beyond the morning session unless tho decision is based upon a favourable report by a medical inspector.