OPEN-AIR SCHOOLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20255, 15 May 1929, Page 15

OPEN-AIR SCHOOLS.

WOMEN'S COUNCIL' IN FAVOUR AUCKLAND REMIT CARRIED. [Br TELEGRAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] GISBORXE, Tuesday. Delegates to the Dominion conference of the National Council of Women bore testimony to the success as, of open-air schools of the type first established at Fendalton, near Christchurch, Two. remits came forward on the point, the first from Auckland and the other from Hamilton. The Auckland remit was: That tho council urge the Minister of Education to have erected open-air schools wherever new schools are to be opened, or wherever old' schools are to be abolished and new erected. The Hamilton remit was: That the council heartily supports the movement toward establishing the open-air type of school. • •In speaking to the Auckland remit Miss Carnachan said open-air schools were the natural corollary to the open-air treatment of Plunket babies. They had been tried and found entirely successful in other lands. Miss E. A. Chaplin (Christchurch) said that in cost the open-air schools had a great advantage. They cost about £4OO per room, as against £IOOO to £I3OO per room of the other type. Mrs. N. Ferner (Auckland), as a member of a board of education, paid testimony to the great success of the open-air schools at Fendalton, which she had recently visited. She noticed that the children were given a run along the grounds at the end of. each lesson, and returned refreshed and invigorated, findinc further lessons much easier to assimilate. Miss H. K. Lovell Smith (Christchurch) explained that the Canterbury Education Board had an antipathy to the Open-air League. They had evolved a. type of open-air school which had the ordinary open side glassed in, making it a very trying place to teach in. She warned delegates to make certain that if any open-air schools were proposed they should be of the correct type. Mrs. Stevens (Hamilton) then withdrew the remit forwarded by her branch, in favour of tho Auckland remit, which was then carried unanimously, and it was decided that copies of the resolution be forwarded to the education boards and to the Institute of Architects.