BIG SCHOOL PROBLEM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20586, 8 December 1928, Page 19

BIG SCHOOL PROBLEM.

CHILDREN RUNNING WILD. NO PLACE FOR LESSONS. ANXIETY OP PARENTS. Three hundred children between the ages of five and eleven in outer London are running wild without a school. They are the children' of residents of the new .Loudon County Council estate at Castelnau, Barnes, and are the residue of the SUU youngsters whose parents occupy 643 houses there. . Ihere is no school for these children, .the neighbouring schools, and the more distant institutions, have no room for them. Indeed, they are full to capacity, bo the children are running wild,, and are causing endless anxiety to their parents. '

The facts were given by Mrs O’Connor, wife of, the secretary of the Tenants’ Association. She said:—“The children are running wild in the streets and on Barnes Common. Unless a serious step is takeu i' he months before the- temporary school is. even built, and -years before the permanent one, which hap only just been started, is finished. * The danger to these poor children is appalling. Many of them are from eight to eleven years of age, and were watched pupils at the schools they attended before coming here. That means that they were particularly bright in school, and were intended to be put up for scholarship examinations when they neared the age of 12. These months of idleness and lack of school discipline must inevitably kin nil chance in an aca* domic wav.

T “The.v iear of the parish,, the Rev. F. !• Harrison, has offered hie church-room, which w-ould accommodate 200, but this has been declined by the Surrey education authorities.

I have 250 of the Castlcnau estate children to Sunday school in my church each week. The disciplinary ' work needed is extremely hard, and I pity their first day school teachers.'’’ ( Jlr Forbes King is one of the parents. I have two boys,” he said, “ and they are rapidly, becoming young ragamuffins and almost young savages. Wc came from Pimlico here last Easter. Donald (eight) and lan (six) went to St. Gabriel’s School there, and Donald was being specially, watched as a probable scholarship boy, but any chance of a scholarship he may have had has vanished on Barnes Common, where the two spend nearly all their- time.”

A high official of the Education Department of the Surrey County- Council regretfully admitted that the statements are correct. “It is difficult for ti. public to realise.that the building of a 1 school, even after the money has been granted, is a matter for long special consideration by many • committees, that many stops have to be taken, and that a great deal of detail work is necessary. A temporary building and the permanent school have-now been started. The temporary building, which will have six rooms, should be ready easily by Christmas, and the other by Christmas. 1930.”