EDUCATION BOARD

Southland Times, Issue 20939, 23 November 1929, Page 9

EDUCATION BOARD

MONTHLY MEETING. At the monthly meeting of the Southland Education Board yesterday morning the chairman (Mr A. W. Jones) presided over the following members: Messrs Hugh Smith, L. Evans, S. Rice, W. Carswell and G. F. Johnson. The Hon. P. A. de la Perrelle at a later stage in the meeting took his seat at the board table. In extending a welcome to him the chairman stated that all requests from the board had received prompt attention from the Minister to whom he wished specially to pay a tribute in that respect. Mr Perrelle, in reply, thanked the members for their hearty welcome and referred to the pleasure it had given him to attend to the board's requirements in Wellington. The secretary of the Gore A. and P. Association wrote suggesting that the board should, favourably consider closing all primary schools in the Southland district all day on Wednesday, December 11, being People’s Day in connection with the Royal Show. The educational value to the children of a day spent at so important a function, must have an appeal which it was trusted would result in a favourable decision. It was decided to close all Southland schools on that date. A communication from Major H. D. McHugh was received in connection with the farewell visit of his Excellency the Gover-nor-General and the proposed parade of school children at Queen’s Park on Monday, December 9 when only third standard and above children would represent primary schools. The writer requested that the board appoint a representative in connection with the matter. "We are most anxious to see the parade a success,” said the chairman. The matter was left in his hands. The matter of repairs to the Edendalc school was discussed briefly and Mr Rice and the, architect (Mr J. J. Gough) were appointed to confer with the school committee. Resolutions Adopted. The following clauses of public interest appearing in the executive committee’s report were adopted: That the communication from the Department approving of the erection of a dental clinic sub-base at Mataura be received, tenders to be invited for the work. That the communication from the secretary of the Southland Teachers’ Institute asking for an increase in the staff of the Invercargill dental clinic be received, application to be made to the Health Department for an extra assistant to enable arrears of work to be overtaken. That application be made to the Department for permission to close the schools at Kapuka and Kapuka South and consolidate with Gorge Road, the Department to be asked for permission to invite tenders for conveyance. Otapiri-Limehills Consolidation. A letter was received from Vivian Butson, Otapiri, on the subject of the consolidation of Otapiri-Limehills schools. In the event- of the board not receiving a tender low enough to be favourably considered by the Education Department, the writer expressed willingness to pay £l5 per year towards the cost of conveyance, this to be payable in quarterly instalments, and to continue to pay this for three years after the conveyance started. Unless some definite reply from the Department was received before the opening of the 1930 school year this offer would lapse. A communication was also received on the same subject from ten Otapiri residents advising the board that they were strongly against consolidation of the Otapiri School with Limehills. The letter stated that it was over 15 months since the meeting was held in Otapiri and some residents who were in' favour of consolidation then, were not now of the same opinion. The chairman said that the only method of overcoming the difficulty would be for board members to go out and meet on the ground all the residents concerned in the matter and have it fully discussed. jtlt was decided to take this action, it being left in the hands of the chairman to arrange a date. ./ Agricultural Instructor’s Report. The monthly report of the Agricultural Instructor (Mr Thomas Mathews) stated that excellent weather having been experienced during the past month, very pleasing progress had been made with the school garden work and given a favourable summer season good results might be looked for. Special effort was being made this year to develop the forestry plot work and with this end in view a supply of forest tree seed had been forwarded to all schools taking agriculture. The forest tree seed was obtained from the Forestry Department, but the instructor hoped that schools would make a point of. gathering their own seed locally for experience had shown that the locally gathered seed gave much better results than that obtained elsewhere. In addition a very valuable lesson was learnt by the pupils in the gathering of the seed. The school garden experiments continued to. receive attention and the official record form for recording the results obtained would be forwarded to all schools in due course. During the past year the instructor had devoted a good deal of his time to class-room experiments and agricultural lessons with a view to assisting teachers in gaining greater efficiency in this work and generally speaking there was room for considerable improvement in the indoor experimental work. The chief weakness appeared to be that the experiments had been tod hurried. Hence they lacked thoroughness in teaching, the pupils having a very hazy idea of the reasons for certain experiments being carried out or of what actually happened at various stages of the experiment. A noted weakness was the lack of application in applying the knowledge gained in the class-room with garden and field practice. It was anticipated, however, that as a result of the past year's work, marked improvement would be shown in the future. Again the agricultural notebook work left much to be desired, and the instructor proposed making this phase of the work a special feature during the incoming year. During the remainder of the present school year the lines to follow in notebook work would be dealt with at the schools visited. In connection with the indoor work generally it would appear that too much was being attempted, particularly as the garden and school ground work tended to increase in importance. This aspect of the matter would receive due attention when the schemes of lessons and experiments were being prepared for next year. The aim would be quality and not quantity. Very creditable work continued to be done with the beautifying of the school grounds throughout the district, and it was safe to claim that the school surroundings would compare more than favourably with those of any other district in New Zealand. Of the schools visited during the past month .'outstanding work had been done at Arrowtown, Limehills and Menzies Ferry, while very pleasing progress had been made at Lumsden and Dipton. During the past month Mr Austin, Inspector of Manual and Technical Training, accompanied by the instructor, visited the schools in the Lakes District. Lumsden, Dipton and Limehills were also visited. No doubt Mr Austin’s report would be forwarded to the board in due course. During the past, week sup- , plies of garden tools were forwarded to several schools including Arthur’s Point, a new school taking agriculture. The report was received.