NEW EQUIPMENT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

Southland Times, Issue 23443, 25 February 1938, Page 7

NEW EQUIPMENT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

BIG ADVANTAGE IN EDUCATION The Invercargill Middle School is now well able to lay claims to being the best-equipped school in Southland with the installation of apparatus designed to help the scholastic progress of the children. Efforts by the school committee, school concerts and donations resulted in sufficient money being raised to purchase this equipment and the Middle School may be ranked as one of the most modem in the Dominion. A combined wireless and gramophone cabinet with a microphone attached has been installed in the head master’s room with the result that he is able to control the whole of the school from his office. Loudspeakers have been placed in all the nine class rooms and can operate simultaneously or one at a time. The advantages of this scheme are evident. The educational talks from the YA studios can be relayed to all the pupils or, if reception is not good, gramophone records can be played. A feature of the apparatus is its independence. If talks by radio or gramophone are not desired, the headmaster can arrange a talk by himself or by any visitor to the whole school. The machine is a portable one and may be transferred to the school grounds where drill is performed to music. Educational films with a very wide and varied range of subjects can . be shown to the school pupils by medium of the new film projector that the committee has purchased. Not only may films be projected on to the screen, but lantern slides may also be shown. This is made possible by a reflector that acts almost simultaneously with the projector. For instance a lantern slide can be flashed on the screen and it is almost immediately followed by a paragraph explaining the picture. On each spool of film there are 50 pictures and the number of these films available is so great that there will never be any lack of material. In addition to these improvements a large collection of books and reading cards has been bought for the infant department. Arrangements have been made for a percussion band to be formed in the school and 50 instruments are on order for pupils. The school committee has shown initiative in the installation of this new eouipment and it is assured that the education of the children will be much more varied and complete.