REMODELLED

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 78, 11 March 1931, Page 7

REMODELLED

THE MIDHIRST SCHOOL' A FINE BUILDING The Midhirst School, which was built 50 years ago, has been remodelled and with a grant of to spend, the Taranaki Education Board's architect, Mr. C. H. Moore, has effected a transformation in the building. He has re-designed the school to provide separate entrances for senior and junior scholars. Both open into porches fitted with handbasins, pupils proceeding thence to classrooms through wide corridors that serve also as cloakrooms, though the two divisions do not mix. This is an advantage from several points of view and will be found very convenient later on, because Midhirst is classed as an examination centre, where pupils from surrounding schools sit for proficiency examinations. There are the same number of rooms, but now they all face to the north, and the whole of the outer wall consists of tall wide windows of the type that open to promote perfect ventilation without draughts. This is more readily effected as the current of fresh air can also be controlled by a system of windows along the inner wall which depend upon other windows at the rear of the building and opposite the corridors. The roof has been raised about two feet, creating an impression of airy lightness that must be more healthy for the classes.

For heating in the winter there are pipes round the walls supplied by hot water from unique furnaces claimed to be highly economical and very efficient. On test, the furnaces circulated boiling wafer through the pipes 15 minutes after the lire was lighted. At the end of the corridor n the junior division a small room has been furnished to serve as a common room for the staff. Meanwhile, the committee has the matter of ground improvements in hand and proposes extending the concrete area at the rear and to concrete paths right round to the entrance gate. For over twelve months .the committee has been working to collect funds, and it intends to plough the playing ground, re-grade the surface toward the creek and sow it down in new grass. When that is finished, Midhirst will have a splendid school, built upon ihe latest scientific principles and possessed of an enviable level area of smooth sward extending for about two acres and hounded on the south by the row of shelter sheds.