85 BABIES IN ROOM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17571, 23 June 1925, Page 8

85 BABIES IN ROOM.

SERIOUS OVERCROWDING many children shut out. PHILLIPSTOWN SCHOOL. Jf you have a room that should accommodate fifty children and actually accommodates varying numbers up to about a hundred, and there are thirty other children on the doorstep asking lor admission, and there is nowhere else for them to go, what are you going to do about it?’’ That, according to members of the committee of the PhiUipstown school, is the problem which confronts the head master of that institution. The infant department, they say, is grossly overcrowded, and they demand that something should be done about it. This morning members of the committee inspected the infant department. CROWDED BABIES. Tilt overcrowded part cf the school is the infant department- Mr Maxwell has succeeded in keeping the classes in the standards at an average number of between fifty and sixty. It is the number of children seeking admission to the school in the infant branch that causes the congestion in some of the rooms. When the new’ classes were formed up oil December 12, 1924, after the promotions had been made, there were thirty-four children left in the lowest primer class. None of these thirty-four had been at school longer than two months. Since then there

have been admitted into the infant department seventy-four children. The babies, said Mr Maxwell, were the lowest class in the school and they had to receive the careful individual attention of the infant mistress. The position in May was that there were 103 little babies in the one crowded room. There was no room for them anywhere else. During the first week after the re-open-ing of the schools the number of children admitted to the school was sixtytwo. The policy pursued, said Mr Maxwell, was to move the children up from the lowest class or classes in the infant school as quickly as possible. That was more than ever necessary in a case such as PhiUipstown in order to relieve the congestion. Twice this year pupils had been promoted from the lowest infant class.

RAPID PROMOTIONS. “ Last week, as the result of promotion,” said Mr Maxwell, “ there were ninety-three infants left in the babies' room. This week we have made further promotions of those fit to go up, and the total number now in the room is eighty-five- The dimensions of that room are exactly twenty-two feet by thirty, which gives you 660 square feet. On the Department’s own showing the minimum allowance should be ten feet for each child, and therefore the very outside number that should be in that room is sixty-s’x. But. remember, this is an infant room, and modern ideas are firm in the direction of stressing the need for absolute freedom pf movement on the part of children in the infant school. When you consider that individual work is a feature of our modern methods of teaching infants and the necessity for freedom of movement, the utmost capacity of this room, if the maximum efficiency in the work is to be maintained, can be put down at fifty. Yet in this room, also, there are the infant mistress and her assistant and four students going through part of their course in connection with the training college.” CHILDREN SHUT OUT. Mr Maxwell said that owing to the congested state of the room he had had to refuse admission to between thirty and forty, infants. They were all oi school age and all lived close to the school. The parents of all these children had been informed that the children would be admitted to the school in about two months’ time. During that period it would be possible to make promotions and so provide the accommodation for these children. ” But now the prob-

where am I going to find room for these children? Not only am I faced with this fact, that there are somewhere about thirty children I know of to be admitted, which will bring this infant room back again to its congested state, but at my disposal for the promoted pupils I have only an enclosed space in a corridor, a space that is at present being used as a school room. The area of this space is eighteen feet by twenty. Therefore it should not accommodate more than thirty-six pupils. At the preseent time there are thirtysix in these so it is really full. Of course there will be promotions from that class, but in the next primer there are forty-three children, but the higher we get the less is the likelihood of quick promotion.” It was the infants that presented the particular difficulty, he pointed out. Infants could not be sent long distances. In the higher standards children could walk some distance to school, but in the case of the infants it was not possible to send them right up to East Christchurch. “ There is never a clay passes in this school,” said Mr Maxwell, “ unless admissions are asked for. I have admitted three already this morning.” There weerh, he said, no children from outside districts attending the school, but there were many children in that distret who were attending outside schools. If it had been possible to grant admission to all who sought admission the roll number of the school -would have been between 1300 and 1100. CHALK, BOARDS AND BABIES. A visit was paid to several of the | school rooms with a view to illustrating the position that exists. In the stand* i ards there was no overcrowding—the classes were-comfortably filled, the idea

being to keep the strength round about fifty. In the youngest infant class the children were ranged all round the ) walls working assiduously with chalk f on boards and learning the mysterious i processes associated with the art of j making the figure seven. All the wall I space was devoted to boards, the fronts of desks were covered with boards and the backs of the teachers’ chairs were covered with boards, and. in addition, there were boards propped against the fronts of chairs in the middle of the room: Children were clustered round each piece of board. Some were mounted on little chairs writing on boards that were placed over the heaters, a proceeding that filled the infant mistress with apprehensions and constant visions of falls. To prove that these fears were not groundless, a little girl went sprawling to the floor while the visitors were in the room. .She was picked up. petted and put back on her perch, fortunately none the worse for the tumble. There could be no doubt, however, as to the substantial basis for the complaint that the room was grossly overcrowded. The student teachers were doing their best to help the children, squeezing into corners with them, "•rigging in between desks and the wall, or sitting on the floor with the kiddies at the bottom boards. It was a chalky and dusty business, and some of the children in these floor groups gave evidence of a greater capacity for putting chalk all over themselves than for getting it on to the boards. OUT IN THE CORRIDOR. When these kiddies arc promoted they get into the corridor and share the dignity and prestige of P. 2 with the washing basins and the big heater. This corridor accommodation was provided twelve months ago—as a strictly temporary expedient. It is felt that it is rapidly losing its claim to the term temporary. It is full of children who get a good view through the only window’s provided of the hills to the south, and if there is sunshine they can see it—on the hills. ” There isn’t even room for a cupboard,” was the way the mistress summed up the shortcomings of the accommodation in the matter of space. To the members of the committee this corridor room is the particular bugbear of the school. It is a breeding ground, they declare for every kind of illness that affects young children, and renders it practically certain that if any complaint is contracted by a child which goes to that room the conditions are such as to render it. almost certain that the complaint will become epidemic. The committee of the PhiUipstown School have a number of other complaints. There is insufficient pla}--ground accommodation and the matter of incidentals can only be adequately discussed in a low tone when ladies are net present. It was, however, to the infant school and the first and second baby classes that particular attention was paid by the party this morning. It is there that the conditions call loudest for immediate remedy.