MORE SPACE NEEDED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17573, 25 June 1925, Page 4

MORE SPACE NEEDED.

SOMERFIELD SCHOOL. OVERCROWDED CONDITIONS. Education and discontent appear to go hand in hand in Christchurch. -V tour round many of the city schools yesterday failed to disclose any that tv ere quite satisfied with their existing conditions. Some were overcrowded, some were too cold, and all were within measurable distance of penury. Some had raised money and spent it. and same had endeavoured to “raise” it from the Education Department and failed. There was a skeleton in every cupbogrd. The Somerfield Street School shares with Phillipstown the disability of being overcrowded. There are only seven rooms for ten staff teachers.

The result is that in some eases ther are two staff teachers in the one rooir a thing- that is supposed to he very bac from an educational point of view, b one room which, on the ten square fee per child allowance, there should b< sixty pupils, there are 100. This give an allowance 1 f 6.3 • ■:uai • feet pe child. In another room, in which th< complement should be seventy child reh. there are 100. in addition to t\v< • staff /teachers. Ii a small utside ro im which was n< >t built f< r a s< hooli there are some sixty pupils, a numbe which Tills the room to a state of a! most acute congestion. The trouble i; practit al - all in the i< »w er cl: CROWDED ROOMS. The general impression given by thi classes for the younger children is out of desks filling every available inch <•' floor space and children filling every available inch of desk space; of ; paucity of passageways between the desks and a lack of moving space foi the teachers between the fronts of the foremost desks and the wall. Into 1 1 1 is restricted area are packed the teacher s table and the blackboards and other appurtenances of the room. Everybody is unccmfortablv close to cvervbodv else. IX FAXT REQU IRE.MEX JS. In the infant room there are 101 pupils, two staff teachers and two junior teachers, a total of 10. V Sixty is the regulation complement for that room. Sometimes there is a third junior teacher, and them a shift is made with a portion of the class to the corridor. The Somerfield Street School is quite a nice modern school, well ventilated and lighted and heated, but the corridors an not inviting places. Attention in the matter of lighting and heating has been bestowed on the classrooms, and not on the corridors (one of the main points of difference between modern schools and, say. the East Christchurch School), and the result is that the corridor, as a place for sitting in for any length of time, is chilly and depressing and sombre in its lighting effects. The approved modern method of dealing with the baby 'lasses is to specialise iii indi\ idual ! in the

elucidation of many or the complex problems of elementary education advantage is taken, of the natural bent of every child to he something of 'a with members of the class in the roles of Jiig Hear and Baby Bear. Infant classes therefore make a greater demand on space than do the older classes where the children remain at their desks and arc not called upon to move about the iioor. In the infant room at the Somcrfield Street School the amount of floor space left for the j children to move about is vex >• restricted indeed. Blackboards fill practically every available inch of wall space that is within the roach of the children. These are ruled off into very narrow compartments in order that there may bo a space for each child. Even then, however, there are too many children to permit of them being crowded round the walls, even by parkinß them tight- 1 Iy. So use lias to be ms l>ig boards on the easels. These are also ruled off into narrow spaces. In addition boards are propped against j chairs and use made of them. Seme- ' times it is necessary to have a piano in the room, and then it is rather a work of art getting in the dc'or. TWO !\ ONE. j Conditions arc. if anything, worse i in the room which Standards I and the ; lower third share bet use on them. The j adoption of thi- necessary expedient ! means that there tiro two staff teachers in the room and a hundred children where there should be seventy. T<» the disadvantages of tie crowding thus produced there is added the big handicap ot classes working side by side • in one room in different classes and grades • : work. The two standards are separated by .1 cloth screen f 11 ■ feet high which extends down the centre 'of the room. Lower third, being on , the side of the screen on which the i windows arc situated, arc not inter- , ferod with in the matter of light, but j the screen winch cuts them off front : Standard 1 cuts off, ; Iso. a good share !of t!e> light. Standard 1 knows all ! about the proceeding- of lower third and a ice versa. When ne set iion gets the order ‘ Slates out'” their co-tenants o i ' preci- ! able time hearing what their particular teacher has to talk abs ut. Tlio mutual interruptions and alternating other. ]- is hoped. however, that the state of affairs will not be lon«g continued. The belief was expre—ed by the head yesterday < ; be long before the Education Board | took steps t provide added acccmmo ! datum. THE FRESH AIR, ROOM. The outside room at present occu- 1 pied bv some sixty children was built ] from j4wns prepared by Mr W. Winsor, Ihe funds were provided by residents \ of the district, and the room was intended to be a meeting room. Tt ibuilt on the lines of a modified fresh air room, with big drop window along the northern side that make ir possible for that .-ii’c to be op* nod almost right up. tin the other side arc corresponding but smaller windws. which admit of a free cross current cf air. Th* room is so full that there is just space for the teacher to move about in comfort between the front desk* and the wall. There is one front desk missing, and the gap thus created per- . mits the doer to be opened freely. 1! ’ two more children were shifted into th< class it would h«* more difficult in got into this room than n is into the iu. fant room on piano days. !