INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 134, 8 June 1937, Page 6

INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS

, IMPORTANCE STRESSED MEWS OF MINISTER The importance and value of interi mediate schools in the New Zealand | system of education was referred to ! yesterday by the Minister of Education (Hon. P. Fraser). He said that he had been unable to see the Wanganui Intermediate School at work, but would come to Wanganui again for that purpose. “But I saw the girls and boys and I was cheered by their spontaneity and brightness,” Mr. Fraser told the members of the Wanganui Education Board later. “I went into some of the classrooms and I could see how excellent the work they were doing was.” The speaker stressed the importance of the intermediate school in its function of training the children after they had passed the fourth standard. “I was impressed with what I saw in those classrooms,” the Minister added, “and I am a great deal surprised that any parents should be rc- ! luctant to send their children to that * school. (Applause’’. 1 would like the parents to be given an invitation to see the school at work, and I have invited myself to come back and study the excellent work as it is being done.” Mr. Fraser referred to the gathering of children from several schools at II years of age. They came there at a bright age to meet other children, he said, unconsciously competing with one another and becoming a great social entity, as it were. Mr. M. H. Oram said that the Palmerston North school committees had been unanimously in favour of an intermediate school, and the only question there' was whether to establish a new building or to extend College Street School. The speaker said that he and every member of the board had been pleased at the pronouncement of the Minister with regard to intermediate schools.