OPEN AIR SCHOOLS

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17750, 29 June 1929, Page 6

OPEN AIR SCHOOLS

“I wish you great success in every way in your health w r ork in New Zealand,” writes Sir George Newman, Principal Medical Officer of Health in England, referring to the work of the OpenAir School League in New Zealand, in a communication received recently in Christchurch. “I agree about the advantages of open-air schools,” says Sir George. “We now have about one hundred schools, with 18,000 children, w'hich is good, but not good enough. The effect of the open-air school movement in England, however, cannot, I think, be measured by the number of open-air schools, but by the profound influence which the open-air school movement has exercised upon all other schools. This influence has not only changed their practice but has modilled the planning of the ordinary schools. Many of the new schools of the ordinary type have been so built structurally as to be, in fact, open-air schools, although they are not so named. I wish you great success in every way in your health work in New Zealand.”

The hundred schools referred to by Sir George Newsman are special schools for sick children. Each of these schools has a special .curriculum, in which the main stress is laid upon giving the child an active, healthy life- At the same time the lessons are modified to suit the conditions under which the children work. The work is carried out mainly in the open-air and the class rooms are used only when it is actually raining, or snowing, and a number of these class-rooms are totally without methods of heating. Consequently periods of exercise between lessons have to be frequent. The whole curriculum is designed with the object of making the work as practical as possible, so that the children'move about while they are working. Instead of this being a disadvantage, it has been found that the ordinary scholastic work of the children is very good indeed, especially when it is taken into consideration that they are not robust in health. Sir George Newman has observed the working of these schools for many years past, and has been, perhaps, the strongest advocate of the open-air schools method in England, and, probably, no one is qualified to speak with more authoi’ity than he upon this subject.