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A time-table containing the programmes to be broadcast during the year was published as a leaflet in the February edition of the Education Gazette. The Gazette, which is distributed each month to teachers, also contained notes on the broadcasts. The New Zealand Listener continued to print the weekly programmes in a special panel, and the arrangement by which the programmes were linked where possible with stories and articles in the Education Department's School Journal was maintained. It is difficult to assess the number of schools that listen to the programmes. Schools receiving booklets on 31st March, 1949, numbered 1,993, an increase of 141 on last year's figures. This is not a completely reliable index, but it is estimated that about 75 per cent, of the schools in New Zealand listen to some programme. The Service is grateful for the co-operation it has received from the National Film Library, which has prepared films and film strips for use in the schools as " follow up " material. The National Library Service, too, co-operated by preparing and making available to country schools lists of books which provided additional material to that covered in the broadcasts. During the year officers of the Broadcasts to Schools Section visited schools in both town and country, gave talks and demonstrations, and checked the programme for reception, content, and general interest. Towards the end of the year Miss .Jean Combs, Officer in Charge of the Section, was awarded a bursary by the Imperial Relations Trust to enable her to study the latest developments in schools broadcasting: at the "British Broadcasting Corporation. Miss Combs is at present on special leave for this purpose. The Education Department's Correspondence School continued its bi-weekly broadcasts. These half-hour programmes, arranged and conducted by Correspondence School teachers, included talks on physical education, music and travel and also talks for supervisors. Women's Sessions Regular women's sessions are now established at the four main National stations. Their spoken contents include news of women and their organizations; film, art, and book reviews ; short stories and readings ; cooking and gardening notes ; interviews ; and talks on a wide variety of subjects, among them careers for girls, dress and its origin, early girls' schools in New Zealand, citizenship, handicrafts, women in sport, women authors, and stagecraft. In these sessions distinguished women, both New Zealanders and from overseas, were brought to the microphone. The daily sessions also included the programme " For My Lady," for which over two hundred scripts, ranging in subject from Grand Opera to comedy, were written during the year. Children's Sessions Entertainment for children has an established place in the late afternoon programmes of the main National stations. In addition to radio adaptations of old classics and popular serials and stories, these sessions included a number of specially-arranged quizzes, musical and spoken programmes chosen and conducted by children, and travel and general talks. During Children's Book Week one station broadcast a children's debate on the motion, " That non-fiction is preferable to fiction." Among the children's programmes received from the British Broadcasting Corporation was an unusual Scottish programme " Tammy Troot," which during its first week of presentation from one station drew many letters of appreciation from listeners. On Sunday evenings special children's song services were broadcast in collaboration with the clergy of the various churches. The Service again wishes to thank those people who throughout the year have given voluntary assistance to programme organizers in the presentation of children's sessions.

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