Going home to mum. For some of these children the ‘bus’ trip home will last three hours. MATAKANA ACHIEVEMENT There is one difference between the school at Matakana Island—the island that stretches along the coast opposite Tauranga Harbour—and the schools of various other outback communities. It may be a trivial difference but it is a significant one. It is well known that the Education Department made a great contribution to progress in isolated communities by putting bathing facilities for the children in the schools. In some places all the children are bathed. In Matakana Island however, where there are absolutely no aids to man except horses, rain-tanks and one small aeroplane, only a small minority of the children need the use of the school showers. Nothing could tell more of Matakana Island's 400 inhabitants, nearly all Maori, than the children. Apart from the few that live around the school they arrive in the morning in three so-called ‘school buses’. Two of them are drawn by four horses, and another, the big champion bus, is drawn by six. One of the little buses stands on the beach underneath a tree. The big one stands on a paddock at the back of the school. There the buses wait until the afternoon when, first the horses arrive and the drivers, and then the children climb on for the ride home. The small buses take an hour to get home; the big one takes three hours. First it gallops along Matakana's only road, a mile of clay road from the school to the jetty, then it slowly descends to the beach, turns to the right and plods its way along the Matakana Jetty.