PLAY CENTRE AT WHAKATUTU by W. Haymes Whatatutu is about 10 miles inland from Gisborne. Mr Haymes, who sent in this account of the establishment of a play centre there, is head teacher at the Whatatutu School. It all began over 18 months ago now, when one afternoon after school the Infant Mistress, Miss Ngaire Pewhairangi, and I got together to see if something could be done to assist these bright-eyed Maori youngsters, youngsters who when they entered school lacked some of the experiences that many other five-year-olds had. We had heard how successful play centres had been in other communities, and we felt that this kind of pre-school education would be valuable for our children also. We had heard, too, how the play centre movement provides ways of increasing the contact and communication between parents and their children, how it allows the Mums and Dads to learn from the children at the same time that the children learn with Mum and Dad.

How Do You Begin? How do we go about starting a play centre though? How do we run one? What facilities and equipment do we need? Where will all the equipment and finance come from? Who could help with the running of the centre? These were but a few of the multitude of posers which immediately presented themselves. The first thing, though, was to introduce the idea to our community and to see whether they felt that a play centre could be of benefit to them and their children.

Use of Spare Schoolroom Thanks to Miss Pewhairangi a very brief but extremely valuable meeting with Mr A. Grey, pre-school officer with the Maori Education Foundation, was arranged at Te Karaka one morning in August. After this, the play centre movement was discussed at other gatherings, some well attended, others not so well attend- The Whatatutu play centre has the enthusiastic support of the parents, who find that this early experience is of great value to their children when they start attending school. Photography by Ans Westra Some equipment was given to the centre, some was made by the children's fathers, and some was bought with funds raised by the Committee. Sessions are held every Tuesday afternoon in a spare room at the school.