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Growing Up In New Zealand 1925-1950
Part 6 - Attending Primary School In The Country
Dorothy - 8/12/00
You can read the previous part in the Growing up in New Zealand 1925 - 1950 series
here, or read the articles from the original Growing Up in
New Zealand series.
In the period 1925-1950 getting to school often involved problems for
country children. In sole charge schools the quality of their education
was dependent on the work of one teacher often over several years. They
often lacked the extra activities provided in the city schools.
Recreational and sporting activities often depended on the enterprise of
the pupils and home made equipment. For those in remote areas the solution
was to enrol with the Correspondence School.
Robert experienced long, tiring schooldays
Robert lived on a farm in Grehan Valley
at Akaroa. The family had no car.
He used to go to school on a pony, but after a time there were three in the
family riding that pony to school and when they became too heavy for it
they had to walk. This meant a walk of around three miles. Because they
were just under three miles from the school they did not qualify to travel
on a school bus. When Robert's sister broke her arm the committee
controlling the school bus routes decided that they were near enough to the
three miles to qualify for bus transport. However to catch the bus they
had to walk across a plank which served as a bridge over the creek which
ran between their house and the road. If the creek was in flood they had
to walk some distance down the valley to where there was a bridge to give
them access to the road.
Robert spent his first six months of schooling at the convent school as it
was not so far to walk. Especially for the oldest child in a family who had
never been far from the farm going to school was a strange experience. On
the first day he followed the pattern of his days at home where when he was
tired he would find a sheltered place on the farm and go to sleep. When
it was lunchtime on his first day he wandered across the road to the
recreation ground which had a small grandstand. He stretched out on one of
the seats and fell asleep. Meanwhile the whole school was out searching
for him.
"It took us an hour to walk to school and another hour to walk home. Then
from the time I was nine years old I had to help my father hand milk the
cows. After all that I did not feel very interested in doing homework, but
my mother used to hear me do my reading and we had spelling to learn.
Pets Day
"I don't remember having a school picnic, but I do remember the highlight
of the year which was Pets Day. My brother and I each took a calf. As our
family had no truck and Pets Day was held at Duvauchelle, we had to lead
our calves down the road to the farm of a neighbour who had a truck. We
used to stand on the tray of the truck all the way to Duvauchelle - a
distance of over six miles.
"My sisters may have taken pet lambs to Pets Day, but the competitions for
cooking, sewing and flower arranging were the special part of Pets Day for
the girls.
Manual training
"At Akaroa Borough School we had manual training in Standard 5 and 6 with a
specialist teacher at a centre also used by the High School.
Competitive sport
"We took part in rugby and basketball competitions for country schools held
annually in Hagley Park in Christchurch. We would be taken by bus over the
hill to Little River and then travel by train to Christchurch."
Travelling to school by launch
Maurie lived at Diamond Harbour on the opposite side of the Lyttelton
Harbour from the town of Lyttelton. To go to school in Lyttelton he had to
catch the launch every day at 8 a.m. and wait until 5 p.m. for the launch
which took the workers back to Diamond Harbour. The launch would do the
trips in quite heavy seas and cancellations for bad weather were rare.
Several children travelled by launch, but there were not sufficient numbers
to justify having a school in Diamond Harbour until late in the 1940s.
Sole charge schools
The teacher in a sole charge school teaching children from beginners to
what was then called Standard 6 had a demanding job. Teachers were trained
for country service while at Training College. A 'model country school'
was established in the cities where there were Training Colleges for
teachers to learn the appropriate skills for teaching classes with a wide
age range. Some teachers found the task very difficult and ruled their
classes with the threat and use of corporal punishment. For children who
were lucky enough to have a gifted teacher a sole charge school provided a
good experience. If there was a poor teacher they had no chance of a
change of teacher for seven or eight years unless the teacher moved to
another school.
The photograph of the children at the sole charge Irwell School in the mid
1930s demonstrates the wide age range.
Pat R first attended a small school in Arapuni, the village for those
working on the Arapuni power scheme. When her family moved to Auckland it
was a big change in lifestyle, but her schooldays were little different as
she was placed in a two-roomed country model school with only three
children in Standard 5 and in Standard 6. The big change came when she
began attending Epsom Girls' Grammar School and was in a class of thiry
five.
David fortunate in his experience in a sole charge school
David started school at Little Akaloa. He recalls it clearly. "Shortly
after I started school my parents bought me a pony called Felix to ride to
school. It took half an hour to ride there. The school grounds were
sizable and I could tie the pony up to the fence there. About eighteen
months after I got my pony it developed pink eye, a disease that is
apparently fairly common in horses, and despite our best efforts to care
for him he eventually died.
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David on Felix
Photo source David Kay
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"Then I ran down to the school, which was near the sea, from 800 feet above
sea level. I used to run down in about four minutes and walking briskly it
took me half an hour to walk uphill."
For David attending the small school at Little Akaloa was a happy
experience. Each pupil counted as an individual.
"Miss Annie Joyce was the teacher in the sole charge school and remained
there for many years. There were about fourteen pupils in the school. I
liked going to school there. It was a sort of glorified kindergarten. One
day I went to school and proudly told Miss Joyce that I could spell
'dominion'. She was suitably impressed.
"1940 was the Centennial year for Akaroa and each school on the Peninsula
put a float in the procession. I clearly remember our float. It was
mounted on a farm truck and was a four poster bed with a frieze around the
top. On the canvas were painted scenes of transport and farming life.
There was a train featured on the frieze and that was my contribution to
the decoration.
"I was very keen on trains and I took the engine of my train set to school
and gave a morning talk about it. It was very special to me because it was
a Hornby engine. It had the letters NZR on it. The Hornby factory turned
out thousands of such engines for New Zealand. It is now a collectors'
item.
"We were by the beach but we were not taught to swim. We had a tennis
court at home, but there were not enough children at the school for
organised games."
A strict regime at Irwell
Adelaide began her schooldays at Irwell School. She remembers the
discipline as being very strict, especially under the second teacher.
She began the day by milking a cow before setting out for school. To reach
the school she walked down the farm drive to the gate and a family from two
miles further down the road took her to school at first by horse and cart
and later by car. If they were not going to school she had to walk one
and a half miles by herself to school. Walking and active sports were
sometimes difficult for her as she had a problem with her knee joints which
would go out without warning causing severe pain. There was no telephone
at the farm or at the school, so on one occasion she had to hobble all the
way home with a very painful knee.
A highlight of Adelaide's schooldays was being a member of a mandolin band.
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The Irwell mandolin band
Photo source Adelaide Page (née Wise)
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"The teacher, Mr Saunders, said that he would give pupils free tuition if
their parents would buy the instruments. The teacher at nearby Doyleston
School had a concert party and the mandolin band would join in. We even
played on the radio at station 3YA. I was very sorry when Mr Saunders left
as that meant the end of the Irwell band."
Pupils at small country schools did not attend manual training, but they
were taught many skills at home. At the Leeston flower show children were
encouraged to enter cooking and sewing competitions. Adelaide won cups for
cooking.
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Adelaide with the cups she
won for cooking
Photo source Adelaide Page (née Wise)
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At Irwell School they had vegetable gardens on the site and kept a book
recording their progress. Adelaide grew wheat in her garden as she was
given wheat seeds by a neighbour. The pupils were also taught sewing by
the teacher's wife. Aelaide became very interested in doing embroidery,
and greatly appreciated being taught this hobby when she was kept inactive
by later surgery on her knees.
Judith experienced a sole charge and a consolidated school
When Judith started school the family did not have a car so she walked a
mile along an unsealed road to unhappy days of fear in a classroom
controlled by the strap. Then after one year in 1937 the school was closed
and the children were taken by bus to what was termed a consolidated school
in the country town of Leeston. Here she feels that she enjoyed most of
the benefits of a city school and also some activities not available to
city children.
Two special rural activities
Pet parades
Judith remembers the Pet parades as very special events.
"Several small schools united to hold a mini-farm show. Pet lambs and
calves were the main exhibits. Children reared and trained these from
birth and kept a project book. The animals were paraded and judged in
December. Other pets were brought along mainly as fun items. Parents and
children enjoyed a picnic day."
School gardens
In spring seeds of flowers and vegetables were issued to children who
wanted to enter the garden competition. With a little parental help
regulation size plots were dug and planted in the home garden. These were
tended until judging time in February. Again project books were kept.
Long days at Southbridge
Kath looks back on her days at Southbridge school. She had to work hard.
"From the time I was in Standard 1 I had to hand milk six cows every
morning. My father got up and made us a cup of tea and gave us a piece of
ginger cake before we started the milking. Then I had breakfast and had to
walk two and a half miles to school. The school bus started in 1945, but
soon after that I had to leave school and help on the farm."
School gardens
At Southbridge the children all had gardens in the school grounds. There
were vegetable plots and rose gardens and Kath particularly remembers the
borders of small golden marigolds called tageties, a plant you cannot buy
in the nurseries now.
The school picnic
For the picnic the children travelled on the backs of trucks to the picnic
grounds at Coe's Ford - a highlight of the year.
Schooldays in Courtenay
Stewart grew up in the Courtenay district. He had to walk three quarters
of a mile along the Old West Coast Road after milking cows before
breakfast.
"It was not sealed, but was just shingle and grass. In wet weather in
winter it was more like a track than a road. Dad took me on the first day,
but after that I had to go on my own until three children around my age
started coming from further up the road.
"The road ran parallel to the Waimakariri River and sometimes we went home
by the riverbed and tried our hand at tickling trout. I remember being
punished by my father for doing that.
"At school we had a lady teacher, Mary Hunter, and it was good being at
school with her as long as we obeyed. The discipline was strict. The
school consisted of a huge room with a fireplace and an enormous kettle
hung over the fire to make hot cocoa for us at midday. I remember the
kettle as being so heavy that it took two people to lift it.
"We didn't have organised sports but we made our own fun. We made a
temporary grass tennis court. We kicked around soccer and rugby balls. To
play hockey we had to cut sticks from broom bushes.
"We had a school picnic each year. Once we went by train from Kirwee to
Christchurch and caught the tram to Sumner. We also went in cars to one of
the North Canterbury beaches - Leithfield, Waikuku, or Kairaki. It was a
great novelty to be able to buy pies for lunch. After lunch we would have
sports, a lolly scramble and a prize giving and we arrived home very
late.
"My father had a Model T Ford and I loved travelling in the dickey-seat at
the back wrapped in rugs. To go to one of the beaches for the picnic we
had to travel on shingle roads except for the Main North Road, and we
crossed the Waimakariri River on the old single lane bridge. The trip was
about forty miles, and the Model T Ford could travel at twenty to twenty
five miles an hour."
Correspondence schools
In 1922 the New Zealand Correspondence School was established and children
who lived in remote areas where there was no school could be educated in
this way. Supervising correspondence lessons was usually another task for
the already busy farmer's wife. Sometimes a governess would be employed to
supervise the correspondence lessons and teach addtional lessons. This
was the solution favoured by the families in the remote
Clarence Valley for
primary education for their family.
Read Growing Up In New Zealand 1925-50Christmas Stories.
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