More Info →Group discussion Part 2, early school days - Manawatu Conversations

Description: Broadcast on Manawatu People's Radio, 17th September 2024.

Anne Weir – first days at school were different from anything she had experienced. The school had an outdoor unheated swimming pool. Enjoyed going to school and loved arithmetic. Still has her schoolbooks. Classes went on nature walks.

Alison Mildon started school near the end of the year on her birthday and attended the fancy dress ball as a fairy. Children could use school swimming pool without supervision. Girls had to do sewing while boys did gardening. She would have preferred gardening. Associates the school toilets with horrible smell of Lifebuoy soap.

Stuart Birks went to school in England. Danced around a maypole with music from a windup gramophone. Did the times tables by rote.

Mike Lawrence started school in the 1940s. The school had a belfry with the rope from the bell hanging in the school foyer. Learned to read by phonics and associating words with pictures. Cuisenaire sticks – coloured sticks of different lengths used for teaching mathematics.