Les Taylor 1954-1980
“On my arrival at Stratford Primary School in 1954 I was greatly impressed by the magnificence of the buildings and their setting, but as I walked down the main corridor with the then newly appointed Headmaster, Mr Pattison, I remember him asking me if I had noticed anything unusual about the school. All the desks were the very old, heavy, double-lift type, battered and ink-stained and the teachers desks were of similar vintage and condition. They certainly looked out of place in those new rimu-panelled classrooms. As a new-comer to the staff, however, those beautiful new rooms were not for me. I was banished to one of a row of four pre-fabite classrooms set well behind and below the main school buildings. The floors of the prefabs were of pine and so were peppered with holes where the knots had fallen out. You can imagine the draughts that whistled up through them. And when it rained on those unlined roofs the din drowned out any attempts to talk.”
Quote Stratford Primary School Centennial book.
Marie Wall (nee Peik) Pupil to Teacher
Stratford Primary School in the 1930s.
“Many of the children at that time came from families hard hit by the slump. A few lived in tents, (through Stratford winters); a few more went from door to door asking for old clothes, and yet I remember only two “solo” families as they would now be called, and the suppers provided by parents for the annual Fancy Dress Ball.”
Quote Stratford Primary School Centennial book.
Labels: spsjubilee07
1 Comments:
I started teaching at Stratford Primary in 1972.One of my first classrooms was the last of the old prefabs mentioned by Les Taylor, situated south of Rooms 14 and 15.By 1972 the knot holes had increased and the draughts were horrendous. The children had a great time when it was a wet interval or lunchtime because few of the staff on duty were prepared to wade across the netball court and down the hill to the prefab, and if anyone was brave enough to venture down, the "lookout" pupil gave the others plenty of warning.Some years later I was relieving at the School when the prefab was being relocated to the Museum near Lake Mangamahoe. The ground underneath was littered with all the "treasures" that had been "posted" though the knotholes over the years.This was when my children were pre-schoolers. Angela started school in 1978 and her new entrant class numbers grew to well over 40 in Term 2. I offered to go and help Lorna with reading between interval and lunchtime. Bridget would play in the Wendy house and Andrew would sleep in his pram.I often used to arrive at school just before interval and leave Andrew sleeping in his pram at the bottom of the steps near the principal's office. One morning I came back down stairs and the pram was gone!! Panic!! Then down the corridor came the culprits, Paul Bremer and Lindsay Abbott, wheeling the pram with Andrew still fast asleep. "Just practising" they told me.
In the 1970' and 1980's under Lorna Maxwell's leadership, the Infant block was a busy, progressive place. I taught in Room 13 (remember the Wendy House?) from 1981-1987. We had some great occasions, with Joy Berg, Wendy Foster, Jan Kennedy, Eileen Reynell, Diane Lithgow, Beatrice Hughes,Shirley Kissick and other excellent teachers.Princess Diana and Prince Charles' wedding was one of them with Toni Downs as Princess Di and Kent Wellington as Charles.Girls who had been flowergirls dressed up in their dresses. Heather Savage was recently married and she and some other recent brides wore their dresses again too. The rest of the children were dressed as the guests. "Charles" and "Di" had a carriage and a splendid cardboard wedding cake, several tiers high. Rooms 9 and 10 were set up with tressles and chairs and everyone sat down to the Wedding Breakfast (a shared lunch).On another occasion, each of the classrooms was decorated (over a weekend) as a "country" and the children were issued with passports and visited each country. Room 13 was converted into Fairyland, a big cave (with the use of a lot of black plastic), and decorated with glowbug? dolls which were popular at the time,fairy lights etc. Joy Berg converted Room 10 into an outer space country with several miles of silver milk bottle top tin foil leftovers which transformed the Room onto a silver futuristic palace. I can't remember the other rooms-someone else who reads this will.
The School Centennial year was a great celebration with a number of events involving the children, including the Centennial Circus which was a School production.
I was the first Reading Recovery teacher at Stratford Primary, and had a very little room across the corridor from Rooms 12 and 13 (it has now been converted into a book resource room, combined with another area.)I took Reading Recovery in the mornings and taught in Room 13 in the afternoons. I had some great team-teachers-Sandy Knowles, Vicky Bragg (now Caskey) and Faye Rinaldi, to mention a few. Lorna Maxwell and I both left at the end of 1987. My three children had attended the School and gained a great education there.
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