Organisation, Curriculum, and Standard of Work (continued)

SCIENCE (continued)

to discuss what they are doing. The available facilities for practical work are well used, but it has not been found possible to carry out local biological field study. Practical lessons are well organised, and during the inspection several good demonstration lessons were given which involved profitable discussion. The recording of practical work and the compiling of notes are matters which might be considered by the science staff; an effort is made to train boys to write their accounts of experiments in their own words, but much of the recording is in the form of given notes; the value of this system might be queried and encouragement given to developing methods which make more demands on individual thought. Some of the written answers to questions are very sensibly and carefully corrected, for example in zoology and botany.

A good knowledge of the subject is acquired in the more able forms; the less able pupils find difficulty in covering the same range of material, and this leads to some superficiality in their grasp of their work. In the sixth form a tradition of serious, thoughtful work of a good standard in physics and chemistry is being established; the few boys taking biological subjects reach a reasonable level.

ART AND CRAFT

The work in this department is good. Two teachers, both holding graduate status, share the work between them. There are two large, well-equipped roans, but it is a pity that they are not sited together. However, both teachers manage very well, and it is evident from the work that they cover a wide field of interest and in turn convey all the excitement of creative work to the boys. The standard of work at its best is very good, especially so in view of the fact that after the second year A-stream boys do not take the subject. This is most regrettable as it deprives the department of the more able boys at a very early stage and hinders their progress, when later, namely in the sixth form, quite a number opt for the subject at advanced examination level and find that in some cases their skill does not measure up to their intellectual standards.

However, the rest of the boys gain much from their teachers in both drawing and painting and in crafts. The school is well equipped for pottery and modelling, and to this, in time, could be added carving in wood and stone. Colour line-block printing is already in being, and if a press could be installed much could be done in the development of other processes. Model making and three dimensional work in wood and metal needs a small amount of apparatus to further its development.

Full use is made of wall space in the school for mural painting. This is to be encouraged, especially now that the boys and staff work together.

HANDICRAFT AND TECHNICAL DRAWING

With well equipped workshops for woodwork and metalwork the school has good facilities for handicraft. Unfortunately, during the first two years, boys have only fortnightly lessons, alternating, in most instances, with art. Boys in the A forms, who take woodwork during their first two years, drop handicraft thereafter from their timetable. Pupils in the other forms, who take woodwork in their first and metalwork in their second years, have the

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