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146
PHYSICAL TRAINING.
(a) Girls' and Infants' Departments.
The physical training is conducted by the teachers in the
schools, and is supervised by the Organiser of Physical Training,
Miss Appleton, who reports as follows: —
Report for 1924 of the Organiser of Physical Training, Girls' Senior
Mixed, Junior Mixed and Infants' Departments.
Six sessions weekly, as hitherto, have been devoted to physical
education in the Elementary Schools and four sessions weekly
to the Remedial Exercises Clinic.
Physical training in the schools has been hampered by the bad
weather experienced during the year, especially in those schools
without a hall. The exercises have been adapted for class-room
lessons, and only under exceptional circumstances have the
lessons not been taken; but the larger movements, such as running,
jumping, agility exercises and games can only be taken in
the playgrounds, and there has been an exceptional number of
days during 1924 when these were too wet to be used. Classes
are taken into the open air for all their physical training whenever
possible, but a really wet ground surface makes it unwise for
children to exercise out of doors, especially in those schools where
the footgear is poor.
The appointment of three more teachers holding the Reading
University College diploma in Physical Education has made it
possible for three more girls' departments to specialise in physical
training. These teachers are not able to take all the physical training
of the school to which they are attached, but their work and
wider experience in physical education has increased the enthusiasm
of the school generally. With this exception, the physical
education of the children in all elementary and central schools has
been carried on by the class teachers, and the standard of efficiency
has been well maintained on the whole, although some teachers
still lack that wider vision of physical education which recognises
that "the physical condition of the child, its health, development
and general fitness and efficiency is the basis upon which all mental
training must be founded," and therefore, not only formal exercises,
but recreative exercises, games, swimming, athletics, folk
and country dancing must form part of the curriculum of everv
normal child in our schools. That many of those to whom has
been entrusted the physical education in the schools have this
wider view is evidenced by the progress made in the work of the