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54
Physical Exercises and Gymnastics.
(a) County Modern Schools. After five and a half years of
school and curriculum disorganisations, handicapped by inadequate
equipment and acute staffing problems, the standard of
Physical Training and Gymnastics in our County Modern Schools
in the spring of 1945 left much to be desired.
By the end of the year, however, many of our specialist
P.T. teachers had returned from the Forces, deficiencies of P.T.
and games equipment were being rapidly made up, and increased
supplies of plimsolls were being made available by the
Local Authority for the use of children unable to provide their
own. With these improved facilities, it has been possible to
effect not only a general improvement in standard of physical
exercises, but a reinstatement of our local advanced schemes for
senior classes in which gymnastics form an important part.
The temporary closure, pending war damage repairs, of one
of our County Modern Girls' Schools, involving the transfer of
its pupils and the loss of use of its excellent gymnasium, has
been a severe handicap to the development of physical training
not only in this school but also in that affected by the transfer.
Thus, with two schools sharing the facilities of one gymnasium,
neither has been able to secure the accommodation
necessary for the normal requirements of this subject.
(b) County Primary Juniors' Schools. Owing to the
general restriction of supplies of plimsolls, particularly in those
sizes required for use by the younger children, the rate of progress
in the recovery of physical training standards in our
County Primary Schools has been somewhat slower than in our
Modern Schools.
The wearing of boots or heavy shoes for physical exercises
imposes a far greater handicap on the younger child than on the
older, stronger child, limiting and restricting his movements to
a far greater extent, and consequently preventing him from
acquiring such skill and agility as the wearing of plimsolls would
make possible.
Lack of small games equipment and simple gymnastic
apparatus has necessitated the postponement of a number ot
interesting experiments which, before the war, were being conducted
with a view to supplementing the then existing officia
schemes of work for these younger children.