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175
and so bring them safely home after an adventurous week-end.
Ten of the borough's teachers have embarked on this demanding
course in order to gain this qualification. It was hoped that a
Mountain Centre would be established in North Wales to further
the safe development of work in this field of physical education
—a comparatively new one so far as the schools are concerned.
Unfortunately, financial stringencies have prevented progress with
this project. For the time being a limited use of part of the
Mountain Centre purchased by the London Borough of Hillingdon
has been obtained, but this can only be a temporary solution since
that borough will soon need all its accommodation for its own
people.
Crystal Palace N.R.C. Course
The nearness of the time when all pupils will stay at school
until they are sixteen posed a physical education problem which
was examined through a pilot scheme developed at The National
Recreation Centre. Two boys' and two girls' secondary schools
each sent twenty-four pupils on Wednesday evenings after school
to the Centre for twenty weeks. Sixteen courses were made available
and each pupil chose four to be practised, each for five
weeks. Comments from the ninety-six young people as well as
from the instructors were invited, and it was almost universally
agreed that this kind of approach was worthwhile and satisfying
enough to stimulate further practice and also long enough to
gain sufficient skill.
The activities, which included Judo, Trampolining, Indoor
Tennis, Volley Ball, Life Saving, Fencing, Archery and Badminton,
were chosen because schools have had difficulty in providing
adequate facilities and equipment for these sports in the past.
Another difficulty experienced by the schools is the shortage of
trained and qualified staff in such sports as Judo, Fencing,
Archery, Olympic Gymnastics and Volley Ball.
Swimming
During the year many pupils gained awards in Survival
Swimming and Life Saving. Very many more gained distance
certificates up to a quarter of a mile and a good number gained
the new Proficiency Swimming Certificate of the London Borough
of Bromley. This award seeks to test whether a pupil is completely
at home in or below the water and was designed to
encourage the teaching of all the skills in the early stages so
that a child should never panic while swimming. It is recorded
with great pleasure that the first boy to gain this award came
from a school for the less able child.
In October the Bromley Schools acting in concert with
Division II (Kent and Surrey) of The English Schools' Swimming
Association, acted as hosts to the rest of the country in the