View report page

64
The Valentines School has recently been bought by the
Authority, and extensive improvements have been carried
out in providing new sanitary, lavatory, and cloak.room
accommodation, altering' the class.room accommodation, and
improving the ventilating arrangements. A suitable tarred
playground has been provided, and dual desks have also
been installed.
CLOAK ROOMS.
The regulations of the Board of Education, with regard
to hat pegs, allow too little space for hanging clothes. The
regulation is that "Hat pegs should be 12 inches apart,
numbered, and of two tiers. The lineal hanging space
necessary to provide a separate peg for each child is thus
6 inches."
Now this 6 inch space does not allow reasonable room
for hanging clothes, especially in the girls' departments,
without unduly crowding the one on the top of the other.
Clean clothes and dirty ones are thus all huddled together,
and this is very undesirable in more ways than one. The
single tier, with a 12 inch space, allows the clothes to hang
without undue crowding; but this arrangement would
involve, of course, a larger cloak.room or by a method of
re.arrangement and utilisation of all the space, an improvement
might be made.
LIGHTING.
The lighting in all is good, with ample window space,
and so arranged as to throw the light on to the desks in
the best position for the children. Artificial lighting is by
electric light in six of the schools, gas is used in four, and
in one school the Boys' and Girls' departments are lighted
by electricity and the Junior Mixed department by gas.