Figure 1.--This portrait is unidentified, but we belev it is a New Zealand school portrait taken in the 1950s. The sign says VIIA..
|
Figure 1.--This portrait is unidentified, but we belev it is a New Zealand school portrait taken in the 1950s. The sign says VIIA.. |
One New Zealand boy remembers the morning assemblies at his secondary school in the 1950s. We also have some school and class portraits which look to be from the 1950s. We know the name of some of the schools, but unfortunately not all of them. There do not appear to be unifirms at the primary schools, but we do note uniforms at the secondary schools. The uniforms in the secondary schools look quite similar to those we noted in the 1980s.
I attended a boy's secondary school in the early 1950s. We had a morning school assembly that began each day. I didn't know at the time, but I realize now that it was patterned on the morning assemblied held at British public schools which of course exclusive private schools. Bit hard to fathom the British sometimes. We all wore uniforms and if the staff saw any of us wearing non-regulation gear or looking slovenly, we would taken to task right afterwards. In those days the teachers didn't pussy-foot around either. Any way we all knew each other and the teachers knew us really well. They knew who the boys were that would try to get away with little infractions on the uniform. The big issue at the time was the school cap. They were going out of style and we boys all hated them. The head was determined we were going to wear them. It was an ongoing strugle all the time I was there. The cap was finally dispensed with the year after I left. The teachers were present on the stage and all participated with purpose and gusto. All were men, except the art teacher. They were quite a varied lot, but most were really strict. You quickly learned the limits of each one. Because the discipline was quite strict, you didn't want to cross over the libe, especially with some of them. We all behaved ourselves in assembly. While the teachers were on the stage, they were scanning us all the time, and we would hear about it if they notice anything untold. I remember once I was a 3rd former in a nasty mood and decided not to sing the hymn. You should have seen the scowl I got from my form master. Youbcan imagine what happened if youbreally misbehaved. The headmaster had a real thing abour decorum in chapel. He was not unknown to tell some miscreant to see him after chapel. I can tell you that the rersulting session was not a pleasant experience. The actual chapel service was fairly srabdard. One of the boys would do a reading. We would sing a hymn. There would be announcements. Sign ups for teams or activities were announced. Occacionally we had speakers. Some, but not many, were actually interesting. Boys who won awards or received destinctions would be recognized. Teachers would make class or team announcements. Sometimes the head would discuss complaints from the community, such as trampling flowers, smokeing, or some other nefarious activity. With our uniforms, any one could tell where we went to school. Sometimes we could be identified individually, if say there was some destinguishing feature about our bike. There were no cars in those days. We all mostly biked to school. [Martin Phillips]
The school we see here looks to be a private school, although we are not sure. We see the school in the backround. It looks to be a small town school. The children in the mixed classes vary as some wear uniforms and some do not. Also the children wearing uniforms seem to be wearing a mix of uniforms. They were classes VI and VII.
Figure 2.--This looks to be the same school as above, only class VIB. |
Here we see the Dargaville School in 1958. I do not know anything about the school at this time. This was a standard 3 class which is a primary class. It was a mixed class, but most of the children were boys. There was no required uniform, but many of the children wear uniform garments. Notice that the boys all are wearing short pants. I don't think the school required this, but simply that shorts were very common in New zealand at the time. They are wearing different kinds of shorts, but most look to be grey school shorts.
