CHAPTER V .sx ATTENDANCE AT THE CENTRES .sx 25 .sx The National Advisory Council ( England and Wales ) recommended that the Junior Instruction Centres should be open for not less than five half-days a week and that the total hours of instruction should be not less than fifteen and not more than thirty each week .sx So far as possible , a Centre should be kept open continuously and suitable arrangements should be made by the Authority for the staff to have appropriate holidays .sx ( First and Fifth Reports .sx ) The Scottish Council recommended that the Centres should be open on each week-day , except Saturday , and the hours of attendance should be not less than three each day .sx They should be closed for holiday periods as authorised by the Education Authority , but such periods should normally be shorter than the holidays granted in Elementary Schools .sx ( First and Seventh Reports .sx ) 26 .sx In practice these recommendations have been carried out according to local conditions , and the following table gives a selection of the Centres taken from the Report of the Ministry of Labour for the year 1928 ( Cmd .sx 3333 ) :sx The differences in the number of weeks open during the year are to be accounted for by :sx - ( i ) Closing of Centres during ordinary school holidays .sx ( ii ) Holidays for the staffs .sx ( iii ) The re-decoration and cleaning of premises .sx The variety in the number of hours of instruction given weekly to each juvenile is caused mainly by three facts :sx ( i ) The accommodation will not allow of more than fifteen hours if all the juveniles who desire to attend are to be satisfied .sx ( ii ) Many Local Education Authorities think that fifteen hours' instruction per week is all that is desirable , and it leaves half the day to look for work .sx There has been a difficulty in some areas in finding staffs willing to undertake part-time work .sx The majority of the Authorities have started on the fifteen hours a week basis , and of those which began with full-time attendance , Manchester and South Shields have reduced the hours to half-time in order to accommodate the numbers required to attend the Centres .sx 27 .sx Normally , all claimants to benefit living within a radius of five miles from a Centre are required to attend , and non-claimants may attend voluntarily .sx For those who reside over two miles away , travelling allowances , not exceeding two shillings and sixpence a week , are granted ; but in the depressed mining areas larger sums are sometimes paid up to one shilling a day .sx In practice , the hours of attendance of distant residents are not universally the same .sx Birmingham , Hull , Wolverhampton , and Newcastle have a rule that those who live over two miles from the Centre shall attend for only three half-days a week , and at Bristol , where the normal attendance is twenty-five hours a week , those who reside beyond three miles attend for fifteen hours , i.e. for three days a week .sx A comparative table of the Average Daily Attendance of Claimants and Non-Claimants for the six months December 1933 to May 1934 is given in Appendix X , and it will be seen that in the London , SouthEastern , Midlands , and South-Western Divisions , there are very few non-claimants in attendance , because in most districts there are very few juveniles under 16 years of age available for work .sx In the depressed areas , however , the reverse is true , and the attendance of boy non-claimants is greater than that of claimants ; but it is very difficult to decide how far this is really voluntary attendance .sx The payment of allowances for dependants granted by the Public Assistance Committees , the Ministry of Pensions , and the Ministry of Labour suggests that these young folk are practically compelled to attend , but the opinions of the Superintendents of the Centres are definite that the non-claimants attend because the work attracts them .sx At the Sunderland Boys' Centre , out of 511 in attendance , 105 claimants and 293 non-claimants came from the area under the Local Education Authority , and 70 claimants and 43 non-claimants came from Washington and Springwell , which are under the Durham County Authority .sx At the Girls' Centre there were 112 in attendance , 32 claimants and 80 non-claimants .sx Of the latter , 30 were over 16 years of age and were P.A.C. cases , and the remaining 50 were all daughters of unemployed adults who were receiving dependants' benefit for them .sx At Gateshead the attendance was 60 per cent .sx non-claimants , and these were mainly P.A.C. and dependants' benefit cases .sx At Stockton-on-Tees 72 per cent .sx of those in attendance were non-claimants , but only 10 per cent .sx were in receipt of allowances .sx At Motherwell , where the daily attendance was over 500 boys , the attendance of non-claimants had risen from 42 per cent .sx in 1932 to 80 per cent .sx in 1933 .sx At the Jarrow Centre , which includes the boys from Hebburn , Wallsend , and Willington Quay , out of 400 in attendance , 144 P.A.C. cases came from Hebburn and Jarrow alone .sx As there were only 30 claimants in the whole district , the preponderance of non-claimants is apparent .sx At the South Wales Centres , which are attended by juveniles from the mining towns , the majority are non-claimants .sx There is no doubt that in these depressed areas many attend the Centres voluntarily so as to obtain a chance of a job away from home through the Industrial Transference Scheme , recruitment for which is practically confined to boys at the Centres .sx It must be remembered , too , that in these areas the rate of unemployment among adults is exceedingly high , and that it is to be expected that unemployed juveniles will have fathers who are out of work .sx These have received dependants' benefit or P.A.C. allowances for their children when under school-leaving age , and these have been continued when the children go to the J.I.C. .sx It is difficult , therefore , to judge as to whether juveniles are attending the Centres simply because benefit or allowances are derived as a condition of attendance .sx 28 .sx The actual numbers in attendance of claimants and non-claimants , however , is not such a serious problem as the fluctuation of numbers at some of the Centres , which affects both the curriculum and staffing .sx The difficulty is not so great in the depressed areas , where the average length of stay per student may be six months , and where some may even stay as long as two or three years .sx In these areas the average daily attendance may not be much less than the total numbers of individuals who have attended during the week , as in the following cases :sx In those areas , however , where there is a demand for juvenile labour the difference is greater :sx The differences on three other dates , as well as the fluctuations caused by the school-leaving periods at Christmas 1933 and Easter 1934 .sx are given in Appendix IV , from which also it will be seen that only in a very few cases were the numbers of individuals attending the Centres in April 1934 greater than the January figures .sx This can be explained by the increase in the number of placings and the tendency for juveniles to stay on at their day schools if work is not available .sx It is in the Southern and Midland Areas , where there is a great demand for juvenile labour , that the fluctuation in numbers is felt most acutely .sx The graphs of the weekly or monthly attendances at the Centres of London , Birmingham , West Ham , Bristol , and Stoke-on-Trent depict very undulating curves , and the presence of seasonal and part-time workers add to the difficulty of the constant change in the personnel of the classes at these Centres .sx CHAPTER VI .sx ACTIVITIES AT THE CENTRES .sx 29 .sx It can be definitely stated that each Centre has its own individuality .sx Each has developed along the lines that the Superintendent has found possible and according to local conditions .sx The activities of any Centre must be regulated by the type of building available , the qualifications and quality of the staff engaged , the desires and abilities of the unemployed young persons , the numbers in attendance , the length of their stay at the Centre , and whether half-time or full-time instruction is given .sx The National Advisory Council ( England and Wales ) in its Fifth Report and the Scottish Council in its Seventh Report came to the same conclusions on the matter of the curriculum , " That the instruction provided at Junior Instruction Centres and Classes should not take the form of training for specific occupations , but that , for the majority of pupils , it should be mainly practical in character .sx Subject to these general considerations , discretion should be allowed to Education Authorities to develop their own ideas according to conditions in each area and to the type of boys and girls in attendance .sx " These recommendations are being acted upon in all districts , and practical work , in almost every Centre , occupies at least one-third of the time-table .sx 30 .sx The following are specimen analyses of curricula :sx - ( This is typical of a Centre with only two classes .sx As the numbers drop , the subjects are necessarily reduced .sx ) Only one Woodwork Shop is available for five groups of boys .sx Consequently , the time allotted to each group for Woodwork is only three hours .sx The following shows the subjects taught at the six Centres ( Boys' ) in Durham County and is taken from the last J.E.C. Report ( 1933 ) :sx " The curriculum has been systematically expanded until it now covers a very extensive and interesting group of subjects at the undermentioned Centres :sx " A motor car has been provided at the Bishop Auckland and at the Blaydon Junior Instruction Centres in order that suitable boys may be given driving instruction .sx At the other Centres West Stanley , Durham , Haswell and Crook motor engines have been installed so that practical training can be given .sx " The prominence given to Practical Subjects is very apparent from these summaries .sx 31 .sx The following are the analyses of the time-tables at some of the Girls' Centres :sx ( This class is held in the Fort Pitt Technical Day School for Girls a well-equipped building .sx ) From these summaries it is evident that Practical Work is the most prominent feature in the Girls' J.I.C. Time-Tables .sx 32 .sx The activities carried on at all the Centres have depended in the first place upon the buildings available .sx Some have large halls where physical exercises with apparatus can be taught , some have smaller halls where apparatus must be reduced to a minimum , and others have no space for gymnastics except out of doors .sx The London Centres possess fully equipped gymnasiums which were fitted up for the Day Continuation Schools .sx Many of the Centres that are housed in disused school premises do not possess a hall but have a large room where Swedish exercises can be practised .sx In private house accommodation , as at Stoke-on-Trent , physical exercises are generally performed outside in a yard or in a field .sx At the Sheffield Girls' Centre the class was performing its exercises between rows of chairs .sx At Swansea and Jarrow the gymnasiums are in halls away from the main building , but close at hand .sx In rented premises that are used by the owners during the evenings , the possibilities of practical work are very limited because of the difficulties of storing furniture and equipment .sx Disused factories and warehouses provide plenty of space for practical work , but structural alterations have had to be made to allow for ordinary classroom work , as at Bishop Auckland and Coatbridge .sx At West Stanley , Jarrow , Newcastle , and Gateshead ( Girls' ) the buildings occupied are large halls with small rooms attached .sx This means that two or more classes have to work in the halls , which limits the choice of activities .sx If practical work is carried on , it is of the noiseless variety like Basketry , Lino-cutting , and Rug-making .sx Woodwork and Metalwork must be done in rooms away from the ordinary classroom activities .sx Except in school premises or specially adapted buildings , it has been found very difficult to attempt much in the way of Practical Science , which needs experimental laboratory work .sx In some of the Girls' Centres Cookery and Laundry cannot be taught because the premises cannot be equipped owing to the rooms being used .sx by other institutions ; yet in South Wales , as at Pentre ( Rhondda ) , this difficulty has been overcome by an agreement with the letting Authorities to allow gas stoves , boilers , and other equipment to be installed .sx