60-year reunion for teacher trainees

It is 60 years since Sue Callaghan and Rose Semmens left Whanganui with dreams of becoming a teacher.

They were the first in their family to undertake tertiary study and spent two years at Palmerston North Teachers’ College.

They are organising a 60th reunion for the 1964 intake. A lunch will be held in Palmerston North on Saturday, March 16.

After two years at teachers’ college, budding teachers did a year in a school as a probationary assistant before getting their teaching certificate. During their PA year, they had a maximum of 30 students. They were then bonded for two years; if they left the profession beforehand they had to pay £200.

Rose Semmens nee James attended Sacred Heart College in Whanganui. She did her PA year at Tawhero in the city, her country service at Mataroa near Taihape and then taught at Havelock North before having six children.

She kept her hand in with relieving. Semmens says teachers’ college was run like a secondary school with the day starting at 8.45am and finishing at 3.15pm.

The trainee teachers had to dress like they were in a classroom when attending lectures.

Sue Callaghan nee Roberts had attended Whanganui Girls’ College. After teachers’ college, she spent two years at Massey University to complete her Bachelor of Arts in geography and education.

She ended up teaching in secondary schools while raising two children. When she retired she was teaching at Feilding High School and also taught at Queen Elizabeth College. She relieves at Palmerston North Girls’ High School.

Callaghan is exceedingly grateful for her time at teachers’ college with its superb lecturers who modelled good teaching principles.

After having to bike against the wind from her private board in Park Rd to her placement at Roslyn School and then to Massey for a lecture, by which time the wind had changed direction, Callaghan bought a motorbike.

Semmens says many of the 1964 intake were the first in their family to go to tertiary education with being paid to train enabling this.

Callaghan says many came from working-class backgrounds and teachers’ college provided an educational opportunity they never would have received otherwise.

Her father was a manual labourer for New Zealand Railways.

The family emigrated from England when she was 12.

Semmens’ father was a batter maker in an icecream factory. He had received no secondary education as he left school when his father died.

There were 198 students in the 1964 intake.