Forbes E Robinson

- headmaster at Wainui Beach School
- also a teacher at Nelson school
- machines for learning

The Forbes Robinson Memorial Trust was set up to administer the funds bequeathed by educationalist Forbes Robinson for the improvement of the learning of reading. His method of teaching reading involved the use of an opaque projector to project pages of books onto big screens and is known as Large Screen Listening (LSL) method. The Trust Fund is used for the promulgation and implementation of the LSL method as described in his book "Reading Revolution -- at home and in schools worldwide".

I was taught by the wonderful Forbes Robinson at Nelson Central Primary School in the later 1950s. He was a truly inspirational teacher, very different to his stiff regimented peers of the time. Now 64, I still remember his teaching "machines" and I thank him to this day for instilling in me the love of reading and writing I have always enjoyed. He was fascinated by photography and I still have a framed B & W photograph he took of me, aged 7, at Tahunanui Beach where he used to transport selected groups of students in his car on weekends to play, swim and discuss life, the universe and everything else. He drove an old Humber with a large inner tube strapped to the roof for the kids to swim with in the sea. Teachers would not be permitted to do that in this day and age, more's the pity. The age of innocence is, sadly, now lost. Forbes Ernest Robinson, I thank you.