The School Corridor Tatler

Angelica sitting alone, waiting for her athletes. I met Angelica Ohrn, a Swedish volunteer at Sullivan Primary School.  Angelica is one of the Dreams to Reality volunteers. Like her peers, she has travelled to South Africa at her own expense, to do voluntary community work.  She works as a sports coach at the school, the area that she had chosen to offer her skills. It was Friday afternoon and she was waiting for her cross-country runners. "I will be spending five weeks volunteering. I really love the place, the children and the new friends I am meeting at Dreams for Reality. When I go back home, I will go and study,''said a bubbly Angelica. Soon after one of Angelica's runners arrived, ready for the race in his school colours. Angelica and one of her cross-country athletes. When volunteers like Angelica come along, they imbue the schools with youthful freshness and help to strengthen the sports and arts programmes at the schools. The volunteers the...

When I visited Lourier Primary School yesterday morning, the school was abuzz at 7h20. I was there to sign a few documents en route to the Circuit office. The documents became a side issue.  I walked straight into a random reflection of the amazing wellbeing programme for staff that Lourier Primary has introduced. "Meeting on a Wednesday before school starts is one of the changes we made when we came back from the SMT Leadership Conference," said Rashida. "We also went ten-pin bowling, said Venetia, the bubbly Foundation Phase Head, and shows me the picture of the staff at the ten pin bowling arena, mounted on the wall. Daniel and Abubaker arrived and the ten-pin bowling experience became the focus. I think the four SMT members were flooded with memories of their staff outing. The entire staff - teachers, administrative and support staff-  went by bus to spend an afternoon having fun and building relationships. "Another new development since the SMT con...

The day I reported to Fish Hoek Education Circuit office as my new workplace, I should have smelt a rat when I saw the truckload of bags with a blonde head moving into the building. My goodness, I remember thinking, is this what I was going to morph into?  The bags plonked themselves on the floor in the conference room and in their place, stood Colleen, my new colleague, the Foundation phase subject adviser that I would be working with for the next six years! As time passed,  I realized THE BAGS are the South African curriculum in motion. Over the years, THE BAGS, like our curriculum, adapted to the change, without losing their volume, though. Their contents writhed and grappled with the change from plain Jane NCS and its Gazette, 29626, that prescribed the requirements for progression in the GET band, to CAPS Gazette, 34600. Where Colleen went, THE BAGS followed. It was during our circuit meetings that these BAGS dominated our space. When it was Colleen's turn to...

On this F r ee d o m D a y , I want to remind myself that first and foremost, I am in education because of the children we serve in our schools and that I should.. . remember that our children are wonderfully and beautifully made no matter how difficult they make our lives at times; realize that we as adults are the ones who should change our beliefs about children and their potential to learn so that we can unlock their amazing gifts; work with principals and teachers to help them deepen the quality of leadership and teaching so that our children's brilliance can be unearthed; remind myself that I am learning all the time and that I do not have the answers and therefore depend on others to help me grow; continue to encourage our schools to make all our children avid readers so that they can help to speed up their learning; be mindful that principals are human and that sometimes the responsibilities of leading a school can be overwhelming; all...

Kleinberg Primary School Learners on World Book Day (Photo: Nadia) World Book Day is one of the highlights on the calendars of our primary schools. It doesn't matter which primary school you visited last Thursday, 23 April, you would have experienced the joys of schools celebrating the reading of books.  In fact,  all the schools form part of a spontaneous inter-school Book Gala Festival event here. The colourful flamboyancy around World Book Day makes the event irresistible. It is one of those school events that most parents become involved in. Each school organizes their own World Book Day festival based on the central theme: Celebrating the importance of reading.  The entertainment line up includes open-air poetry recitals, book reading, musicals and drama skits. Children dress up as their favourite storybook character and teachers join in on the fun as well.   Interestingly, the children always choose to impersonate the main character in the stor...

On Wednesday morning, I was minding my own business in my office. I was doing the boring, but necessary task of phoning schools about some administrative task. The school secretaries breathe life into these business calls. Most of them are chirpy and we love our engagements. I usually make quick enquiries about their wellbeing or exciting things happening in their lives and then we dive into our business chat.  By the time I put the receiver down, I would have the information I needed and I would have enjoyed an uplifting moment with these guardian angels. I was happy with my progress and just had two more calls to make. I dialed the number of Steenberg Primary school and I was ready to tease Patricia, the school secretary, about her drooling for the long weekend that was pending. A different, firm voice answered the phone and the person rattled off the business name.  Huh? That was strange. I couldn't make out the name that definitely didn't sound like "Steenberg Pr...

Negative attitudes by teachers can be a major barrier to learning The biggest barrier that children often face in classrooms  is the teachers' belief that the children are lazy and don't want to learn. This is especially the case where the majority of learners underperform. Of course, there are children who fall into this category, but when all the children are labelled like this, there is a much deeper issue at play. We know that children won't naturally gravitate towards things that do not interest them, that they have difficulty understanding or that seemingly have no immediate benefits for them. It is also true that children are wired to be curious about their world and new experiences. In other words, they want to learn. It is no different in a classroom. There will be those learners who are already self-motivated and will learn eagerly, but the masses may not have reached that level of self-motivation yet.And guess who is responsible for unlocking that ...