The School Corridor Tatler

Watching how the drill squad is taken through their paces While I was at Chrysallis Academy, the venue for our RCL conference, I heard the drumbeat and the regular sound of marching coming from the other side of the hilly road. I stopped and waited for the drill group to appear. The drumming became louder and the marching clipped the air with its rhythmic heal beat. Then the blue column with their beige hats appeared on the hilltop.   The marching column was being taken through their paces by two trainers. The one trainer was at the back and the other more animated one ran ahead of the drill team. The members of the column kept a stoic look while they were marching. Now and then I could hear the commands barked out by the trainers. Down the road the blue column came with remarkable bearing, posture, in unison.   Even though the drill team was marching downhill, they kept their formation and stared straight ahead, as if the ground was level. When the marching column came close...

Adrian in the foyer at the school, Floreat Primary School, where he has been teaching for the past two years You will agree that even though you love your job, there are days when you wonder whether you are in the right place, don't you? Then there are those days - and hopefully they are the norm - when you ask yourself whether it is really possible to have so much joy; so much pleasure, when those with whom you work make you feel like a mentee on steroids? You know that feeling, right?   Now, today I had one of those "mentee on steroids" days. I was merely going to pay two short courtesy visits to Floreat and Capricorn Primary schools in the heartland of the broader Lavender Hill-Steenberg area. However, each session became a reflective session on the quality education agenda driven at these two schools. I must add that I had not engineered any of the sort. My focus was just going to be on "basic functionality" - checking on textbooks, time tabling, staffing...

Schools serving poor communities need super strong, driven, inspirational leadership and teachers to rise above all the odds stacked against them. Learners in such schools must be immersed in a culture of high expectations, visible in all spheres of school life to help them blossom and succeed. Square Hill Primary school is one of those schools that can be singled out to be such an oasis. The Senior Management Team of Square Hill Primary School It is said you can test the popularity of a school by the number of applicants wishing to enroll there. In Square Hill Primary School's case, application for placement  especially in the reception class is always a challenge. In February every year, Lavinia Davis, the Head of the school, e-mails me to inform me when applications open for the Gr R/reception class because on that day I will have to deal with many agitated parents. Our office always receives a flood of complaints because of the clamouring for space at the school. On the day of ...