Heidedal Primêr – Western Cape education department best practice series.
Heidedal Primêr in George received the top award in its category from the Western Cape education department for improving its combined literacy and numeracy results by 47,1% in the department’s 2007 grade six study.
Numeracy
The overall results of the department’s study shows that the school improved its numeral literacy rate by a staggering 50%, after initially scoring zero in 2006.
Clifford Karolus, a grade six mathematics teacher at the school, puts the improvement down to fostering a sense of continuity.
“After the shocking results in 2006 we started to look for ways to improve. We noticed there was a big gap between grade six and seven learners,” he says.
The school sought help from an educational psychologist, who suggested strategies the educators could employ to get the most out of their learners.
“So we got teachers to take over the maths classes in the grade below the one they were used to teaching. For instance, I shifted down to grade six from grade seven and so on.”
In this way teachers knew what was expected in the grade above and they started to shape their lessons with this in mind. Karolus and his colleagues introduced a weekly test period that covered all the basics of mathematics and the work covered in the previous week.
“Another productive system was to get learners who were struggling with certain areas of mathematics to spend one lesson a week with a class in a lower grade,” says Karolus. “So if a learner in my class was struggling with an area covered in grade five, I had him or her seconded to a class in that grade and asked the teacher to focus on the area in which he or she was struggling.
“In that way the learner got a better grasp of the concepts involved without slowing down the rest of the class.”
Karolus advises teachers to work constantly on the basics with their learners and to be satisfied only once their learners fully understand the concepts being taught.
Literacy
When the school’s 2006 results were released, the learners had achieved a literacy level of 32% and the educators aimed at getting at least 50% the following year. Their hard work paid off when the school registered a 95% literacy rate in 2007.
Reading is the key to literacy and the school realised that if its learners’ reading improved, it would have a knock-on effect. With this in mind, the first period of the day was set aside for reading under the supervision of the class teacher.
“Each class has a selection of books with different difficulty levels and in this way we could judge the progress of each learner,” says Neil Plaatjies, an intermediate phase teacher at the school.
“After a few of these reading periods we were able to draw up a list of learners who were clearly struggling and ensured they got special attention.”
The school enlisted the service of a student teacher who facilitated an extra reading period each day for the struggling learners. They also introduced a weekly spelling test with Afrikaans tests on Tuesday and English tests on Wednesday.
“Each week the learners got a list of 50 words to study, about 20 of which came up in the test,” says Plaatjies.
Plaatjies says that since the school installed a computer laboratory there has been a noticeable effect on the school’s literacy levels.
“We have a special computer program called Cami Reading. Even with my own children at home it’s evident that if a child is computer literate, it improves his or her schoolwork.”
For Plaatjies the key to the school’s improvement has been the cooperation among the teachers. He says they hold regular strategy meetings to dissect their progress and play around with new ideas.
Tips for numeracy
Focus on the basics. If your learners do not know the basics, they will have difficulty grasping other concepts so make sure they are comfortable with the core skills of the subject.
Encourage mental maths. Devise exercises that encourage learners to do calculations mentally as this will build their confidence in their abilities.
Test your learners constantly. The more you test them, the more familiar they will become with the subject matter.
Tips for literacy
Establish a reading corner in your classroom. Try to source books or magazines that will appeal to the learners.
Try to involve current affairs in class discussions. With luck this will encourage your learners to take an interest in reading newspapers.
Establish a word-a-day programme. Give learners the task of bringing a new word to class each day and sharing its meaning with their peers.