REGENTS PARK – While most institutions, companies and people are looking forward to the festive season, some prudent schools are looking beyond the festive season fanfare and have started preparation for the new year ahead in earnest.
In a first of its kind, the Regents Park Primary School has launched a unique centre of excellence that optimally utilises technology to enhance education. The school has launched the first Imfundo Centre of Inclusive Excellence on November 14. The launch was attended by key stakeholders such as, Productivity SA, University of Witwatersrand, EOH, Neametrics, Gordon Johnstone (treasurer and secretary of the Institute of Inventors and Innovators), Intel, FNB, Education Pay it forward and FutureVista.
As a centre of excellence, Regents Park Primary School has adopted a three year strategy to attain a bold aim of a pass rate of 100% and an average performance of 80% for all grades. All educators now have tablets and this technology allows the school to interact easily with parents. The Head of the Department (HOD) at Regents Primary School, Mr Roland Pretorius said, “Regents Primary School is now in a position to teach learners using tablets connected to a projector. This is all made possible by Imfundo-SA and business partners.”
Mr Silas Pillay, the principal at the school made an announcement that one of the learners from the school has won a scholarship to study at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. “Building on our previous successes from the previous term, as a centre of inclusive excellence, our goals for the coming three years is to achieve a 100% pass rate and 80% performance which will be on par with some of the private schools in the country,” he said.
Earlier in May student cards were introduced for every learner, the objective is to monitor learner attendance and notify parents on whether a child has arrived in school, and on time. Parents have shown an appreciation for this kind of feedback and interaction. One parent’s expression, “After receiving an sms from the school, I am able to continue with my day freely with the knowledge that my son has walked safely to school with his friends.” In addition, there is currently creative use of Ipads in Regents Park as one of the selected schools to pilot the Ipad Leading Schools Programme. The GDE has also alluded to the provision of an e-Learning Solution Programme that entails the provision of Tablet devices and Connectivity to the school to further enhance teaching and learning in 2014.
The key sponsor for the project Imfundo-SA relayed their excitement at the project. Imfundo-SA’s, Mr Lebona Moshanyana, said the Centre of Excellence is the first of its kind in Gauteng. Moshanyana said, “They continue to use real data to analyse trends and improve operations in schools”. Moshanyana concluded by saying that through technology automation and sound education practices, improvement is bound to follow.
One of the facilitators and education trainers for the project, Ms Dimakatso Phiri from Productivity SA said, “There is a need to ensure that information is reliable and measurements are accurate for assessment of schools excellence compliance.” She mentioned that Productivity SA is ready to analyse information and performance on the level of inclusive excellence and will also train educators and School Government Bodies (SGBs) on productivity including helping the school.
“Are we there yet? No, but we will continue to work tirelessly at improving education with partnership with government, business and social partners until each learner performs well and can have a predictably bright future and contribute positively to society,” noted Mr Moshanyana.
