During the month of July 2020, PSA held workshops with circuit managers (CMs) and Deputy Chief Education Specialists (DCES). The workshops were aimed at supporting the officials in being able to monitor and track curriculum coverage and assessments at their schools, targeting prioritized grades and subjects. This is especially important during this time when there has been such disruption to teaching and learning and so much time lost, resulting from the national lockdown.
The top 2 topics, packaged for these sessions were:
Visual Management: this is a term used a lot in progressive environments which seeks to ensure that those that lead have a snapshot of what progress is being made in key areas of performance. In the education sector, areas such as curriculum coverage, assessment tasks completion (formal and informal) as well as attendance (teachers and learners) are some of the key indicators often displayed on these dashboards
Planning: the issue of integrating planning that takes place at a school level and that of the circuit/district has been the subject of talk for some time in the sector. What PSA’s efforts are directed towards is to slowly bring some meaning to upward planning so that SIPs from schools inform circuit/district planning. The opposite is also encouraged, as the SMTs develop their SIPs, they need to take into consideration the current circuit/district plans into consideration.
The sessions were highly appreciated and very fruitful in that future face-2-face meetings will now follow to ensure alignment between what the project offers and what the system (officials) really desires to move ahead. The system is in dire need of strengthening to cope with the ever-growing demands from the external environment.
Some of the officials that attended the sessions made the following comments:
“The workshop gave us a lot of hope to better manage our offices and schools, especially to manage curriculum in schools. The theory that we went through made us to wish we had a full face-to-face session where we would be able to go through even the scenarios to clarify issues better but we are looking forward to one-on-one sessions with you to easily get the template, understand how to use it and cannot wait to begin implementing what I learned from the workshop. Wish we could also have other workshops to enhance our support management to schools”.
Ms Mahlangu, Circuit Manager: eMalahleni 1, Mpumalanga.
“I was very much satisfied with the contents of the CMs’ workshop. In particular I was excited by the HOD Curriculum Coverage Tracker tool as well as the School Improvement Plan evaluation tool”.
Ms Ralefeta, Circuit Manager: Mapela Circuit, Limpopo
“The intervention strategies, through this programme will develop and capacitate the SMT on curriculum management thereby improving learner performance”.
DCES, eMalahleni, Mpumalanga