Help South African children achieve in Maths

Term 4 for South African schools started in October. This coincided with the completion of the Global Giving challenge that has allowed Green Shoots to support a Primary school in Brown's Farm, Philippi Township, Cape Town.

For Term 4, the Green Shoots facilitator focussed on working with the approximately 100 grade 6 (ages 12-13) learners and their teacher. The goal for this term was to ensure that both pupils and teacher were totally comfortable with this new style of teaching and learning. During the term, each grade 6 class was encouraged to complete at least one online exercise per week. The facilitator supported the teacher during some of these lessons, demonstrating how to manage the pupils through the online exercises, how to link these exercises with the classroom work and most importantly how to use the real-time per pupil feedback to inform planning/pupil support. The facilitator's role was to guide both teacher and pupils so that the focus is the Maths and not the technology!

The feedback from the pupils has been very positive. Pupils are excited and find this way of learning Maths more stimulating and engaging. They have adapted very quickly, coming in logging on and getting started straight away.

Part of the support to the school includes feedback to the school’s management to assist them in managing this new learning strategy. Both the Principal and grade 6 teacher are eager and fully committed to ensuring that learners gain the maximum benefit from their online lessons. From term 1, 2014, this Math Curriculum Online will be expanded to include grade 4 and 5 learners. The staggered approach will allow the grade 6 teacher to act as a lead teacher for his grade 4 & 5 colleagues.