How
does a heart manage to swell with joy and crack with sorrow at the same time?
That happened to me during our most recent SGB meeting as Shereen Stadler
reported back on the outcomes of the Systemic Tests.
Shereen
explained that Systemic Tests are a diagnostic test by the Western Cape Dept. of
Education to measure the strengths and challenges of the education system, not
of any individual child.
These
are usually held every year, but 2020 was skipped due to the COVID pandemic. Shereen
presented to the SGB the grade 3 and 6 results for 2019 and 2021 – with
comparisons against the average in the province, and also other quintile 5
schools1.
What
we saw is that our PNPS children’s performance in 2021 was almost the same as
2019, only a few percentage points lower. This is despite that horrendous six-week
house-bound lockdown, despite missing multiple days for months, despite the anxiety,
stress, loss and chaos. Do you remember that time? For some of us it was very strange
but bearable, for others it was just a nightmare.
And
yet the PNPS performance shows that somehow the foundations for learning
remained firm, allowing our children to continue their education. What made
this possible? It was the coming together of every aspect of our school
that made it possible:
The
School Management Team (SMT), supported by the School Governing Body (SGB),
created and recreated various strategies to keep education happening, whilst
still social distancing; holding the teaching staff together with care and
vision, even as some staff were being stretched to their limit.
The
SGB started a Solidarity Fund to ease the financial burden experienced by many
families as the lockdown impacted livelihoods. With reduced school income the
SGB had to manage finances very carefully to ensure salaries could be paid.
The
teaching staff’s “out the box” thinking about how to support the children,
through new technologies, learning from what didn’t work and trying another
way, all whilst working from home with their own families under stress. Remember
the Google Classrooms, the drive-through to collect books, the Zoom chats,
rearranging literally every inch of the school to become a learning space?
The
Learning Support Team were daily on the look-out for “wobbly feelings”, ready
to provide individual and group emotional support.
The
school maintenance staff transitioned into a super safety-and-sanitising team.
The
parents who, holding their own anxiety, also found ways to hold their children’s
uncertainty, who stepped into the “no-one could prepare you for this” role of
pandemic-home-schooling. Remember having to “make a plan” about your children
being home for two or three days a week whilst we had to work? Remember parents
volunteering to help with traffic control and playground supervision?
Last,
but not least, our children rooted themselves into the good soil of the
community that surrounded them and they grew despite it all.
Many
feared that our children had “lost part of their education”. These Systemic Test
results show that this is not true. And this is truly remarkable.
And
yet, we know that our school has resources that so many other schools don’t
have. The percentage difference between PNPS and the average for the province
is too large and too heart-breaking to mention, but it is not surprising given
how under-resourced the majority of the schools are in our province, in our
country. So, we sit soberly as we reflect on what these Systemic Test results
show us: that we are a deeply unequal society, and our current education system
is maintaining (rather than undoing) this unsustainable and unjust disparity.
This moment, therefore, invites us to gratitude: may we not take for granted
what we have here at PNPS. The SGB asked Ann to extend a message of deep
appreciation to all the staff for how they held our children during the past two
years. May I, on behalf of the SGB, extend deep appreciation to the parents of
PNPS for the many ways you supported and partnered the school.
This
moment also invites us to be mindful of the privileges that we have, and the
responsibility this gives us to find creative ways to share our resources and
to extend our inclusive ethos to those who are excluded by our education
system.
-----------------------------------------
Written by Jacqui Tooke, SGB parent with 2 children currently at the school, and an older child who used to attend PNPS.
All South African public ordinary schools are categorised into
five groups, called quintiles, largely for purposes of the allocation of
financial resources. Quintile 1 is the 'poorest' quintile, while quintile 5 is
the 'least poor'. These poverty rankings are determined nationally according to
the poverty of the community around the school, as well as certain
infrastructural factors. Schools in quintile 1, 2 and 3 have been declared
no-fee schools, while schools in quintiles 4 and 5 are fee-paying schools. For
more information: https://wcedonline.westerncape.gov.za/comms/press/2013/74_14oct.html
