Stage III: Meet the Champions

The first meeting of the Stage III Champions was kindly hosted by Buck Road Primary.
 

The new Champions were a little apprehensive about the responsibilities of their new role at school, but they were encouraged by  Farzaana Ebrahim, Buck Road's Champion. Farzaana explained how she has driven the Project at her school over the year. She was able to give many valuable insights and answer questions.

Farzaana explaining how the educational software is used in lessons.

The ZSP Team then explained how the infrastructure phase would progress at the Stage III schools over the next couple of months. We will be following this progress on the Blog.

The Champions were asked to keep their staff regularly updated on how the Project is progressing and form their ICT Committee. The first responsibility of the Champion is to organise the staff ICT evaluation ( click for info on ICT evaluation)

The Stage III Champions are:

Die Duine:  Gino Overmeyer

John Graham: Liz Coldrey

Lotus River: Gwen January

Mzamomhle: Rosie Khumalo-Lande

Portland: Suzette Klein

Stephen Road: Rochelle Jacobs

Westlake: Jody Dawson

Zeekoevlei: Wayne Samuels

Click here for more info on Stage II Champions

Stage I Control Board Meeting

The Stage I Project stakeholders met yesterday to present a penultimate self assessment before the Stage I Project closure at the end of August 2011.

School Principals, Metro South Education Department (MSED) Officials, ZSP Team and ZSP Partners reported on progress towards the different Project Strategic Objectives. It was very particularly encouraging to hear the MSED officials' assessment of how the Project has impacted on the schools' daily functioning. During the meeting Principals presented their ICT sustainability plans.

Danny Gallagher, Chairman of Protea Education Development Project (the Project owner), commented on the thought, honesty and detail that had gone into each of the assessments.

AUP - recipe for success!

For the past month the second phase of ZSP schools have been working hard on their AUP.

What is an AUP? Acceptable User Policy. This is the document that regulates how the computer centre is organised, maintained, kept safe, how educators use the new facilities, and how the different responsibilities for the upkeep of the facilities are allocated to the ICT Committee.

This may not sound too important, but these policies are crucial in ensuring that the computer centre is used optimally, for delivering numeracy and literacy lessons and in supporting educators with their admin tasks.

As part of this process, it is important that the schools involved formulate policies that will help them to keep their computer centre functioning to the best of its potential and also minimise any risks e.g  how to stop viruses being spread via USB sticks.

The ZSP Team provided each school with a list of topics would need to be addressed by the AUP, we were also available to advise schools during their discussions.  In some schools the whole staff have sat down together to decide on their AUP.

By the time the technology arrives at the schools, this recipe for success will be in place.

Mitchell's Plain Cluster: Progress to date

The Control Board meeting was held on Friday July 30th. The Control Board meeting is a chance for all the stakeholders  to report how they are progressing towards the strategic objectives of the Project.

It was a very productive and encouraging meeting where the full scope of the Project was clearly demonstrated. To document all the feedback would take too long, but some key points that were shared included:

• 
  
  how many extra learners had received much needed food at school
• 
  
  how a holiday feeding scheme had been put in place
• 
  
  the details of peer educator HIV training
• 
  
  the screening and treatment of learners with eyesight difficulties in a pilot project at one school
• 
  
  the development of lab assistants and a community ICT technician
• 
  
  the training and development of educators who had little or no exposure to computers prior to ZSP
• 
  
  the focus on using computers as an important tool in raising the standards of numeracy and literacy in the Mitchell's Plain cluster schools

Part of the meeting was an honest assessment of the strategies needed in the next six months to allow further progress to occur.

An example of what is happening in the schools. Below is a video (please excuse the quality as it was shot using a cell phone) of  grade 1 learners (6-7 years) totally engrossed in their maths...one of the ZSP successes!

Meet the Champions

As mentioned in an earlier post, each of the Stage II schools has selected a ZSP Champion. The Champion is the staff member who will drive the ZSP at their school; also they will liaise with both the SMT of the school and the ICT Committee.

We had our first ZSP Champions' meeting last Wednesday. The ZSP Team discussed how the implementation would occur at each school and the importance of communication between the Champion and the ZSP Team , and between the Champion and the staff.

The first tasks the Champions have to tackle are an e-literacy survey of all the staff at their schools, this will help the Team to plan the staff e-literacy training; additionally the Champions will look at the hope and fears of their staff about the ZSP at the school. The Team are eagerly awaiting the results!

Our Champions are:

Buck Road : Farzanna Ebrahim

Jamaica Way: Mathilda Marsh

Prince George: Fernal Van Aswegen

Sonwabo: Mthuthu Ngqingqo

St Mary's: Ingrid Morris

Sullivan: Peter Mackier

Thomas Wildschutt Senior: Madji Ryklief

Thomas Wildschutt Junior: Deborah Africa

Meeting the school communities - part 1

We have had an exciting week meeting the school communities of some of the ZSP stage II schools. Mark & Jo have been workshopping the aims of the ZSP and the responsibilities of the partner schools; discussing issues and answering questions from all involved at the school. Principals, educators, parents, non teaching staff and SGB members have all been involved in the sessions.

The schools who were involved were:

• Thomas Wildschutt Primary
• Thomas Wildschutt Junior Primary
• Prince George Primary
• St Mary's Primary

It is so important to involve the whole school community from the beginning of ZSP stage II and it was very encouraging to see the enthusiasm and commitment of each of the schools involved. Much credit goes to the staff of Thomas Wildschutt Primary who were prepared to spend an hour after school sitting in temperatures of 43deg and more and still play a full role in the session!

First meeting with new Zisukhanyo schools

On Wednesday 18th February there was the first meeting with the 8 schools joining the
Zisukhanyo Schools Project (ZSP) in 2010. They are:

• Buck Road Primary School
• Jamaica Way Primary School
• Prince George Primary School
• St Mary's RC Primary School
• Sonwabo Primary School
• Sullivan Primary School
• Thomas Wildschutt Junior Primary School
• Thomas Wildschutt Primary School

It was an excellent time to talk with representatives from Metropole South Education District (MSED), Principals, SGB and school representatives.

Everyone is very excited by the opportunities and aware of their responsibilities of being a part of ZSP.