Safe places at Pinelands North

Over the years the school has adapted itself from a school we as adults attended, to one that cares about individuals within the whole. Not all children are happy to play outside at breaktime or learn in a room with another thirty children. Realising this has made us create spaces for children to ‘be’ when the world is too overwhelming.

One of the first spaces created was a quiet games space outside my office. We had noticed that some children couldn’t understand the team games at break and would often get into skirmishes with their peers. We regularly place logic games, puzzles, colouring equipment and gender-neutral toys like dolls’ houses and car garages on these tables and we find that pairs of children, even between grades, end up playing quietly in the passage during break and before school. Also, before school the library is open from 7:00. Children arrive at school and race to the library to play board games, complete puzzles or find a little hidden comfortable spot to read on their own. The library is also open until 16:00 in the afternoon and families use this space to read or work together too.

When we first introduced animals as ‘therapy animals’, we used Beck se Plek, named after Buzzy Beck, a former deputy of the school until 1996. In this enclosed outside quad, bunnies, guinea pigs, chickens and ducks live happily together and provide a welcome respite to children during breaktimes. Every single break, children from mainly grade 1 to 3, find an animal to cuddle and feed until the bell rings for class time again. Grade 3 pupils who have consistently assisted with the animals are appointed ‘bunny monitors’, and they wear this name with great pride! 

In 2017 the theme of our year was “Pushing Boulders”, named after the book by the same name by Athol Williams. Athol was, at that stage, an uncle of children at the school and is still a famous poet and author. During that year we focused on grit and determination with the children and gave them some strategies to use when confronted with difficult parts of their lives. This space is still used as a quiet space: there is a large chess set to play with and children sit around in quiet groups during breaks, away from the hustle and bustle of the other playgrounds. 

Another quiet ‘playground’ is the Mandela Peace Garden. This little quiet garden connected to aftercare, was created by Aunty Suzi, the previous head of aftercare, and a few aftercarians who wanted a calm space to be in the afternoons. They planted indigenous cuttings and collected artifacts such as bird cages, tea pots and fairies to decorate the space.

Learning support has always been a safe place to be: inside the room there are always adults to help children debrief and in the passage there are more games to keep unhappy children busy. A place which was never a safe place for us adults when we were at school, was the staffroom – I remember we weren’t even allowed to walk past that section of the passage! At PNPS children are welcomed into the space: as individuals, as groups to teach and as places to meet. The veranda alongside the staff room is often used as an extra classroom for small groups of children. 

This year the staff created Elmer’s Space. Situated in one of the classrooms with two doors permanently open, this space has been decorated with a huge wooden Elmer, created for one of our previous school plays, and two smaller patchwork Elmers, created by the Wyatt family. Shereen Stadler, the deputy, Thaakirah Fritz, our media intern, and I are now based in this space, waiting for staff and children to join us. Sometimes we are joined by children and staff needing support and sometimes children are sent to us for a debrief if their day is not going well. Sometimes this is just a good quiet place to sit when your classroom is too rowdy or a place to quietly recover from a bout of crying. Baloo, my Indian Ringneck parrot, is also based there and he entertains all who go by. Accessibility is the key to this space: the furniture is arranged to make it look inviting and the staff are based on the outside of a horseshoe, which makes the visitors feel included.

For many children at school in South Africa, school is not a safe place to be, but here in the little suburb of Pinelands, all children have many to choose from – a school I wished to attend when I was small!

Can school be fun?

 The role of fun at school is crucial for creating a positive and engaging learning environment. When pupils enjoy coming to school, they are more likely to be motivated to learn, participate in class activities and develop positive relationships with teachers and peers.

Here are some ways that fun can be incorporated into the school day:

1. Laughter: 

Laughter is a great way to relieve stress and promote a positive atmosphere in the classroom. Teachers can incorporate humour into their lessons or use funny videos or jokes to break up the monotony of the day.

2. Links between teachers and pupils: 

Creating a personal connection between teachers and pupils can help to build trust and respect. Teachers can share personal stories or interests with their pupils to help them see them as real people, not just authority figures.

3. Seeing staff as human: 

Teachers can also show their human side by sharing their own struggles or challenges. This can help pupils to see that everyone has difficulties and that it's okay to ask for help when needed.

4. Lightening the day: 

Taking a break from academic work can help to refresh pupils and give them a mental break. Teachers can incorporate fun activities or games into the day to help pupils relax and recharge. Walking around the field quickly or doing cartwheels on the playground between lessons creates a little excitement to assist those who find it hard to sit still in the classroom as well as creating a lighter moment in the day for all.

5. Stress relievers: 

Schools can also provide stress relievers such as mindfulness exercises or relaxation techniques to help pupils manage stress and anxiety. At Pinelands North there are several spaces for children to relieve stress: the Mandela Peace Garden, Elmer’s Space, Quiet Quad, Beck se Plek, learning support and outside the principal’s office.

6. Conversation starters: 

Fun activities can also be used as conversation starters, encouraging pupils to share their thoughts and ideas with each other. This can help to build relationships and create a sense of community in the classroom.

7. Making school memorable: 

Fun activities can help to create positive memories of school, which can have a lasting impact on pupils' attitudes towards learning and education. Children won’t remember the tests they do but they will remember School in Action days, Readers are Leaders, Hooked on Books and Derby Days.

To incorporate fun into the school day, teachers and staff can brainstorm ideas for activities or games that align with their curriculum and pupil interests. They can also survey pupils to find out what activities they enjoy and what they would like to see more of in the classroom. Finally, it's important for teachers and staff to model a positive attitude and a willingness to have fun themselves, as this can create a culture of fun and learning throughout the school. Staff at our school have monthly Fun Days where different grades will decide what the staff will wear on a particular day. Fun days we have had recently are: wear a strange hat, crazy hair day, different shoe or sock day and a touch of bling. This dressing up by adults makes children laugh at the beginning of their day and so their load is lightened for the day. The important thing to remember in creating fun is that it doesn’t have to cost anything to implement – all it requires a little imagination and some good ‘gees’!

Building Community at Pinelands North

One negative about Covid was that it kept people away from each other. Pinelands North has always encouraged families to be part of the education solution and so Covid broke down the community vibe because we couldn’t interact as partners face to face. This year we have to focus on rebuilding our community and her a few ideas we have used to do this: 

• Welcome family members back into the passages and classrooms

While children are being dropped off or collected, staff are available to chat casually to families. Besides our usual parent meetings each grade will have their own ‘school in action’ day this year so that all family members can actually follow their children through a normal day and experience schooling today for themselves. Trust is built when parents understand exactly what goes on in every classroom.

• Focus on gratitude

We thank our parents, the staff and children for playing their part in our big picture, even if not everybody is playing a big part. Showing gratitude for small things makes others want to please the organization more and then more people will want to play a positive role to the benefit of everybody.

• Invest in the people of the community

We look out for opportunities to coach, share or workshop with parents, grandparents, pupils and their caregivers, interns, volunteers and staff. Every learning opportunity gives someone else a skill that they can use in furthering their learning in their own lives. This year we have employed thirteen Presidential Interns too: these are young unemployed youth are now assisting with art, sport and music classes, facilitating children with special needs and providing another set of eyes in classrooms.

• Encourage pupil voices

The best way to ‘know’ what is really going on behind the scenes is to ask children informally. Good adult and child relationships in a school allow children to voice opinions about staff, about safe and unsafe places at school and about their own home realities. We have staff specially trained and available to ‘listen actively’ and to act upon the advice or information given.

• Have fun, play and laugh at school

Laughter changes vibes. School should be to create opportunities to laugh, play and make schooling fun. Our staff regularly hold fun days when they might wear two different shoes to school, encourage children and staff to wear pyjamas or wear their clothes backwards. Just tiny things like this lighten the load of life and create smiles in classrooms as school starts.

• Daily shout outs

Why not catch people in the act of doing the right thing instead of the wrong? Our staff and children to look at the world through new lenses and encourage kindness, generosity and good habits by announcing what they witness over the intercom during the day.

• Shared conflict resolution language

Our school uses several ways of dealing with conflict, with families as well as the children. By sharing the language used at school to resolve conflict with our families, we encourage them to also resolve conflict at home in a similar way. If parents need to be informed of some school conflict, they will  then understand the process used too. One great way of resolving conflict is to use narrative therapy; our school tries to change people’s stories, about themselves and about others, through this process.

• Acts of kindness

Encourage acts of kindness; between people at school and those at home. Remembering a birthday, calling when you hear a family pet has died or just checking in because you thought of someone are all kind acts which show you care about the people in your community. We try to follow up regularly with our families – short emails or Whatsapp or voice notes let our families know we are thinking of them in difficult times.

• Pay it forward

A great project for the whole family is to work out who is in need around them and ask them then to ‘pay it forward’. Simple ideas like buying a pair of shoes for someone in need, offering to babysit a colicky baby or the neighbours’ dog are some ideas families have used to bring happiness to others and therefore also to themselves. We have used this idea as a holiday project for our families and it worked so well – each child was given a tin to fill with coins and then the money inside was used to ‘pay it forward’.

None of the above ideas cost money: they just take time and a little extra effort on behalf of all members of the school community. When a school community is happy, feels welcomed and safe, then the children in the school benefit hugely!

Our Inclusive Journey is Acknowledged Worldwide!

 What an exciting but exhausting year 2022 has been so far! Early in March we were invited to enter a competition: Do you think your school is world class? Five categories were offered, and we decided to enter them all as we truly believe we are world class! That decision resulted in five people spending five full days writing why PNPS is world class in Overcoming Adversity, Innovation, Sustaining Healthy Lives, Environmental Action and in Community Collaboration. 

We received great news in May but were sworn to confidentiality until 9 June when the whole world would receive a press release, announcing that Pinelands North was one of ten finalists in Overcoming Adversity! Every finalist was asked to arrange an event in their country on 9 June so that the announcement could be made public knowledge.

Do you know how difficult it is to get well-known personalities, the entire school community, the press, social media and education department officials to an event without being able to tell them why they should attend?  Luckily, we had already invited our school community to some ‘gees’ creating events earlier in the term and so we tagged the idea to that and Youth Day, which in South Africa falls on 16 June, the following week. Overcoming Adversity fits in perfectly with Youth Day! Guests were told that they needed to be on the field between 10:00 and 12:00, wearing colours of the rainbow and to believe that the visit would be worth their while! Our families were asked to bring their children to school for only those two hours that day – and nobody complained!

Tents were erected around the field for each grade to offer the school community an activity - like face painting, flag making, games, doughnut decorating and an opportunity to create mindful bookmarks. Red carpets were laid out, food trucks offered refreshments, a shuttle service offered families to chance to ‘park and ride’ and the marimba team entertained us with foot stomping music! Photographers were quick to capture every beautiful moment! 

When guests arrived, they were ushered to the astro on the field where a social café atmosphere allowed them to meet and greet, enjoy coffee in their own ‘take home’ souvenir mug or go and enjoy the festivities in the tents.

Premier Alan Winde arrived just before 11:00 when the more formal ceremony was to commence. The choir entertained the school and then Joanne Peers, the Community Support Co-ordinator and parent, set the scene by linking the history of the struggle on Youth Day, with how our school has worked on helping the community overcome adversity over the past while.

One thousand people on the field still didn’t really know why they were there until Premier Alan Winde announced that the school was one of ten finalists in the world, and one of only two in South Africa! The crowd went wild: with South African flags waving, the entire community stood up and sang the National Anthem. What a moving moment for all present!

After the announcement, the school and the education department were allowed to share the information far and wide. Public relations experts, photographers, radio station hosts and the press, and social media influencers were all rallied to tell the story of the school as widely as possible.

The top three schools in each category were announced in June and Pinelands North made the cut! This resulted in T4 Education creating a video of our school journey and us receiving loads of media attention from the world.

The next big event was World Education Week, held online in October. This event showcased the 50 top schools around the world in a one-week extravaganza! Pinelands North was given a one-hour slot on 18 October to tell the world about what we were doing, to enable other schools around the world to follow our lead. 

The following day the winners in each category were announced: Project Shelter Wakadogo in Uganda won our category as their teachers spent 36 000 hours teaching their students in their own homes during Covid!

We are thrilled we entered the competition as it gave us an opportunity to re-evaluate what we do daily within our school community, and to appreciate the journey we have been on through the recent past. 

 

The Benefits of Schooling for a Great Future

The benefits of face-to-face schooling

During the holidays I pondered the decision of some families over the past two years to home-school their children. I thought through my perceived benefits of being within a diverse, enlightened school community. Here are my thoughts on the benefits of good schooling for all future adults!

Our social behaviour is moulded by the people around us. We learn how to watch others for non-verbal cues as well as listen to them to understand their opinion. We learn to make friends and to gently release them when the time is right. Working in groups, particularly with people you don’t like, is difficult but being at school requires us to learn how to do this. School helps us to learn how to succeed and fail, and our schooling teaches us that if we persist through failure, we still can succeed!

Some things at school are out of our control and so we need confidence to face challenges – not everything can be controlled just because we wish it were so! Schools bring together families with diverse backgrounds and this could create a ‘culture clash’. Living and learning at home amongst people you know means little opportunity to learn empathy and understanding of difference. Co-operative learning benefits everyone, especially when those participating are very different. 

If we learn good communication skills like networking, negotiation, mediation and public speaking before we leave school, we become exceptionally valuable future employees. Good writing skills and critical thinking are often part of our school assignments, with paying attention to the detail and handing the project in on time being awarded success. Another business skill we learn while at school is how to utilise resources that are available, often through recycling or reusing items, and this means that we make good decisions about how to treat resources responsibly. Decision making is another skill learnt at school: the consequences of good and bad decisions, by ourselves and others, are very evident. Ethical behaviours are also learnt through mentorship and watching the community interact positively.   

The hobbies we have as adults are often learnt at school too. Some schools like ours still include embroidery, sewing, woodwork and growing plants in their daily curriculum so children are introduced to lots of activities which can become life-long hobbies.  Good reading skills and access to great reading material usually means we become ‘hobby’ readers as adults too. Sporting activities and being active throughout life usually starts at school if this is a positive experience. 

Good schools teach us to love learning! Learning through play, through experimentation and through practice help us to continue to be life-long learners.

Nowhere in this article have I mentioned school subjects! Anyone can learn anything online these days but the skills one learns through interaction within a community are the valuable ones can take us into adulthood. Viva schooling!

Who said Covid means less learning at school?

 Pinelands North Primary School spent the last two weeks of last year celebrating their children’s achievements at individual grade award ceremonies. To better social distance every grade chose a theme, a venue and the ‘uniform’ for the day. One family member of each child was asked to join them for an hour during the day, to celebrate 2021. This meant that some grades wore fancy hats and met their parents around the swimming pool and others chose a slightly more formal occasion in full uniform and in the hall.

Besides these celebrations, the Red School children have exceeded expectations in so many other ways this year. Three Foundation Phase pupils; Benjamin Whyatt, Benjamin Draper and Jaime Barendse came first in Grade 1, second in grade 3 and third in grade 3 in South Africa in the Living Maths Competition! This mathematics ‘talent’ contest is written by hundreds of thousands of children all around South Africa annually.

Children at the Red School also learn ‘alternative’ skills: Grade 4 and 5 pupils learnt how to knit and then knitted at least one square which was added to create knee blankets for the elderly. In Woodwork, pupils created cup holders, blackboards, picture frames  and bird feeders by using their skills of sanding, cutting, polishing and varnishing. In grade 7 Technology the pupils created indoor thinking and logic games to entertain younger pupils on rainy days.

Last year, every child created art in a variety of creative spaces; from the classroom to the art room, the school hall and outside. Each child created an art portfolio filled with all the incredible art they made. We had parent volunteers assist us in the Foundation Phase, as well as teachers across the grades, adding their own creative flair to the subject. 

Despite restrictions, our Music Department participated in the Cape Town Eisteddfod and received very good results and continued making music together in a small ensemble. Some students did their Trinity exams and were rewarded with results such as high merits and diplomas. Each student even got to perform in a virtual concert, celebrating the musician in themselves!

Some Creative and Talented pupils followed a Rock Solid theme and created gardens using rocks, and others made a picture book to share with younger pupils. Grade 6 pupils spent their Life Skills lessons learning skills for life: how to change a tyre, how to identify plants and create a garden, and how to tie a tie! In Grade 2 pupils learnt baking skills, while learning about measurement: they learnt to double a recipe and make recipe cards to take home to also spoil their families. For some this year has been the year of learning how to care for animals:  grade 2, 3 and 4 pupils were trained in how to care for guinea pigs, chickens, ducks and rabbits and then daily cared for them, fed them and loved them.

The sports programme grew and diversified during Covid too. All our pupils attended compulsory sport programmes as part of the school day. This programme included a variety of activities that helped improve the mental and physical development of each child. Children could also volunteer to participate in sports’ clinics after school and on Saturdays. If anything, our pupils learnt more last year than they had previously because they had more options, more opportunities and most of all had more fun at sport. This year our pupils will again have a chance to test their sporting skills, as we work towards building a fun but competitive spirit  as we get ready to compete against other schools. 

Pupils in Red Roots demonstrated their love of inquiry and learning through play throughout the year. On 'Fun Fridays' they learnt three languages: Sign Language, isiXhosa and Afrikaans; using songs, actions and rhymes, as well as learning how to bake and make delicious treats from around the world. They learnt how to grow their own plants from vegetable offcuts and planted them in the veggie garden. A highlight again was the interaction with the animals: even those who were very nervous learnt how to interact, care for and play with Tobin, the dog, and our two tortoises, Ncothoza and Rimples. 

Covid has created opportunities to learn differently and has added a richness to our learning. Besides all these obvious learnings, most children have learnt how to be resilient, to be positive in the face of negativity and how to maintain ‘grit’. If we as adults had learnt these skills at school, wouldn’t we have had a richer and fuller life now?

The Giving Tree

 The most exciting and fulfilling part of my week is when I get to teach in the Creative and Talented Programme. We started this programme for very bright children who struggle to remain in the classroom fulltime because their attention wanders, they need more stimulation, and they need to be supported emotionally in a world they don’t gel with easily. 
 

I teach twelve- and thirteen-year-old children and currently we are dealing with social and emotional issues related to teams, being alone, loneliness and leadership.  This week’s topic was ‘are we always responsible for our actions’ and ‘what do we do when we regret our actions later ‘.

To introduce the topic, I used The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, a line drawn picture book with a powerful message. We often introduce our topics through Philosophy with Children, an education method used all over the world. The story involves a ’boy’ who loves a tree. She, the tree, loves him back and when he is young, they spend lots of time together. As he gets older, they spend less time and when he is with her, he is sad. He tells her he needs money and so she gives him her apples to sell. He comes back when he is older and needs a home for his family, so she gives him her branches. When he is older still and needs a boat, she gives him her trunk. The book ends with him sitting on her stump looking sad.

 

After discussing with my children about whether the boy was right or wrong, and did he know whether he was right or wrong, I asked the children to think back to similar situation for themselves. Had this happened to them or a family member? After some time in serious thought, I asked them to each tell a story, in third person, about a similar situation.

Third person is ideal for this type of personal story telling because it allows children to confide in others without blame because officially it ‘isn’t them’ in the story.

 

Wow did we tear up as child after child revealed a sad incident from their past, or from their family history. Most of the stories revolved around precious toys or pets who were abandoned as the child got older, but some were so poignant. Here are some of them:

 

A new nanny started to work at a family house and she was a very good worker. After tidying and cleaning the whole house, she unpacked the children’s cupboards. There were many grubby old toys slung into the back of a cupboard, and so she threw them away, knowing that the children of the house had many new shiny things to play with now. One of the toys thrown away was a dirty rag rabbit that had been loved by the daughter of the house since she was two. This rabbit had been given to her by her granny who had since died. The daughter of the house never saw that rabbit again. 

Once there was a boy who was interested in geckos, so he caught one and kept it in a box. Every day he caught insects for the gecko to eat, he chatted to eat when he returned from school, and he even taught the gecko to play with a marble. In the past year the boy found a box in his room and when he opened it, he found a pile of bones and some skin with the marble.

Years ago, there was a young woman at university who played in a girls’ band. Although the band wasn’t famous everybody loved to hear them play together and so they were offered a chance to play overseas. The young woman found out that she was pregnant with a child at that time and her dilemma was should she raise a family or go overseas with her friends in the band. That young lady now has two daughters.

 

The emotional maturity shown by these beautiful children blew me away last week. I realized again how important it is for me to teach, and how important it is for principals to teach. How else do you as a principal continue to do what drew you into the education sector originally and keeps you firing on all cylinders?