THE NTA WINNERS OF OUR DISTRICT

Mrs. Ntobela (left) are representing our District at National Level in the ABET category and Mrs. May (right) are representing the District at National Level in the Category Secondary School Teaching. Both of these educators were winners at Provincial Level in the Eastern Cape.

WELL DONE ladies we are very proud of your achievements! Good luck for Nationals!

CIRCULAR 6 OF 2009

Dear Principal

I urge you and your staff to prepare your learners to the utmost of your and their ability for the coming Exams. Do not only concentrate on the Grade 12s but also pay attention to all the other grades in your school.

Please see to it that the syllabus is completed to allow enough time for revision with the learners as well. I am sure there are pertinent questions that the learners would like some clarity on. Give them the opportunity to ask these questions and make time to explain problems to them.

Educators must see to it that all relevant tasks that are required are done and available for verification. Please do not only look at the quantity but also at the quality of the tasks. You already received the programme for the grade 12 SBA verification. Please see to it that everything is in place as required.

All schools are busy with the SATs (gr. 9) at present. The SATs must be completed by 21 August 2009 according to Assessment Instruction 29/2009. It is the responsibility of the principal to see to it that there are evidence of all SBA- as well as SATs marks. (No thumb sucking!)

Please submit your Summary of Results (Annexure A & B) on 30 September 2009 at 13:00 to your respective EDOs.

By the time you receive this circular there are only 40 days (school days) left for the grade 12 learners. Please motivate the learners and emphasize the importance of these last few days. There is a lot of pressure on the learners right now and although we obviously want them to perform at their best, a situation where the stress of the final exams becomes too much too handle must be avoided.

Thank you once again for the wonderful work that is being done at our schools. Let us keep up the good work and stay the number one District in the Province for 2009.

CIRCULAR 5 OF 2009

Dear Principal

The General Education Certificate is being piloted in 2009 to ensure that all processes and systems for awarding the GEC in 2010 will be set up in this year.

The moderation of Standardised Assessment Tasks (SATs) and External Assessment Tasks (EATs) across the different levels have to be strengthened. Mechanisms and procedures for the monitoring and moderation at school, cluster, district and provincial levels have to be in place. UMALUSI will call for the moderation of a sample of the external assessment at a central marking venue in December. 100 schools have been identified for this exercise. Another 100 schools had to be identified for the Provincial Pilot Project in which SBA and SATs will be moderated and External Assessment marked centrally.

From the Graaff-Reinet District the following six (6) schools were identified by Province to be part of this Pilot Project:

Union High
Gill College
Jansenville High
Spandau Secondary
Nqweba Secondary
Johnson Nqonqoza Secondary

The following four (4) schools were identified by the District to also be part of this project:

Willowmore Secondary
Gcinibuzwe Secondary
Carel du Toit Secondary
Pearston Secondary

Further information will be send through to the schools as soon as we receive it.

Thank you,
Pierre de Villiers

CIRCULAR 4 OF 2009

Dear Principal

In November 2008 the Annual National Assessment for Literacy/Languages and Numeracy/Mathematics were administered in grades 1 – 6 for the first time. These assessments will continue for the duration of the Foundations for Learning Campaign until 2011.

The assessment for 2009 is scheduled for 2 – 6 November 2009. With effect from November 2009, these tests will form part of SBA and will therefore influence decisions on learner progression. They will form one of the tasks that learners have to complete during the fourth term of the year. This makes them mandatory.

The DoE will distribute one (1) set of tests and memoranda, in both hard copies and a CD, to each school through the district office from August to September 2009. Schools will have to make copies for the learners.

The time frames and activities for the rest of the year are as follows:

September 2009 - Printing, packaging and distribution of tests to districts.
October 2009 - Distribution of packages to schools.
2 – 6 November 2009 - Teachers administer and mark tests. Principals & SMTs monitor the writing and marking of the tests.
30 November 2009 to 11 December 2009 - Schools store scripts until DoE collects them.
February 2010 - DoE collects, captures, moderates, analyse and reports on Learner performance.

We look forward to your support in ensuring that the Annual National Assessments are a success.

Thank you,

Pierre de Villiers

CIRCULAR 3 OF 2009

Dear Principal

There are a few important issues that I want to bring to your attention.

It is your responsibility to make sure that your staff is up to date with the curriculum programme for the year. You will be kept accountable if there is going to be a problem regarding this issue.

I want to urge you to make sure that there is evidence for each and every level descriptor that a learner is going to receive during the year. When SBA verification is going to be done schools must not only provide portfolios for 6 learners but also mark sheets for the whole school and for every single mark there must be evidence.

At this moment the FET Subject Advisors must still do training with the teachers on the National Training that they attended for the different subjects. The roll out of this training will take place early in the 3rd term. Teachers for the different subjects will be invited for workshops and will only be away from the school for an afternoon and one full day. Principals please allow your teachers to attend this training because important information will be conveyed to them.

Geography teachers must make sure that the following maps are available at the school because Assessment & Examination Section from Head Office is not going to supply schools with maps. All schools received the relevant maps last year already with the specific instruction that it must be put on the asset register of the school.

i. Gr. 9 map used for SAT used for EAT
ii. Gr. 11 Final Examination – Cambridge
iii. Gr. 12 Trials – Kimberley

SATs have been delivered to schools already. Some of the SATs are still at the printers and Head Office will deliver it as soon as it is available. Please keep to the time frames according to Assessment Instruction 29/2009. The GET Subject Advisors have been doing mediation with the teachers on the SATs at all the schools in the district. If you have any queries feel free to contact Mr. Pat Badiwe the DCES for INTERSEN at 0498073022.

All schools in the district received a CD with the lesson plans for gr. R – 12 for the 2nd term. These lesson plans must be used and adapted to suite the situation at a specific school. These lesson plans must be used as guidelines for your staff to develop their own lesson plans.

Primary School Principals must make sure that the time table for the school is Foundations for Learning compliant. All schools received the documentation regarding FFL. Teams from the District Office will visit the schools to monitor the implementation of FFL. This is a National Programme and therefore must be treated accordingly.

Principals must please urge their staff to participate in the National Teachers Awards. Our District definitely has got the quality of teachers to compete at provincial and national level. If you have any queries regarding NTA please feel free to contact Mr. G Roxo who is one of the coordinators for NTA in the District.

Principals I want to make a friendly request to you to receive my staff in a friendly and professional manner at the schools. The feeling that they get when they visit some of the schools is that they are not welcome there. These people have got a job to do and are really trying there best to support and guide the teachers. My people have got a certain protocol that they know they must follow when they want to visit your school, or are visiting your school. I told you in previous circulars that if they create problems of some kind at your school that you must inform me immediately so that I can attend to it. Thank you very much for 99% of our schools that are having a very positive attitude when the curriculum staff is visiting the schools.

One of the things that I want to ask you as the principal to support my Subject Advisors with is the following. From now on when Subject Advisors are visiting teachers at schools and request them to comply with curriculum related issues within a specific time frame and the teachers does not adhere to it stronger steps will have to be taken from our side. The Subject Advisors will inform you as principal if they requested the teachers to attend to specific issues.

There is one big problem that we still encounter, and that is submissions. If the District Office is requesting you to submit something it is with a specific reason and not just to keep you busy. Your timeous submission of what has been asked is assisting us in doing our submissions to Head Office on time. In my office we keep a checklist to monitor the submissions, and what is significant to me is the fact that it is in most of the cases the same schools that are always late with their submissions.

Once again I want to thank you as principal and your staff for the important job that you are doing in teaching our learners. Please put your heart and soul into this job because it is the one that you have chosen to do.

Regards
Pierre de Villiers

CIRCULAR 2 OF 2009

Dear Principal

We are getting to the stage of the second term where you must be getting busy, or are already busy, finalizing your Internal Examination papers for June.

My request is that you must assure that the internal moderation, at school level, of these question papers and memorandums must be done effectively by HODs or Subject Heads.

After the moderation of these papers has been done, at school level, a copy of the question paper as well as the memorandums together with a copy of the test/examination time table must be submitted to my office on or before 27 May 2009 at 12:00. I am not going to remind you about this again so please see to it that you submit on time. The Subject Advisors will moderate the question papers and memorandums. If there is a problem of some sort they will contact the principal and relevant teacher as soon as possible.

According to the Curriculum Year Planner of the Province Grade 10 – 12 internal tests/examinations must be conducted between 8 – 23 June 2009.

Thank you,

Pierre de Villiers

CLUSTER C AWARDS IN GRAHAMSTOWN

The Cluster C Awards function was held at the Grahamstwon Town Hall on Friday 27 March 2009.

At this function Graaff-Reinet District received two awards. We received a certificate and desktop computer for the District whose submission rate for all sections was the best during 2008.

The most important prize was for the Best District in the Province with our 2008 Grade 12 Results.