Help more South African children achieve in Maths

Schools in South Africa have been closed for 7 weeks as part of our national Covid-19 lockdown. However our Team, working from home, have never been busier!

We are been supporting learners to access the online Maths from home using whatever devices they can find - laptops, tablets and mostly cell phones! We have opened our online Maths for free registration by parents/guardians from home and to date over 440 new learners have been registered in lockdown. 

Each week we are posting online activities via social media and sharing via WhatsApp groups so we can reach as many families as possible. These weekly activities contain an "I can" statement and specific online Maths exercises to help learners practise and master their Maths (supported by parents/guardians) from home.

From our data, we are very encouraged in seeing the number of exercises being completed at home every day. We have also been delighted with the positive feedback from learners/parents/guardians and even pictures they've  sent to us during this time - learning under lockdown is happening!!

Thank you for your donations that are allowing us to continue to support learners and families. Every donation is making a difference during these very challenging times.

For ongoing updates about "Learning in Lockdown" please see our Twitter feed.

Links:

• Green Shoots Twitter

We are incredibly honoured to have won Silver in the Hybrid Learning category at the Reimagine Education Awards.

The Reimagine Awards are the 'Education Oscars' and last year there were 1, 518 Projects submitted for the Awards from 84 countries.

As part of being shortlisted in Hybrid Learning category, we were able to present at the Reimagine Conference in Westminster, London. The Hybrid Learning category seeks out the best hybrid learning projects that unify web-based learning delivery and traditional learning practices.

Your donations and continued support have played a vital part in helping us win this award. Thank you very much.

For more information visit: https://www.reimagine-education.com/hybrid-learning-2020/ 

2019 is coming to an end and we here at Green Shoots would love to share some highlights with you of the past year. Our vision as Green Shoots is for all children in Africa to be able to experience quality education and so apart from the three schools supported by the project Help more South African Children Achieve in Maths we are working on other projects to help even more South African learners achieve in Maths.

We are very proud to announce that Green Shoots has supported 142, 657 learners, 3,504 teachers, 350 schools and 17 after-care centres in 2019. These learners have answered a total of 25, 559, 120 questions and completed more than 246, 473 assessments.

Green Shoots has also been shortlisted for the second time for the Reimagine Education Awards. The awards are called the ‘Oscars’ of Education’ and reward innovative approaches that enhance student learning outcomes and employability. As part of the Awards, we will be presenting at the Reimagine Conference in London in December.

Thank you for your very generous donations, it has helped us support an ever growing number of learners to reach their fullest potential.

For more information about what we do you can visit us at www.greenshootsedu.co.za

Best wishes for the holidays and the coming year from the entire GS Team!

Above you will find our 2019 Summary Report for the three schools, Jamaica Way Primary, Mzamomhle Primary and Zwelihle Primary, supported by the project Help more South African children achieve in Maths. This infographic gives you an overview of the impact that the project has had at these three schools this year.

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Thank you for your generous donations! They are helping set these learners up for an incredible future where they can reach for all their dreams and make a lasting change in the world.

We are heading into the second half of the school year in South Africa and the three schools supported by the project, Help more South African learners achieve in Maths, are diligently completing their online maths exercises. Last week two Green Shoots team members visited one of the project schools, Zwelihle Primary. They offered additional support, observed and requested feedback from both teachers and learners on how Maths learning and teaching in the school is impacted.

We asked the grade 6 teacher at Zwelihle Primary how using the weekly online Maths exercises is helping her teach Maths.

“MCO helps me, because I first teach the learners, then when they go to Green Shoots everything that I taught them they will be able to do, then I will also see when the gaps are, they are now introduced to new concepts. When they go to the lab they understand the work better.” Grade 6  Teacher at Zwelihle Primary

We also asked some of the learners what they like about doing their Maths exercises online.

“When I finish my Brain Quest, I submit it then I see my marks and my total. Then I can go back to my Brain Quest so that I can do my corrections.” -  Grade 6 learner

“Green Shoots gives us knowledge about something we don’t know, it gives me knowledge to learn more about Mathematics” – Grade 5 learner

Thanks to your generous donations the learners in these three schools are loving their Maths lessons and teachers are more empowered to identify the “gaps” and offer the learners more targeted support.