The Elspeth Jack Music Academy

Update on Protea Primary, Napier                                                        

The HeadStart Trust have been actively supporting Protea Primary School in various capacities over the last decade. Since 2019 music lessons became the focus of our involvement, and the impact proved a significant 15% improvement of school attendance by music pupils. The Covid-19 enforced regulations started in March 2020 have exposed a vulnerable South African education system. Authorities are realising the life-long impact of missed school time; the overcrowded classrooms crisis; and the urgency of creating a relevant curriculum with greater focus on concept subjects (e.g., writing and maths) than content subjects (e.g., history and geography). With these challenges in mind, HeadStart caught up with Protea Primary Principal, Mr. Temmers, to find out how the predicament is playing out.

HeadStart (HS): Congratulations on your resilience and perseverance during these testing times. Can you provide an insight into school life on the ground level?

Mr Temmers (DT): Thank you! School life is, and has been, full of challenges. From 2^nd August we opened the school for all pupils to attend school every day – this was the first time that everyone attended school together in over 17 months. We had official approval from the Department of Education, and it was magnificent to have the academic curriculum running at full speed again. The Department of Health then paid a visit and adjudged most of our classrooms to be too small to accommodate all the students considering the adjusted 1m social distance requirements. This forced us, in the second week of September, to return to the alternate day school attendance program.

HS: Please describe some of the challenges that you referred to.

DT: Alternate school days implies that learners are given projects to complete whilst at home. With little to zero home-based support, mostly due to parents working on farms or in factories, little of the prescribed tasks are completed. This pressure to catch up is then placed on the next school attending day when further assignments should have received priority. Parental support and supervision are unfortunately poor. Home-based students still report to the school to collect a lunch, but instead of returning home, they hang around the school perimeter or roam the streets, and subsequently become a further distraction.

Education Department regulations currently still prohibit any form of extracurricular activities. No sport and no cultural activities. School is currently just about academics. This is very hard on the child who is not necessarily academically inclined and have other interests in extracurriculars. They get bored. This adds to the painful experience of not being allowed to play with your friends, or even constantly wearing a mask. I find that the kids struggle to get used to wearing masks – it remains awkward.

HS: Your sense of hope for the future?

DT: Covid must pass. It is imperative that we be allowed to continue functioning like a normal primary school again. Children need to attend full classes at school, play sport, and of course engage in the HeadStart music programme - the Elspeth Jack Music Academy!

Collaborating to promote music

The HeadStart Trust recently collaborated with Mrs Terblanche from the SouthGate Academy in Bredasdorp in our drive to use music as a community upliftment tool. We facilitated a piano donation arranged by Mr Golding to this newly established private school accommodating 65 pupils between the ages of 3 and 14 years. The piano was delivered on Thursday 16 September. HeadStart also supported SouthGate Academy with musical tubes, and some cookies from Houw Hoek Farmstall (recently voted the Cape’s Best Farmstall on Western Cape radio station Kfm).

HeadStart also spent a morning developing relationships at Isiphiwo Public Primary School in Khayelitsha, and particularly with the music teacher, Mrs. Makinzi. ‘Mrs. Mak’, as she is affectionately known, holds a BA in music, with the treble recorder as her first instrument, and the piano as her second instrument. Music tubes were donated, and Mr Golding was on hand to evaluate the existing pianos in the music room.

Previously loved music instrument drive

Whilst music teaching is currently not allowed at the schools where HeadStart have been giving music lessons, we are using this opportunity to prepare a comeback with a bang! In this regards we are appealing for any previously loved (i.e., used) musical instruments. These are used for lessons and allowing children access to develop a skill and build confidence. Thank you to everyone who has already supported this life-changing cause.For mor information on this please contact headstart@brucejack.com. - any support is greatly aprreciated.