Help 120 South African children attend pre-school

As COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted in South Africa, the future has never felt so uncertain. These are challenging times for us all, and I hope you are in good spirits and health! Right now, we are doing everything possible to sustain daily operations and provide quality services to our learners and community. We know that we need to adapt fast to our changing reality. Now, more than ever, our learners and community need us.

In the last six months, we have managed to return all our 120 learners to the classroom and are trying to catch up on the lost learning time. Through all the challenges, we managed to uphold the academic standards we set for ourselves. The assistance of our partners has made it possible for us to reach our goals in educating and feeding our 120 learners on all school days.

We started the academic year with less than 120 learners due to the Covid 19 lockdown. Thankfully, by the end of January 2022, we had a full complement of 120 learners. Our intake of learners comes straight from home or from informal day-care centres. For this reason, we do a baseline assessment at the beginning of the year to gauge where each learner is at for us to build on their beginning knowledge and developmental skills. With continued assessments, we could gather data to ensure we have an accurate account of our learner’s progress per quarter.

Our Achievements:

1. Provide quality early childhood education for 120 children aged 5 - 6 from Dunoon Township to prepare them for primary education and a successful life.

We started the academic year with less than 120 learners due to the Covid 19 lockdown. Thankfully, by the end of January 2022, we had a full complement of 120 learners. Our intake of learners comes straight from home or from informal day-care centres. For this reason, we do a baseline assessment at the beginning of the year to gauge where each learner is at for us to build on their beginning knowledge and developmental skills. With continued assessments, we could gather data to ensure we have an accurate account of our learner’s progress per quarter.

Our academic results have improved by 8% this term, compared to last year’s results at the same time. We noticed a drop in Home Language and Mathematics marks but with the implementation of our intervention plans, we foresee much better results for the next term.

2. Provide routine paediatric health check-ups for general health and well-being of children enrolled in our care.

We managed to do hearing and eye screening tests on all 120 learners attending Ubunye.

3. Provide a balanced diet during school days for children enrolled in our care to meet their nutritional needs for growth and development of healthy children.

We have managed to feed our 120 learners two meals a day since the start of the years. This amount to +/-37 000 meals served until now.

4. Provide extra mural activities such as a reading programme to promote a love for reading

40 children are benefitting from our reading programme which has been running since the start of the second term.

5. Promote good parenting skills programme through an eight-weeks training in collaboration with WordWorks, a local NGO that facilitates a learning space for parents in which to share knowledge and ideas about children’s language and early literacy development.

We completed or 8-week parent programme and 23 parents successfully graduated from the programme.

Thank you for your support.

 “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” —B.B. King

Links:

• Our school's website