FLIPPING BOOK CHRONICLE 2024

principal receives mentoring sessions that prepare them to run their centres as successful businesses. In 2025 we aim to ensure that all our centres receive their teaching and learning kits from Grow, and that there is training for all the teachers. We are actively looking for individuals and businesses to support the ECD programme because there is a big gap still needing to be filled. Project Champion: Ayanda Ntombela CAREER GUIDANCE – EDUVELOPMENT The Grade 12s in our footprint schools previously had no intervention to assist with career guidance and post-matric tertiary studies. Those few who were fortunate enough to have access to information were able to enrol in institutions of higher learning, but a large majority remain in the dark. The introduction of the Eduvelopment app and platform, through Old Boy Andrew Cook, has added great value by addressing this significant need. During 2024 we ran Eduvelopment workshops with all Grade 9 learners from our footprint schools, preparing them to make subject choices for their Grade 10 year. The Grade 11s and Grade 12s were also taken through the app and helped with tertiary applications. LEARNERSHIPS The 11 learnership students who started in February have been adding value to their host schools by assisting the principals in closing the admin gap. They have been putting systems in place which hold educators accountable for school start and finish times, submission deadlines and general printing, and keeping filing up to date. The students have been encouraged to support their schools as much as they can. Two of them are based at the growing MCPT office, assisting with the running of the projects. Evidence of their work has been seen in their attending workshops, accompanying children on trips, starting a choir group to compete in the MCPT annual competition, co ordinating the existing choir for the competition, looking after classes where there have been emergencies, and attending online classes twice a month. In the classes they went through a management curriculum that required the submission of a portfolio of evidence and a signed register. The students completed NQF Level 4 in Generic Management, and all put their hands up to take NQF Level 4 in Administration, which will be facilitated for us again by Trafalgar in 2025. MICHAELHOUSE SUSTAINABILITY MODEL CONCLUDING COMMENTS The MCPT was founded in 2000 essentially to enable Michaelhouse boys to engage in community service. We have now grown into a fully-fledged outreach programme with aggressive goals and focused projects supported by Michaelhouse and companies and individuals in the private sector.

in South Africa. Most importantly, there is an uncompromising commitment to excellent academic results (this despite no Wi-Fi, functional IT lab or library, and few extra mural activities and limited sanitation). It is hoped that during the year the partnership between the business leader and the school principal will result in leadership development and provide significant benefits to both parties in terms of understanding the South African educational landscape and improving our schools as places of learning. Project Champion: Karen McKenzie TRANSPORT SUBSIDY TO HELP THE PARENTS OF CHILDREN IN GRADES 1-3; TO REDUCE DROPOUT AT THE FOUNDATION PHASE OF LEARNING Each community that the MCPT works with is different. For this reason we carefully design our interventions and involvement with our footprint schools around their particular needs. In respect of transport this is particularly true. For example, the Shea O’Connor and Esiphethwini Sendezi principals have challenges with uptake in the lower grades of their schools because parents are more likely to support the schooling journey (and the transport costs) of older children than of the younger ones if finances are an issue. This results in a high dropout rate or a late start to schooling, with obvious disadvantages for the children. In an effort to mitigate this challenge, the MCPT runs a transport subsidy programme for children in Grades 1, 2 and 3 at Shea O’Connor and Esiphethwini Sendezi. After Grade 3 the foundation is set, and the parents are able to continue and manage their own transport fees. The risk of dropping out at this later stage decreases significantly as the value of education has been realized. Project Champion: Jon Bates and Akhona Sikhakhane COMMUNITIES AND PROVIDE NECESSARY SUPPORT ECD centres exist in many different forms in our communities. Some are just care centres run by people with no formal training; others function as ECD centres staffed by teachers with the appropriate qualifications. We were visited by the Grow ECD team to assist with an evaluation of the eight centres in our footprint and provide some recommendations. The centres that lie in our footprint are each unique and require different support levels and interventions. Our focus this year was on converting the hospice in Zenzani into a fully functional centre for 50 toddlers, which enabled us to move the existing unsatisfactory care centre out of the primary school at Asithuthuke. At the end of 2024 this project was completed thanks to funding received from David and Peter Thorrington Smith. The Lion’s River community ECD centre, which consists of two run-down Wendy houses and has no water, will be our next infrastructure project. All eight principals of our footprint ECD centres have been receiving business training from our implementing partner, Grow ECD. This has included an app that gives them access to a variety of administrative and teaching materials. Each EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT EVALUATE EXISTING ECD CENTRES IN OUR

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