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A multigrade teacher toolkit to assist teachers to better implement the curriculum will soon be introduced to multigrade schools across the country.
There are approximately 5837 multigrade schools in South Africa, with the majority of these institutions found in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and the North West.
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) embarked on the process of developing the toolkit as there has been no meaningful training conducted for multigrade teachers. Coupled with a lack of policy guidance in the area it was found that teachers at multigrade schools had limited skills in managing different content at different levels, including classroom management. The toolkit, developed by subject advisers in the Foundation, Intermediate and Senior Phases, consists of a multigrade training manual and annual teaching plans, all based on the Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statements (CAPS).
The DBE hosted 126 subject advisers in Gauteng from 22-27 February 2015 for a workshop on the multigrade toolkit. These subject advisers will now cascade the toolkit training down to teachers in their respective provinces.
Themby Hlatshwaya, a Technology subject adviser from the Bohlabela District in Mpumalanga, assisted in the development of the toolkit and is confident its implementation will assist educators.
“We have about 20 multigrade schools in our district, with about 70 teachers and this toolkit will help teachers deal with their workloads and assist the learning process,” says Hlatshwaya. “In the Senior Phase, for example, the common teaching strategy will be introduced, where topics are aligned across the grades. This will make it easier for educators to plan and also for assessment.”
Sibongile Sibisi, a Foundation Phase subject adviser in the KwaZulu-Natal district of Amajuba, agrees that the toolkit will be a guiding document for multigrade teaching. “We have about 70 to 75 multi-grade schools in the district and the annual teaching plan and the lesson plans contained in the toolkit will be especially helpful for them,” says Sibisi, who has approximately 150 multigrade teachers in her district. “The toolkit also has all CAPS documents for Grades 1-3 collated in a central place for all the information to be easily accessible.”
The toolkit contains a number of exemplar lesson plans, both termly and weekly, and teachers can use these exemplars to inform their daily lesson plans.
It is hoped that the toolkit will enable teachers in small rural schools, where most multigrade schools are found, to face the unique challenges that such institutions have and to address their specific development needs.
Issued by Department of Basic Education
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