One of our most exciting projects is to facilitate and support training sessions for school principals (head teachers) in the Valley of 1000 Hills, South Africa. These sessions enable the principals to meet together to discuss and learn about a range of aspects to support and enhance their role as school leaders.
Our latest session in December 2019 took place during an extremely busy time of year, so it was great to see six primary school principals attend. The venue was kindly provided by Hillcrest High School.
The training was led by our own Dr Margaret Turnbull together with Yvonne Johnston from Partners for Possibility. Margaret and Yvonne have many years of experience in teaching and education and both have been school principals in the UK and South Africa respectively. The training provided an opportunity for the school principals to reflect and share their experiences as well as to explore solutions to any issues they face.
We have been working with this group of primary school principals for several years now. The schools are located in semi-rural areas where resources are sparse and opportunities to access the latest training in management and best practice are extremely limited. At the end of the session, those present completed an evaluation form. They confirmed that they had learnt a great deal and were grateful for the opportunity to share their experiences and learn from each other. Here is some of the feedback they gave:
“It was a great presentation from veterans, with a lot of expertise.”
“The engagement by members was awesome.”
“The workshop was very fruitful and eye opening on many issues.”
“A good workshop, very informative and encouraging us to go on, in spite of the challenges.”
Margaret and Yvonne are now planning a second joint training session for April this year, to explore some of the issues the principals identified in more depth, including mental health and well-being of school pupils and staff as well as human resource management.
We are always looking for support to help fund projects like this and our classroom management and special needs training. Given the fact that average class sizes are 60-70 pupils (or more) the training we offer is much needed and as well as supporting the staff, has a very positive impact on the learning experience of the children in the classroom. If you would like to support these vital education projects, please donate here.
We are a registered UK charity raising funds to support children impacted by HIV and AIDS and rural township schools. All money raised goes directly to the projects.