Partners with possibilities
Stoneridge Primary boasts a teachers' corps and learners who are eager to learn, to better themselves and the school.
EDEN PARK – Real change only comes from being actively involved in communities and the environment.
This belief lies at the heart of Nedbank’s involvement with Stoneridge Primary in Eden Park as part of the Symphonia Partners for Possibility (PfP) Programme.
Stoneridge Primary has 1 280 learners ranging from six to 15 years in age and an average of 45 to 50 learners per class. These learners come from various and diverse communities with different socio-economic backgrounds. Like many other schools they face challenges like language barriers, below average reading skills compared, high levels of illiteracy, unmanageable classes, bullying and substance abuse, lack of discipline, shortage of support services, non-payment of school fees, difficulty in maintaining sport facilities and minimal parental involvement.
Mr Richard Carelse, the principal of the school, is a born teacher – somebody who is passionate to play the leading role in his school of both the educators and learners driving them to high levels of success.
When approached by partner Nina Wellsted, he jumped at the opportunity and the past 18 months both of them spent time learning valuable lessons from one another, and in the process, realising Carelse’s vision for the school he so loves.
“I was appointed as principal in 2009 with no real knowledge of what is expected of me. This partnership has build my confidence. Before Partners with Possibility, I used to come to school every day and just work by default. My partnership with Nina has changed this completely, and I now have a passion for what I do, a sense of responsibility and accountability for my school and all the people involved in it, and a massive feeling of pride in what we have all been able to accomplish – and will continue to accomplish in the future,” Mr Carelse said.
About the partnership:
The aim of the project is to mobilise the community to reclaim the responsibility for educating South Africa’s children rather than leaving it solely in the hands of the government. Key to the initiative is to get experienced businesses and community leaders to partner with school principals to help them strengthen their leadership abilities and that of their teaching staff, and then finally, enrol the entire community to engage with the school.
Stoneridge Primary is a prime example of positive results. Through the partnership they build a strong leadership and management at the school and empowered an effective teaching body. The school now has a highly motivated parent body and inspired learners.
“We have integrated a programme ‘How to understand maths’ and this is already introduced to our grade R learners. Our learners have only benefited from this partnership and apart from the math initiative, we have established a reading lab, with the help of Nedbank and Karabo. If children can’t read, then they can’t solve math problems or for that matter, do any other subject at school without the ability to read. These programmes have boosted the ability to read and the confidence of our children tremendously,” said Carelse.
Sustainability in action
In her role as Nedbank Retail’s Sustainability Manager, Nina shared her extensive experiences and leveraged the staff to deliver a rainwater harvesting tank, vegetable garden and solar cookers to Stoneridge. To ensure that the school and the communities could extract maximum value from these, Nedbank volunteers spent a morning with the grade 6 and 7 learners, teaching them the practicalities of sustainability to enable them to maintain the new food-generating garden at the school.
This garden has, like everything else at Stoneridge, just kept on growing and today even the community in Eden Park benefits from the garden.
Valuable relationship
The school has showed a massive turn-around and the transformation of the leadership of the school is something one can only stand in awe of. Both Carelse and Nina agree that the partnership did not only benefit the school, teachers and community, but on a personal level they both see it as a live-changing experience.
Mr Carelse said that the programme has delivered many benefits to learners that are not directly education-based, but have an undeniable impact on their ability to learn and develop. “In addition to learning to read and understand better, learners are gaining massive amounts of confidence in themselves and their own abilities, and this has had a knock-on effect in terms of benefiting their performance in all their school subjects.”
And today – two years later – Stoneridge Primary boasts a teachers’ corps and learners who are eager to learn, to better themselves and the school as a whole is looking forward towards a brighter future where everything is possible.
