Partnership improves reading and maths
PMET mentors learners and teachers. They also provide full bursaries for those learners who excel in their studies.
PEARSON Marang Education Trust (PMET) has been working with Naturena Primary School No 2 since 2015. This four-year partnership, which will end in December 2018, has been formulated to improve reading and maths literacy.
This is part of PMET’s corporate social investment (CSI) programme, which aims to give back to the community through training the educators and the learners. The team visited the school on June 6.
According to the trust director, Dr Veronique Genniker, “We work in all provinces except the Northern Cape and Free State. The district chooses the schools for us and we then provide two facilitators. One will focus on readership assessment and the other on maths literacy. Throughout the four-year period with the school we assess them, because we want the school to grow and sustain itself in these key areas so that they can impart what they have learnt to other schools in their area.
Our facilitators work on four values with the schools: bravery, decency, accountability and imagination. We want to introduce more vibrant and creative ways of teaching. Everything we do is discussed with the school and we are in line with their curriculum,” she said.
The interaction between PMET facilitators and the school includes:
• Effective implementation of the Department of Basic Education’s curriculum and assessment policy statement.
• Improving mathematics content knowledge.
• Improving teachers’ and learners’ use of the languages of learning.
• Ensuring teachers are teaching effectively.
• Improving teachers’ and learners’ use of textbooks and other teaching and learning resources.
• Learners have improved their mathematics content knowledge.
Gregory Marks, the school’s principal; Lindi Ntuli, foundation phase HOD; and Keitumetse Khuzwayo, the deputy principal, welcomed the initiative and the intervention by PMET.
“When we do our planning at the end of the year we project the level that we want to be on the following year. So with this initiative we can see where we need to improve as a school and it helps us a lot in terms of planning,” said the deputy principal.
It is beneficial to us as we report well on our subjects’ analyses. The results are positive and acceptable. We hope this partnership will bring excellence to our school as the development can be seen and it is great. We are very thankful to PMET,” she said.
PMET also works with high schools, where they provide mentorship to the learners. They also provide full bursaries for those learners who excel in their studies.
To date learners have improved in both reading and maths.
Reading pass-rates are up:
2015 2016
Grade 3 12% 43%
Grade 6 23% 42%
Maths pass-rates are up:
2015 2016
Grade 3 55% 78%
Grade 6 53% 59%
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