Teachers welcomed their Grade Rs excitedly; however, there were minor ‘challenges’ teachers had to face.
Lindiwe Sibeko, one of the Grade R teachers, said one of the challenges they faced was the toilet routine.
“We had to accompany them to toilets as they did not know where the toilets were,” said Sibeko.
She said the funniest moment was to see them arguing about their bags and sometimes swapping them.
“They did not know their bags so we had to write their names and the contact details of their parents on the bags for them in case they lost their bags outside the school,” said Sibeko.
According to Thuli Mhlanga, another Grade R teacher, this year’s classes of Grade Rs are different.
“They are wiser than the previous classes. We didn’t notice anyone crying when parents dropped them off,” said Mhlanga.
Another challenge was that they got lost whilst they were looking for their classes.
“We had to look for them in classes and toilets. Fortunately, when they were missing we knew that they were inside the schoolyard. If they have siblings who are in other classes, we knew we would find them in their siblings’ classes,” said Mhlanga.
Frieda Seroke, the head of the foundation phase in the school, said everything went smoothly.
“When I came in in the morning, I visited all the classes in my phase to see if children had been placed correctly. “Fortunately, everything went to plan as we did our registration last year and every parent co-operated,” said an enthusiastic Seroke.
She said neither the teachers nor administrators complained about anything.
The teaching and learning process went according to plan in all the grades on the first day.
