Sandra Barrett and Carolyn
Ballard have established links at Turfhall Primary
School.
I visited Turfhall Primary
at Lansdowne after meeting Fadeela Towfy, Tessa Arend,
Ursula Smith and Sukanya Naidoo at the Breakwater Lodge
Educational Conference on Saturday 24th October. They
were attending my mathematics workshop and pleaded with
me to visit their school as there are a million coloured
people in Cape Town.
Turfhall Primary school has 980 pupils,
mixed boys and girls of coloured origin (Asian). The school
has been established on this site for 21 years. This coloured
school had been specially visited by president Mandela
two years ago. The school grounds were a pleasure to see,
being very decorative with wonderful mural designs.
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The
decorated groumds of Turfhall Primary School
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On my tour I saw their IT room
which was specially dedicated and housed a couple of
386's but mainly 286's which were donated by local businesses.
They have e-mail connections and would like to communicate
via this medium. I met their music teacher who was teaching
guitar lessons to a child on a one to one basis. Music
is important to the curriculum and children are encouraged
to play instruments in this school. This coloured school
is very popular within the district and has an excellent
reputation for its academic success. The grounds were
very bright and colourful and there was a nature garden
and pond. I gave footballs donated by Devon Purchasing
and signed by Exeter City FC to this school. The Headmaster
Mr C J Theys was most welcoming and introduced me to
his
staff. He was very interested in our National Curriculum
and its effect on our educational system and he would
like to build links with schools in England. I was then
introduced to Warren Rossiter, Head of Mathematics who
invited me to teach mathematics to three classes. "A
wonderful school" I remarked after having taught
maths to three different classes. Grade 5 Ms Senta Geduld
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Ms
Hazel Jacobs with children in Grade 6
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Children
in Grade 7
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The pupils standard of basic
Numeracy I found to be sound and the pupils enjoyed learning
through our MA1 investigational approach to problems.
The teachers stated they would like to exchange examples
of children's work for mathematics ages 12 - 13+ particularly
with investigations. They would like to link with schools
in Devon to help them with their new OBE (Outcomes Based
Education), with particular emphasis on English and literacy
together with Numeracy. E-mail links could also be set
up for communication between classes. I have linked Turfhall
Public Primary School with Bishopsteignton Primary School
in Devon through Carolyn Ballard one of our team members
who participated on the Crossings project. I have also
linked Turfhall with Central Middle School in Exeter
as I am a governor of this school. We hope to enable
educational
interaction through exchanges of work, ideas and curriculum
initiatives etc through the Internet and DHL. DHL have
agreed to transport free of charge 50 kg of goods once
a quarter. This will be of great benefit to our link
schools
in South Africa.
Sandra Barrett
