1. 1
Pearson Marang Education Trust
Baseline Study Report
2015
School Functionality
Trends across 20 schools in the
Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District
North West Province
CONFIDENTIAL
This report is intended for Officials in the
Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District only
January 2016

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INTRODUCTION
This report is based on information gathered in the 20 schools selected by
the District to participate in the PMET School Support Programme from
2015 - 2018. The information was gathered during a baseline study
conducted in the schools between August and November 2015. The
information was gathered in the following ways:
 Interviews with the principals, SMTs, teachers and district officials
who work in or with the 20 schools
 Ongoing observations of day-to-day leadership, management,
teaching and learning activities in each school
 Document reviews of DBE policies, school policies, teacher
portfolios/lessons plans, and learner exercise books in each school
 Learner assessments in Mathematics and Reading to Learn in
Grades 3, 6 & 9.
This report presents:
 A summary of the trends in strengths and areas requiring
support across the 20 schools
 An outline of the support programme PMET proposes to implement
to support the schools to address the areas requiring support over
the next 3 years.
The support programme will be reviewed in an impact report at the end
of each year of implementation to ensure that it is adapted to address
the school’s needs in each of the 3 years.

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PART 1: Contextual factors impacting on teaching and learning
a) Broad Contextual realities
 The majority of the learners in all the schools are from poor
backgrounds, where families depend mostly on social grants.
 Most of the learners come from households that are headed by
grandparents, for a variety of reasons.
 As a result of the above, most schools encounter lack of parental
supervision in terms of school work at home
 Most schools are faced with burglary and security problems,
which calls for some sort of guidelines on security measures.
 The majority of the schools have more learners than they can
accommodate, for various reasons. This is why overcrowding is
common in the schools
 Some learners are transported from neighboring villages and
farms, causing problems of late coming, non-attendance to
extra-classes, etc.
 The majority of the SGBs in the schools lack the capacity to
function effectively
b) Culture of teaching and learning
Strengths
 In most schools there was evidence of real teaching and
learning taking place
 All schools operated with time-tables and improvised in terms
of staffing that was inadequate
Areas requiring support
 Improved working relations amongst staff members and all
stakeholders
 Increased accountability placed on individuals in terms of their
roles and responsibilities

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c) Practices at schools
Strengths
 Teamwork evident where projects and programmes are
involved e.g. preparing and holding the annual matric farewell
function
 A high level of cleanliness and hygiene seen in most schools,
with surroundings pleasing to the eye
Areas requiring support
 Improvement in teamwork and interpersonal relations
amongst staff members
 Intra and inter-school networking and planning, to ensure
quality across the schools
d) Attitudes impacting on teaching
Strengths
 Teachers attend to their classes effectively
 Most schools display cultures such as daily briefings, subject
PSFs, etc.
Areas requiring support
 Low morale in most of the educators
 Effective application of policies such as PAM, to deal with
issues of absenteeism and leave that is abused
e) Learners per phase
Strengths
 The dropout rate across all schools is very minimal, often as a
results of family relocations and transfers
 Schools try to accommodate learners despite accommodation
challenges
Areas requiring support/areas that present challenges

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 As stated earlier, the majority of the schools have big
numbers, even though they have problems accommodating
these learners
 The latter situation requires improved planning by SMTs
 The learner-teacher ratios in these schools are sometimes at
1: 50
f) Teachers, post levels and teacher: learner ratios
Schools
without a
Principal
Schools
without a
Deputy
Schools without
HODs
Proporti
on of
Unqualif
ied
teachers
Trends in
Teacher:
learner ratios
1.Monnaph
ang Primary
2.Tong
Comprehen
sive
1.Kgosikeehe
Primary
2. Pule Leeuw
Batlhaping
High(1)
Thuto Lesedi(2)
Ganyesa
Primary(1)
Mokgosi(2)
Moeti(1)
Pule Leeuw(2)
Tshanake(1)
(10)
35% Varies across the
schools.
Most are at 1:40
Strength
 Despite challenges of vacancies, schools improvised and ensured
teaching and monitoring was done.
Areas requiring support/presenting challenges
 DBE to ensure filling of vacant posts, particularly SMT posts
 Training of unqualified, university graduate teachers
 District officials need to capacitate HODs to monitor all subjects
within their scope of supervision
g) Support from district
Strengths

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Leadership and Management Support:
 Regular visits by Circuit Managers and EMGD officials
 Workshops and meetings
 Accountability sessions
Curriculum Support:
 Professional Support Forums held
 Content training done
 School visits done on an ongoing basis
Areas requiring support
 Regular, on-site support for SMTs, particularly in schools with newly
appointed principals
 On-site, practical classroom support to educators
PART 2: Learner Results - PMET assessments Grade 3, 6 & 9
Overview of trends in learner results
Mathematics
Strengths
Learners’ performance at average percentage.
Grade 3 Grade 6 Grade 9
64% 48% 47%
 The results show that Foundation phase is doing well compared to
Intermediate and Senior phases. They did very well in Math and
were writing in home language.
Areas requiringsupport
 The results indicate that more support is needed in the
Intermediate phase and senior phase in terms of mathematics.

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Reading to learn
Strengths
The learners performed at average percentage levels.
Grade 3 Grade 6 Grade 9
28% 25% 42%
Areas requiring support
 The results show that most learners assessed in all grades have
very weak reading skills in English. They will require a great deal of
support in order to develop the reading skills to learn all subjects
across the curriculum meaningfully in English.
 Performance is not satisfactory at all, almost all learners’ responses
were inadequate in other questions as they were only responding
without considering the mark allocation, and not discussing enough.
Leaners need exposure to various and regular supervised
assessments.
PART 3: Teaching, learning and assessment
a) Implementation of CAPS
Strengths
 All educators have CAPS policy documents for all learning areas
 CAPS as a policy is implemented in all schools
 Teachers teach in accordance with the ATPs
Areas requiring support
 Effective use of textbooks and learner books
 Systems to track implementation of ATPs across all subjects
b) Lesson preparation and planning
Strengths
 Educators make use of lesson plans provided by subject advisors
and others use templates to design their own plans
 Such lesson plans are monitored by HODs on a regular basis

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Areas requiring support
 Schools need to be encouraged to do team and phase planning
wherever possible
 Monitoring and moderation of work needs to be intensified
c) Content coverage
Strengths
 The practice of extra and Saturday classes is commendable
 ATPs are followed in most schools, implying content coverage
Areas requiring support
 High schools need to focus in all grades, not just Grade 12
 Again, the issue of a tracking system to ensure ATP implementation
is needed
d) Teaching methods
Strengths
 Educators try to teach using a variety of methods, especially those
that get learners involved
 Use is made of available teaching media
Areas requiring support
 Capacitating educators with strategies to reach all learners in big
classes
 Educators need capacity to source and use own media to enhance
their teaching
e) Use of available resources (textbooks, DBE workbooks,
Charts, Readers etc.)
Strengths
 Teachers use textbooks, teachers guides and their own materials to
prepare their lessons
 Use is also made of past question papers to drill learners
 In the primary schools, educators use workbooks effectively in their
teaching

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Areas requiring support
 Enhanced and proper use of CAPS documents
 Design and use of teaching aides to enhance learning
 Effective retrieval systems in place to ensure availability and
maintenance of resources
f) Learner assessment
Strengths
 Learners are assessed as per CAPS requirements
 Common tasks are administered in certain instances, for quality
assurance
 Use of previous question papers serve to train learners
Areas requiring support
 Tasks need to be monitored to ensure quality in terms of varying
cognitive levels
 Post examination item analysis to identify challenges and possible
strategies to overcome such challenges
g) Learner performance
The observations made here are in relation to learner performance in
the first two terms for all the 20 schools.
Strengths
 The learners in the foundation Phase in all the primary schools
performed better than those in the INTERSEN
 In high schools, those learners in the GET underperformed
compared to the FET
Areas requiring support
 Interventions to improve performance in the INTERSEN and GET
phases in schools
 Focused interventions to improve performance in key subjects,
especially Mathematics and English
h) LOLT
Strength

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 The FET learners perform very well in the LOLT and consequently in
most content subjects
Areas requiring support
 Effective introduction of English in the foundation phase
 Proper transition of learners from Grade 3 to the foundation phase
were English is the LOLT
i) Classroom Management
Strengths
 In most classes learners are disciplined and educators are in control
 Despite big classes, educators try to involve learners in the learning
experience
Areas requiring support
 Clear classroom rules to be established
 Overcrowded classrooms are a challenge in terms of control
PART 4: School functionality
a) Availability of key policies ( IQMS, WSE, CAPS, PAM &
NNSSF)
Strengths
 Almost all schools are in possession of the ELRC file with all DBE
policies
 Schools have internal policies that enable them to function optimally
e.g. code of conduct, admission policy, etc.
 Schools have such policies neatly filled for ease of reference
Areas requiring support
 In some schools, because of poor handover procedures, policies are
non-existent.
 Where policies are found, some are outdated and therefore need to
be reviewed

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b) Implementation of DBE policies
Strengths
 IQMS and WSE are annually reviewed policies that most schools do
 CAPS is also implemented by most schools
Areas requiring support
 Enhanced and effective implementation of IQMS and WSE
 Capacitating all stakeholders on key DBE policies of NNSSF and
PAM, this to ensure common understanding
c) Leadership practices ( Principal & SMT)
Strengths
 Participatory and delegation observed in most schools
 Despite challenges of staffing, lack of resources, etc., all the schools
are fairly functional
Areas requiring support
 Improved human relations amongst SMT members, as without it
schools tend to be divided
 Principals to focus more on curriculum management, as this is their
core duty
d) Curriculum Management
Strengths
 There are monitoring and moderation schedules in most of the
schools
 Some of the schools conduct regular departmental meetings as
indicated in the schedules
 Monitoring and moderation tools are obtained in the educator’s files
Areas requiring support
 Phase and departmental planning need to be emphasized
 High schools do not have meetings as per requirements, citing
workload as a challenge.
 Classroom observation should form part of the internal monitoring,
this will assist in the IQMS process

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PART 5: Conclusion
Conclusions
Key strengths to build on
 Generally the 20 schools are doing well, despite the socio-economic
challenges
 Schools have strong SMTs and most are functional
 Educators show a lot of commitment and are really focused in the
teaching of our children
 Despite the challenge of vacant HODs posts, schools improvised and
monitoring was done, albeit not as intensive as expected.
 District officials do support educators and SMTs
Areas requiring support over the next 3 years
 Schools can do with focused, intensive, on-site support by district
officials
 The Post Provisioning Model requires familiarization with the
realities of the challenges faced by schools
 The district has a lot of educators who are university graduates
(unqualified). A database of such educators need to be available
 Interventions to capacitate the latter educators need to be
organized
 The general trend of Foundation phase learners outperforming
INTERSEN learners need to be interrogated
 So is the same phenomenon in high schools, where GET learners
perform poorly compared to those in the FET
 LTSM management requires attention in most of the schools. Most
schools spend on buying LSTM on a yearly basis. This despite the
expected norm of a book’s lifespan of 3 years
Policies on induction of personnel, be they newly appointed or
promoted, need attention in most schools.
Recommendations
Following the observations made in this report, PMET propose to offer
support to the schools as follows:
Proposed support program for 2016

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School Leadership and Management
Support SMTs to:
 Understand their roles and responsibilities more clearly in
accordance with the PAM policy prescripts
 Enhance their leadership and management roles
 Implement the key policies of NNSSF, WSE, CAPS and IQMS
 Manage curriculum effectively
 Improve general school management
 Improve SGB involvement in the general running of the school
 Establish functional structures e.g. induction committee
Curriculum Implementation
 Implement the school support programme agreed upon with the
schools through a combination of training workshops and site-based
coaching and mentoring.
 Depending on the needs of each school, the focus of the programme
is to develop the capacity of teachers to improve learner results
across the curriculum by understanding & implementing:
 CAPS effectively and inclusively
 Systematic use of LTSMs across the curriculum
 Effective teaching, learning and assessment methods
across the curriculum
 The increased use of English as LOLT across the curriculum
(by teachers and learners)
 Effective teaching, learning and assessment methods in
Mathematics
 Improved conceptual understanding and content
knowledge of Mathematics