Renewed focus on teaching and learning occurred not in a similar fashion across all participating rural schools. One of the most populars way of demonstrating a new focus on
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teaching and learning was the introduction of extra tuition sessions. Extra tuition programmes were introduced by the principals as part of changing the situation at the schools. By means of this extra tuition programmes, learners were required to attend morning and afternoon classes including attending on Saturdays (Chikoko, et al., 2015;Mbokazi, 2015). During those extra classes, teachers were requested to go an extra mile by coming early in the morning to conduct lessons. Secondly, teachers were assigned the task of providing support in the afternoon classes in the form of tutoring (Chikoko, et al., 2015). On Saturday classes, the teachers demonstrated commitment by offering classes starting from early in the morning until noon.
I would stay at the school until 18h00 to monitor extra tuition and check the work of the educators (Principal of Siyaphambili Secondary).
The demonstration by the Principal of Siyaphambili Secondary that leadership by example can work can be seen in his commitment to monitoring extra tuition programme. There was a general agreement across all four schools that they needed more time for finishing the syllabus and revision; hence, the plans for extra tuition.
We agreed that we should complement our teaching with extra tuition after school and during the Saturdays. The school then conducted extra classes during weekends, in the morning and in the afternoons (Principal of Thando Secondary).
The role of the principal entailed changing what was not working at the four schools. In doing this, principals needed to have a common vision with the SMT and staff members on the envisaged changes in curriculum management. Consequently, extra tuition classes were introduced at all four schools as part of the new way of working towards completing the syllabus, particularly, in the most critical subjects such as Mathematics, Mathematics Literacy, Accounting, Economics, Physical Science, Geography, Tourism and Business Studies. The Principal of Thando Secondary worked on the educators using emotional intelligence and developing a shared vision. Another measure was the introduction of the supervised study in all the four secondary schools as part of ensuring that learners took advantage of the allocated time in revising and completing the syllabus. All of the seven principals introduced a commitment pact, which required that parents sign their commitment in supporting the learners to come early for morning, afternoon and Saturday classes.
The Principal of Mathafeni Secondary went an extra mile by rewarding the learners for good performance as part of the motivation. Furthermore, in Mathafeni Secondary School,
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motivational speakers were invited to speak and encourage the learners. This also included the awarding of certificates to the teachers for good performance. At Kuhle Secondary School, clear roles were outlined for the SMT members in the management of the curriculum. This is elaborated by the Principal of Kuhle Secondary School in her report on how monitoring was conducted by the SMT on curricula issues. As part of that monitoring, she elaborated on the how they ensured that educators work in line with the ATPs for purposes of covering all the contents of the syllabus. At all of the four schools, the SMTs were required to ensure that all the required teacher curricula records were in place. As part of the monitoring plan, Kuhle Secondary School principal ensured that the SMTs had schedules of dates for checking the teacher files, management of teaching file and feedback to be provided to the teachers based on the findings. All the expectations from the DHs were specified by the principal, and the deputy principal’s functions were clearly articulated by the principal. Kuhle Secondary had an advantage of having a deputy principal and three departmental heads due to its enrolment as compared to the three secondary schools, which only managed to have one or two DHs.
The Principal of Kuhle Secondary School outlined how the designed templates were used for purposes of monitoring. On the other hand, the Principal of Mathafeni Secondary School needed to establish the SMT on his arrival as part of changing the management strategy. The Principal of Mathafeni Secondary School introduced the School Development Committee (SDC) in order to start working on issues of policy development. In this process, Mathafeni principal included all the members of the SGB and the relevant teachers in order to legitimise the process and create a sense of ownership. In terms of Operation Scaffold, Kuhle was paired with a performing secondary school, from which the SMT was mentored in policy development and effective management strategies (Bayeni, 2016).
Through this networking, the Mathafeni SMT members were empowered to improve their style of management. The principal conducted a workshop for the departmental heads on curriculum management, and this information was disseminated to the teachers. The Principal of Mathafeni Secondary invited the English Subject Advisors to support the language departmental head every term of the year as part of the follow-ups. The Principal of Mathafeni Secondary ensured that the teaching time was utilised for teaching and that learning was supervised and this was monitored by checking that periods were honoured and that learners were learning (Klar & Brewer, 2013). It was the responsibility of the SMT to monitor the work
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of the educators. The support from the district subject advisors cannot be left unnoticed at Mathafeni Secondary. The principal of this school acknowledged and highlighted the significant role that subject advisors played in supporting teaching and learning in his school. This is what he said:
I checked on the curriculum coverage (curriculum tracking) that assist in ensuring that learners are ready to write any common test paper that is presented to them as they will be on par with the required academic standards. Exposing them to previous question papers and covering the syllabus assist learners greatly to write any paper that is presented.
The story is slightly different at Thando Secondary. This school did not get the kind of support expected from the subject advisors due to the distance to the school. At Thando Secondary, an internal system was developed for teachers to assist each other in subject matter issues. The Principal of Thando Secondary conducted curriculum management by encouraging the teachers to conduct a quarterly analysis of the results. Due to the shortage of departmental heads, the principal worked with senior and master teachers in implementing the curriculum management programme. These senior and master teachers assisted the departmental heads in subjects in which the latter were not conversant. The Principal of Thando Secondary used the designed tools to address the monitoring of the curriculum. The Principal at Thando Secondary closely monitored the work of the educators by checking curriculum coverage, the number of tasks covered and the learners’ exercise books to check whether the learners work was in line with what was stated in the educators ATP. As part of her commitment, the Principal of Siyaphambili Secondary would stay until late to monitor the supervised study.
The Principal of Siyaphambili Secondary restricted the curriculum package by reducing the number of subjects, which did not add value to the curriculum stream. The same was also done by the Principal of Mathafeni Secondary who decided to reduce the number of subjects that contributed positively to the school.
With regards to curriculum, some subjects were not assisting the school but only creating gaps in terms of subject packages. These subjects were piling additional work on the educators’ duty loads but not assisting learners; for example, subjects like Biblical Study (Mathafeni Secondary).
Litearature supports some of the strategies that school principals used in the process of turning the schools around. In a study conducted by Steyn (2018), the school employed an induction
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programme for the new educators to inform them about the school’s goals and expectations. Teachers had to attend workshops organised by the Education Department. In addition, theyhad to attend in-house developmental workshops which were organised by the school to address the needs of the educators (Steyn, 2018). In another study conducted by Maringe, Masinire and Nkambule (2015), the willingness of the educators to work outside teaching hours features as one of the important factors driving positive learner performance in the sampled schools. They are supported by Chikoko, Naicker and Mthiyane (2015), who revealed in their study that aspects like extra teaching hours and the twinning of schools played an important role in the improvement of the results for the underperforming schools in the deprived contexts (Chikoko,
et al., 2015). The findings from these studies support some of the strategies that were employed
by the principals in the rural areas.