Whole School Development

The evolution of our model

Early on in our ventures to change the face of education for disadvantaged schools in South Africa, it became evident to us that addressing infrastructure needs was not enough for our intervention to bring about the sustainable environment altering change which we so desired for the children in the schools we work in. We needed to find effective ways of addressing governance, management, skills inadequacies, literacy failures, and teaching difficulties as well as infrastructure, if we were indeed to see a lasting difference whilst boosting student morale and improving pass rates.

Out of this insigh6t, Whole School Development was born.

In simple terms, Whole School Development is a mechanism used to improve and uplift the academic, infrastructural, social, and security environment in schools. WSD aims primarily to ensure that schools have the necessary resources to support an environment conducive to excellence in teaching and learning in every school the Adopt-a-School Foundation works in.

WSD

1. Leadership and communication
2. Governance
3. Quality of teaching
4. Educator development – knowledge and implementation of curriculum
5. School safety, security and discipline
6. Learner support systems in Mathematics, Science, counselling etc.
7. Motivation and team-building
8. Extra and co-curricular activities e.g. sports, social and environmental clubs
9. Parental volunteerism – gardening and feeding schemes
10. Maintenance of school structures
11. Infrastructure development

The stakeholders for successful implementation of WSD are:

  Our experience to date is that for WSD to succeed, we need meaningful collaboration with all key stakeholders, namely:

• School Management Team
• School Governing Body
• Educators and school support staff
• Learners
• Parents and communities
• Other NGO’s that work in communities
• Alumni
• Department of Education
• Department of Social Development
• Donors
• Adopt-a-School Foundation

Our belief is that Whole Schools Development implementation in all of our schools is the way forward for the Foundation if we are to achieve our aim of developing an environment that is conducive to excellence in teaching and learning South African schools.