Mahlasedi-Masana Primary School
Mahlasedi-Masana Primary School
Mrs Newlands travelled to South Africa
Planning, preparation, emails, meeting, inoculations all complete; here I was ready to board the plane to South Africa. I was very excited and a little apprehensive. What to expect! I was about to embark on the reciprocal leg of our connecting classroom programme. Connecting Classrooms is a British Council funded, global education programme.
Connecting Classrooms aims to equip students with a deeper understanding of:
- other countries and cultures
- their rights and responsibilities as global citizens
- skills needed to work in a global economy and build a fairer, more sustainable world.
Teachers also benefit from:
- gaining an understanding of other countries' education systems
- being better equipped to teach about global issues
After a journey of 22 hours, and a five hour stopover in Dubai, our plane arrived at Johannesburg Airport. There was a slightly dishevelled group of teachers gathering belongings and heading for the baggage reclaim. We were greeted by our South African partners, like old friends, as this was the return visit and we had all formed strong bonds when they visited us in July.
Ahead of the group was a busy week as we had a full timetable to fulfil; attempting to accomplish the targets that had been agreed to embed the connecting classrooms programme in both countries.
Our hosts had prepared a full programme for our visit, which would involve cultural visits to give us a flavour of the country and opportunities to visit our partnership schools in each of the regions.
We began our journey through Johannesburg, which is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa and where we were staying for the next two days.
Our hotel was a themed hotel, which held a big surprise! How many of you can say they shared a hotel with a resident cheetah! I suppose it beats having a guard dog.
There were several other animals displayed in the hotel, but none of those caused me any concern.
Our next day began with a very early morning visit to the The Sterkfontein Caves.The Sterkfontein Caves are owned by the University of the Witwatersrand, whose scientists have been responsible for the main excavations of the World Heritage Site. They are credited with many of the famous discoveries including the world famous “Mrs Ples” and “Little Foot”, an almost complete Australopithecus skeleton dating back more than 3-million years. The Cradle of Humankind is one of eight World Heritage Sites in South Africa, and the only one in Gauteng. It is widely recognised as the place from which all of humankind originated.
The Sterkfontein exhibition explains the history of life on Earth through fascinating displays. It was incredible to see how we as humans have evolved. We humans are relatively recent arrivals on Earth. But our ancestors have been here for millions of years. While the exact shape of the human family tree is something scientists are still debating, the one thing that they mostly agree on is that humankind was born in Africa. In the Cradle of Humankind, about 1,000 hominid fossils have been discovered, spanning several million years.
In the afternoon we moved onto The Lion Park, situated in the middle of the Johannesburg – Pretoria complex. It is an eco-tourism park that focuses on the well-being and regeneration of the various species, in particular the endangered Wild Dog, the rare White Lion and Cheetah.
Our group was very excited at the opportunity to see all these wild animals. As we drove through the park we saw lions, cheetahs, wild dogs, springbok and giraffes. Then we were invited to the cub enclosure to stroke some lion cubs. There were about ten of them roaming through the enclosure and we were taken in small groups inside to get up close and personal. I’m not sure that my cub was really in the mood to play as he was growling a little! It was both exhilarating and a little bit scary; even though they were cubs they were the size of a medium dog with very sharp teeth and claws! I do think he smiled at me when I got closer though.
Joe (our partnership school head teacher) and I both got invited to feed the giraffe. It was quite a strange feeling as the giraffe’s tongue was huge and quite rough and he wrapped it right around my hand. Did you know that the giraffe is a mute animal? It makes no vocal sounds.
Being so close to these animals was an incredible experience and the Lion Park are passionate about the survival of wildlife and conservation in South Africa, particularly the endangered species and they firmly believe that by focussing on educating the young, they will realise the value of their wildlife heritage.
We returned to our hotel that night exhausted but everyone was so excited about the events of the day and we shared our experiences into the wee small hours. It was very difficult to find superlatives to match the enjoyment.
The next morning found the group splitting up to go three different areas in the Gauteng region. One group was staying in Johannesburg, one group in Soweto and my group was going to Pretoria.
Pretoria is a city in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities. Pretoria itself is sometimes referred to as "Tshwane". Pretoria is popularly known as The Jacaranda City due to the thousands of Jacaranda trees planted in its streets, parks and gardens.
Our partnership school Mahlasedi-Masana has 1800 pupils and I think most of them welcomed me when I arrived. I was overwhelmed by the welcome, the sun was shining and the welcome was warm. They sang songs, wrote poems and letters and were really keen to hear all about our pupils and are looking forward to communicating with them. They had created a book to share some of their culture and traditions with us.
Over the next four days I was able to observe several lessons and the daily routines in the school. I taught several lessons and sang songs with the reception class children. Class sizes are bigger than ours with an average of 45 children in each class. I discussed assessment, teaching strategies and differentiation with staff and shared some of our practices with them. Whilst their school is in a poor area and many children travel a long way to get to school every day, they are very proud of their school and are very keen to do well.
I absolutely loved working with the children and they were eager to share their aspirations with our children. They wrote letters to our children telling them what they hoped to do when they grew up. They wanted to be doctors, teachers, nurses, architects, pilots, soldiers and policemen. They wanted to improve the lives of their family, friends and their locality. These have now been displayed in our main hall and the children have enjoyed reading them and finding out about their lives and dreams for the future.
Children take great pride in their school and every evening they help to clean their classroom and prepare it for the next day. They are very self- sufficient and from an early age organise themselves at lunchtime, which for many of them is their main meal of the day. Much of the food which is served to the children is grown in their own gardens and prepared on site. They are working towards being self-sustainable. The gardens are maintained by one paid helper and volunteer parents.
Our visit coincided with a day of culture. Children and staff dressed in National costume and performed dances and songs in national dress. There was a great feeling of excitement and happiness. They were proud to share their culture and traditions with us.
During our trip we planted a partnership tree, all the Pretoria schools and their British counterparts came together to plant the tree to cement the relationship that has grown out of this programme. It will flourish alongside the developing bond created during this trip.
During this trip I realised a personal ambition. I was able to visit Soweto and go to Nelson Mandela’s house. This to me was experiencing living history.
It was tremendously powerful, this man’s courage, determination and humanity had influenced my life. I felt humbled as I stood in his house, which is now a living museum, and looked at letters he wrote from prison, the normal everyday utensils in his kitchen, the pictures on his walls and items from his family life.
One of the final visits was to the Union buildings in Pretoria. Like an ancient temple adorning over the city it governs, the Union Buildings are a modern day Acropolis, built at the highest point of South Africa's capital city, it forms the official seat of South Africa's government and houses The Presidency as well as the Department of Foreign Affairs. Designed by Sir Herbert Baker in 1908, building began in 1909 and was completed in 1913. It took approximately 1265 artisans, workmen and labourers almost three years to construct, using 14 million bricks for the interior office walls, half a million cubic feet of freestone, 74 000 cubic yards of concrete, 40 000 bags of cement and 20 000 cubic feet of granite.
Our week was almost at an end. It had been an incredible experience and I loved every minute of it. South Africa is a country rich in history, tradition and culture. I met nothing but kindness and was encouraged by the children’s aspirations and self-sufficiency.
On my return I was able to share my experience with the children, through my photographs and videos. The children were enthralled during the assembly where I recounted the trip and the various highlights. It has been particularly emotive for me with the recent death of Nelson Mandela. I felt privileged to be able to expand their understanding of the impact that he had on the world and his lasting legacy.
The programme will continue with the support and funding of the British Council and we look forward to strengthening the partnership between our schools enabling the children to gain a better understanding of global issues, the cultures and traditions of different countries and the skills to build a fair and sustainable world.
Our partnership with Mahlasedi-Masana Primary School, Pretoria, continues and we hope to again welcome a member of their staff to our school later this year. We hope to set up direct links for the children to communicate with children in Pretoria and develop the partnership further to include our Chinese partner school too.