No homework, exam policy for new school
Kenton couple turn back on tradition in their classroom
ACAPE Town couple who swopped big city life for a country smallholding, have started their own school which does not force children to wear uniforms or take schoolwork home.
Instead of sweating it out for hours in cramped classrooms, the 21 children signed up to start next year at Bushwillow Primary School will take lessons on how to make compost, farm vegetables or bake cakes.
Co-founder Anouk Verheijen said she moved with partner, Stephen Wigley, to Kenton-on-Sea in 2014 with the dream of finding a more natural environment with enough space for their three young children to explore and discover nature alone.
“I believe this is very important for children’s development, since it teaches them to take risks, to notice and deal with consequences of their behaviour in a safe and playful way,” she told Saturday Dispatch.
Although there is a government school in Kenton, Verheijen said they decided before moving there that if the government school did not align with their ideas on educating and critical thinking, nurturing their social and emotional skills and teaching them how to teach themselves.
“This will help them to find their way in the world of tomorrow, which is a shifting, changing, world, which requires adults to be creative, flexible and entrepreneurial,” Verheijen said.
According to Verheijen, the government school system in South Africa was similar to other parts of the world that focused on educating children in a uniform, an authoritarian way that emphasised competition instead collaboration and the nurturing of skills.
Soon after moving to Kenton, the couple met like-minded people who were home schooling and decided to start an alternative school with a mother in the area, Jessica van Graan.
A board of trustees of six parents was formed to make the school a reality.
No faith denomination is favoured over another at Bushwillow.
Instead, they honour all religions practised at learners’ homes and try to foster understanding, tolerance and respect.
The teaching style will be adapted to the needs of individual children, instead of a one-style-fits-all approach they claim is favoured in government schools, which also have much larger classes.
There is no homework and no examinations and, instead, classroom observation and informal testing will be used to gauge progress.
Although Bushwillow utilises the same syllabus as government schools, they also use the ReggioEmilia approach based on principles of respect, responsibility and community.
Teaching techniques include “learning by doing”, such as making compost to learn about micro-organisms, or baking cakes to practise mathematical calculations.
Of the 21 children already enrolled at R1 500 a month, 40% come from local townships.
Two children from impoverished backgrounds will be given full bursaries. — davidm@dispatch.co.za