Signs of sweetest success
How a school for the deaf went from a matric pass rate of 0% to 67% in a year that changed lives forever
● It started with something as simple as toiletries. Add to that a feisty mom, a visionary principal, thinking outside the box — and a lot of sacrifice and hard slog.
That was the recipe for success for the North West School for the Deaf near Klerksdorp.
After a dismal 0% matric pass rate in 2022, its results for 2023, released this week, defied the odds. Six out of nine grade 12 pupils at the school passed, or 67%. That made it one of the year’s most improved schools.
Shocked by the matric disaster in 2022 — when all 28 pupils who wrote exams failed — last year the school vowed to change the narrative. For matric pupils, that meant limiting cellphones and social outings. For teachers it meant giving up their nights and weekends to help pupils reach their goals.
Boitumelo Khumalo was over the moon on Friday when she learnt her son Mandlenkosi had passed matric.
“When we learnt about the failure in 2022, we as parents were disappointed and knew things had to change in order for our children to pass matric,” Khumalo said.
As a member of the school governing body, she decided to get every parent involved. First, she got parents of matric pupils to agree to buy toiletries for the children.
“Parents used to just take the child dependency grant and simply send the children to school without anything. The school is a boarding school. We decided that for the children to understand that this year is a different year, parents must buy toiletries for them. We wanted every parent to be involved,” Khumalo said.
Parents also agreed that children would go home only once in a quarter and for just one weekend. “This was because out of the nine parents whose kids were in matric, only two parents could communicate in sign language. That meant that when the children were at home, there was no communication and very little support for their studies.”
Parents also decided the pupils should not be allowed to go to town on weekends.
“We said if the children want to do their hair, someone must come to the school and do their hair there. Children used to visit town and some of them would buy alcohol. We said that should stop so the kids are constantly focused on their schoolwork,” Khumalo said.
Matric pupils were compelled to hand over their cellphones at 8pm and then focus on their books. “The kids used to hang out near the staff room where there is Wi-Fi and stay there chatting on social media from 10pm until midnight. The next day they would be tired and not attend classes. We had to stop that,” Khumalo said.
On weekends, pupils could go to church in the morning but spent the rest of the day in class. On weekdays, classes started at 5am. In the evening they had two hours to eat and relax before classes resumed at 8pm until midnight. This was the routine for the entire school year.
Teachers gave up their evenings and holidays to provide support for the pupils.
Khumalo said she had also made adjustments in her home to ensure Mandlenkosi, 21, felt like any other family member. The television is always on mute, everyone reads subtitles.
“We don’t want to laugh and Mandlenkosi does not know what we are laughing about. Even his cousin who lives here has learnt sign language and they communicate well
together. I have shared my experience of living with a deaf child with teachers because most of them do not understand what it takes. It is not an easy thing,” she said.
The school had its first matric class in 2021, and those exams also went badly — only one of the six pupils passed. The following year a new principal, Johannes Roberts, was appointed to improve teaching and learning.
Roberts, who was previously head of the Ikalafeng Special School in Potchefstroom — which caters for children with mental disabilities — made key changes.
He created a school-based support team and brought in psychologists who identified children with intellectual disabilities. Some were among the 28 matric pupils who failed in 2022.
In 2023, the school intensified its project to provide support to matric pupils. “Each teacher profiled each of the learners in matric in terms of performance, participation in the classroom and ability to understand discussions,” Roberts told the Sunday Times.
“During extra classes the teacher had to focus on the areas in which a learner was struggling. Towards the end of each quarter, the teacher would provide a report on which pupils were struggling and then provide additional support to help them.”
The school, in Leeudoringstad about 45km from Klerksdorp, is a referral school for Kutlwanong School for the Deaf in Rustenburg.
“I’m really happy with what the school has achieved in 2023,” Roberts said. “It is a reward for efforts put in by teachers, learners and parents. Deaf learners have unique needs. They only develop communication late in life, which is sign language that they learn at school.”
Through the school governing body, Roberts hired one of the teacher assistants who had helped during the pandemic. She had quickly learnt to sign and Roberts made her an interpreter. He added more interpreters, boosting the number from four to 12.
“Teachers who know sign language are scarce. There are 44 deaf schools in South Africa. Every one of those schools wants a teacher with sign language and you cannot find them.
“We are the only deaf school in South Africa that offers commercial subjects. It is not easy because the subjects are text-heavy. Teachers who deliver the subject content have to work with an interpreter,” said Roberts.
He said deaf pupils had a hard time during exams as they learn through sign language but are examined in English.
“Sign language structure is different from English. When I say ‘I go to school’ in sign language I say, ‘me school go’. Even a bright deaf student will still write the same way. You cannot change them. You cannot expect them to write the same English that you and I speak,” Roberts said.
The school also hosted camps where pupils from other schools visited to attend classes. Pupils also visited other schools where children could share information.
Williem Mkhatswa, who heads the school’s commercial subject department, commended his teachers for their sacrifices.
“We adopted a plan and everyone stuck to it,” Mkhatswa said. “Teachers in my department made huge sacrifices, not going back to their homes on weekends to stay and help the children. I can say the number of pupils also gave us an advantage as it was easier to notice a struggling learner and then devise the required support.
“Parents also played a big role. Whenever we called a meeting they were there.”
Mkhatswa said the target for the class of 2024 was a 100% pass rate.
Prof Claudine Storbeck, director of the Wits University Centre for Deaf Studies, said sign language was not universal.
“Every country has its own sign language and it is not related to the spoken language at all. If you look at England, America and Australia, they all speak English but their sign languages are different,” she said.
Storbeck said it was very difficult for deaf pupils to learn effectively with a teacher who does not know sign language.
“If someone does not know your language, they don’t know the language in which you learn, then they have no place in teaching you. If you are unable to use the language of teaching and learning fluently, you have no place in that school,” she said.
“If I cannot speak Zulu, I have no place to go to a Zulu-speaking school and teach any subject through Zulu.”
Sign language had a totally different linguistic structure to spoken languages, she said.
“Spoken language has subject, verb and object. Sign languages have subject, object and verb. The linguistics are totally different. If you put up signs as you speak, the sign language and the spoken one get mixed up and the children don’t understand what you are teaching.”
Storbeck called on the government to make it compulsory for all teachers of deaf pupils to know sign language.
“Government must make a policy decision that teachers of the deaf need to have an advanced level of South African sign language fluency, and those who do not have that skill should not have a space in schools for the deaf.”