Back to future for St George’s
Schools must adapt to the times, says new prep head
DEVELOPING people with high emotional intelligence is just as important as developing those who produce good academic results, and investing in children – so they are equipped to take on careers which have not yet been established – is the way of the future.
These are the beliefs of new St George’s Prep headmaster and campus head Alex Hall, who has worked at private schools in three provinces in his 19-year career.
Hall, who is still transitioning into his new position with outgoing St George’s headmaster and campus head Jonathan Liss, said with the leadership vacuum in the country and globally, there was a need to produce emotionally sound leaders ready to tackle whatever was thrown at them.
As new campus head, Hall’s mission for all three schools – the pre-school, prep school and college – is to be seen to produce ethical leaders with a high emotional quotient.
“I think it is something our country is screaming out for and that is not a dig at any of the current situations, but just globally, we need to get back to the root of what our core values and beliefs are and what defines us,” he said.
“I’d love it if someone points to a pupil and says, ‘That’s a St George’s kid’, be- cause they’ve got integrity, honesty and that they’re responsible.
“Those are the kinds of things that are going to make successful people nowadays. It’s not so much the academic acumen or sporting ability, but the kind of person that you are.
“And that is something that all – and I mean globally as well – education systems are failing miserably at.
“They spent far too much time focusing on the academic, but we need to start developing the emotional quotient of these kids.”
Hall started his teaching career at his alma mater, Dale College, in King William’s Town, where he taught for two years before going into private schools in 1998.
His first private school gig was at St George’s Prep, where he taught alongside Liss, and he moved on to Woodridge College, where he taught for 10 years.
From Woodridge, Hall said, he spent four “exceptionally happy years” at Pietermaritzburg’s Cordwalles Prep School, where he ran a boarding house overseeing 65 pupils, before being appointed deputy head at Uplands Prep School, outside Nelspruit. Having had a taste of public school teaching, Hall said one of the joys of independent schooling was having the freedom to work with the curriculum as the school saw best.
“We obviously align ourselves to the CAPS documents and what the state schools offer because, as a prep school, a lot of our children will go on to state schools for their high school careers.
“But the freedom of how we deliver our education is the greatest thing about private schooling,” he said.
“To stick my neck out a little, I believe the state schools are over-assessing at the moment, with the ANAs [annual national assessments] and so on.
“I know a lot of frustration for the people at the state schools is that they actually want to spend more time teaching and learning rather than assessing all the time.
“But it is a global phenomenon because the British system has been doing it.
“Despite confusion with regard to curriculum, which has changed numerous times, the CAPS document has been put together by some really brilliant educational minds.
“My only problem with it is that there’s too much assessment time.
“Most high schools take three to four weeks to write June exams and another three to four weeks at the end of the year, which amounts to eight weeks.
“Children are at school for 40 weeks in a
‘ Knowledge isn’t king any more – Google is. Whatever you are looking for, it’s there.
year and if you take eight out, that is effectively 25% of the time being assessed.
“That is just exam time and there are other assessments in between.”
Hall spoke of a global move towards educational reform, with a call to stop “teaching to the test and to start learning and being creative in the classroom”.
“You know, knowledge isn’t king anymore – Google is. “Whatever information you are looking for, you can find it there, but what you do with that information and how do you draw conclusions from it, how do you make comparisons and how do you synchronise it?
“Those are the kinds of skills that I don’t think any education system has addressed,” he said.
“The jobs that our children will be going into, especially our prep school pupils, don’t even exist yet.
“So how do you train a child to go into a workplace when you don’t know what that workplace is?”