KNYSNA NEWS - In 2016 Ruth Powell attended a one-year long leadership course with Partners for Possibility (PfP) where they partner a principal with an outside person - who can be in business or, has some experience to aid schools. Such a person partners up with the principal to help and work with the team of educators. 

The goal is to encourage long-term partnerships and relationships between the principals and 'outsiders' to ensure benefit to the school, principal, educators and the learners.

Powell was a former science teacher at Oakhill and her family funded the construction of four classrooms for the literacy programme as well as science kits for practical science classes and experiments. She also implemented an ongoing recycling project.

Powell and Fraaisig Primary School principal Connie Stuurman discussed and worked with the team and HODs and identified literacy as the most important issue the learners were facing. Feedback from the team showed that the children were not getting enough opportunity to read and practice their reading.

Although volunteers are not trained teachers, they are capable of working with children with a basic understanding of letters and the sounding of letters.

The focus is on improving literacy and comprehension with the goal to encourage a love for reading and enabling the learners to progress and excel in their academics, to the best of their ability.

Other goals of the programme are to work with the teachers, and to provide more books. The volunteers also assist in the development of the programme and each volunteer has the opportunity to voice concerns or make suggestions on how to improve or change the programme for the better.

The working centre at Fraaisig Primary School which was built by Ruth Powell and her team.

The programme is now in its third year and, during this time, the volunteers have had to guide and help some of the children whose reading skills were very weak. Grade 3s were chosen as the best target group to focus on.

This year, however, the groups were divided into two learners (from four per group previously), with volunteers focusing on two learners for half an hour at a time. This was implemented to ensure that each learner could benefit from a more personalised approach and focused attention to their strengths and weaknesses. The weaker learners are focused on individually.

In the first year of the literacy programme the Grade 3s showed an overall improvement of 8%. In 2018 the percentage dropped, apparently due to the reading group of 2018 being much weaker than the previous year.

There are currently 15 volunteers for English and Afrikaans learners.

The biggest obstacle remaining is that the children are not reading enough. A factor adding to this, is the various backgrounds of the learners at the school.

Some speak isiXhosa, others are even Malawian with little to no exposure to English or Afrikaans

One of the main challenges facing the school is the fact that funding by the government is limited and even though the department of education provides schools with funds, it is not enough to get enough books. The school is focusing on getting more books, not only for the literacy programme, but also for the library and classes.

Ruth Powell and a Fraaisig learner go through homework together. 

Another of the programme's challenges has been break-ins and damage to the area where they have their literacy classes but KILT (Knysna Initiative Learning Teachers), playing a big role in the support of schools in the greater Knysna area, have ensured that security and safety at Fraaisig is in place.

The future of the program depends on the availability of volunteers, the support of the community and that of local business. 

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