KNYSNA NEWS - An accounting teacher at Knysna High School was named the winner of the Excellence in Secondary Teaching award in the Eden and Central Karoo District on 12 July, in the first round of national teaching awards run by the Department of Basic Education.

Then last week, on Monday 22 July, Diane Kennedy, who has been teaching accounting to grades 11 and 12 pupils at the school since 1993, competed against the winners of that award in the seven other provincial education districts, in the second round of the awards.

She will attend an award ceremony in Cape Town on 23 August, where the provincial winner of the award, who will go on to compete against the other provincial winners in September, will be announced.

The principal of Knysna High School, Mark Mosdell, who received the first runner-up award for Secondary School Leadership in Eden and Central Karoo on 12 July, said "I'm very proud of Di".

Meta-cognition

Kennedy said teachers at the school were "moving with the times, with technological trends in education. The big drive is meta-cognition (thinking) - our learners need to think out of the box, they can't think superficially, so it's that drive to improve critical thinking skills. Nowadays when they go for an interview (for a job), learners are going to need problem-solving skills, communication skills, collaboration skills.

"(Teachers) are working with changing trends of thinking, preparing them (learners) for life."

Kennedy said the school had introduced "cooperative learning - peer to peer teaching - (where) learners help each other. I pair up learners of different academic strengths, and they tutor each other in the class environment".

6% increases

This approach, over the past three to four years, had led to "6% increases in class averages, and this is changing teaching strategies".

Mosdell, who has been principal of the school since 2017, said post-Covid, due to social changes, "a different approach to teaching and learning was needed in our context - so Knysna High School shifted focus to teaching that required active learning, teaching learners the importance of emotional self-regulation, and focusing on core values".

The school had eight core values: Respect; Integrity; Pride; Trust; Loyalty; Caring; Accountability; and Responsibility.

"The idea of values is that they speak to our shared humanity," Mosdell said.

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