During our 2019 Planning for Success workshops more than 350 educators (principals and leadership teams from schools) in the Western Cape seized the opportunity to get ahead of the rush and plan their next academic year in detail.
The Principals Academy Trust (PAT), a non-profit public benefit organisation in South Africa, has been mentoring school leadership teams since 2012. It has been offering the planning workshops since 2013, with great success, to help schools kick off the academic year with systemic planning in place.
PAT believes that the principal is the lever for change in every school. By empowering these key roleplayers it strives to create conducive learning environments that promote continuous improvement.
“Our participants always ask the date for the next year as they are leaving the workshop,” says Bruce Probyn, who heads up the mentoring team at PAT. “It is such a valuable workshop. The principals and teachers walk away with a massive achievement.”
PAT believes that the principal is the lever for change in every school. By empowering these key roleplayers it strives to create conducive learning environments that promote continuous improvement.
The planning workshop, where the school has the opportunity to plan their entire calendar year with facilitation from PAT mentors, has always been popular. In the first two years it was hosted at one venue with a limited number of schools. This year, for convenience and in order to cut down long travel distances for the interested schools, PAT will run the same workshop in four areas.
On Saturday, the 5th of October, two workshops were held – one for Cape Town-based schools (at Pick n Pay Head Office in Kenilworth) and one in Paarl (at Klein Nederburg Secondary School). A total of 70 schools and 299 participants joined these two workshops.
This coming Thursday, 10 October, the last two workshops will be held in Ceres (at Ceres Secondary School) and in the Overberg region (at Zwelihle Primary School).
At the workshop each school receives an A1 year planner, a digital copy for 2020, a file containing duties and responsibilities and other documents that aid in the planning exercise.
The schools are also encouraged to delegate and assign responsibility on the calendar for each activity or event.
The attendees at the workshop commented on the positive nature and approach.
“The workshop was very well organised and informative. I learned so much that I am excited to implement at school. Our staff always benefit from these workshops,” a delegate from Beacon View Primary says.
“It is an extremely productive workshop where schools sit in their teams, using the dates received from the Western Cape Education Department that we request in advance and planning the next year in minute detail,” says Probyn. “You walk out and your planning for the whole year is done.”
