Tag: skye college

Posted on by

Making sense of CAPS, IEB and Cambridge

Making sense of the various curricular and graduation options available at schools can be overwhelming.  This article briefly outlines three common approaches, namely CAPS, IEB and Cambridge.  Skye College preparatory and high school will implement the Cambridge curriculum.  This article will provide the main reasons we believe this to be the best choice, while also explaining how the curriculum fits within the larger Thriveway approach at Skye College.

CAPS, IEB and Cambridge?

Allow me a few introductory remarks about the role of a curriculum at school.  Firstly, a school’s curriculum provides guidance on the content a school teaches (for example, grade four science might focus on magnetism, forces, and ecosystems – to the exclusion of other topics).  Secondly, the curriculum specifies the level at which that content should be mastered (for example, students should not just be proficient at mixed operations with fractions using certain procedures, but should also be able to provide evidence for their reasoning – showing deep conceptual understanding of the topic). 

CAPS, IEB and Cambridge

CAPS (National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement) is the national curriculum followed by public schools in South Africa.  Many private schools also follow this curriculum.  Some of these schools, however, are also “IEB” schools.  IEB, the Independent Examination Board, does not refer to a stand-alone curriculum.  IEB schools generally use the CAPS curriculum as a guide but grade 12 students write an alternative matric examination that is administered by the IEB.  In other words, students in CAPS and IEB schools will be taught similar content, but they will not write the same exam.  Students from CAPS and IEB schools will all receive a National Senior Certificate when graduating from grade 12 – either the regular NSC or the IEB NSC.  All South African assessment bodies (such as IEB) are monitored by Umalusi, which ensures that their curricula and assessments are appropriate. 

Cambridge, on the other hand, is a stand-alone international curriculum.  Cambridge qualifications are not monitored by Umalusi, but by Cambridge Assessment International Education, part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment – an organisation that provides world-leading academic research, learning and assessment globally, backed by the first-class teaching and research departments of the University of Cambridge.  Students will usually complete their General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) by the time they are 16.  They then graduate from matric with a varied combination of AS levels and A levels (equitable or, in some cases, surpassing CAPS grade 12 standards).

It is important to keep in mind that, despite differences, there is significant overlap among most curriculums, especially for sequential subjects like Maths and English.  In other words, even though curriculums may vary with regards to when and how fractions are introduced and assessed, all curriculums will cover fractions.

Before we elaborate on the Cambridge curriculum at Skye College, and why we believe it to be the best choice, allow me to make a quick but important point…  Even though a school’s choice of curriculum is important, it is not the most important thing.  After all, adopting a curriculum with high standards is one thing.  Making sure all students succeed at these high levels is another.  What makes a curriculum come alive, therefore, is the way in which it is implemented in the classroom.  At Skye college we are committed to exclusively using those methods and techniques proven by research to maximise learning and academic success – for every child in every classroom. 

We also believe in the proven power of learning teachers.  Skye College teachers, therefore, not only begin with pedagogical best practice but also engage in regular examination of their own teaching.  This rigorous, job-embedded professional development leads to continuous improvement of professional practice.  Our high impact teachers are, therefore, true professionals, constantly honing their craft to create the most enjoyable and effective learning experiences for your child.  To sum up, the right choice of curriculum is important.  It guides teachers to choose relevant content and sets the bar for mastery appropriately high.  When this curriculum is effectively implemented by teachers who exclusively use pedagogical best practice, and who continue to hone their craft, the effects compound – year after year – unlocking your child’s full potential. 

So, why the Cambridge curriculum at Skye College? 

Because we believe the Cambridge curriculum will contribute to your child’s success in five important ways.

First, the Cambridge Curriculum will maximise tertiary study options.  With Cambridge, your child will gain an internationally recognised qualification.  Cambridge qualifications are also recognised at local universities including prestigious universities such as the University of Pretoria, University of Johannesburg and the University of Cape Town.  This means that a Cambridge qualification will provide your child with a wide range of local and international study options.  For more information on the Cambridge curriculum in South Africa, please click here. 

Second, the Cambridge Curriculum provides a rigorous standard that prepares your child for tertiary study success:  The Cambridge curriculum and exams are of a high, internationally benchmarked standard.  Most schools focus on helping your child access tertiary study.  At Skye College we believe that equipping your child to succeed at university is equally important.  Studying at Cambridge’s high standard will prepare your child for the rigor of tertiary study. 

Third, the Cambridge Curriculum provides flexibility that allows us to successfully weave it into our larger Thriveway tapestry. Implementing the Cambridge curriculum will be a necessary part of the Thriveway, but it will not be sufficient.  To truly equip your child to thrive[1], we, therefore, embed the Cambridge curriculum in the larger Thriveway, which includes, among other things, and in addition to the Cambridge curriculum, a high-impact socio-emotional development component.

[1] The Thriveway will equip your child to thrive in four important ways – by developing: deep connections to self and others; skills and competencies needed to contribute to the world; productive habits that lay down the rails for a successful and resilient life; and by supporting your child to develop their full potential.  The flexibility of the Cambridge curriculum will allow us to continue to focus on these four components of our vision while implementing our curriculum. Read more here. 

Fourth – a simple high-school core will increase fluency and provide opportunity for the development of 21st-century skills and personalised learning:  The Cambridge curriculum offers a vast number of subjects but requires fewer subjects to graduate – presenting these at greater depth.  This allows us to offer a strong and simple academic high-school core.  Because we are not required to offer a myriad of shallow, “filler” subjects we can, instead, focus on deep mastery for a few important subjects that will be most critical for your child’s tertiary career.  This simple, strong core also creates capacity to focus, in addition to the core curriculum, on developing important competencies for the 21st century.  These include, among others, creative intelligence, critical thinking, and entrepreneurship; all built on a solid foundation of math, language, and science.  A simple academic core also frees up time to focus on pursuing personal interest and developing unique talents – at school.  Math, science, tech, language – plus your passion.  The Thriveway will support students to discover and pursue their unique purpose through, among other things, workplace internships for high school students. 

And finally, the Cambridge Curriculum will connect your child to the world.  Your child’s ability to successfully navigate a multi-cultural, global workplace will be key to their future success.  Through the Cambridge curriculum, Skye College is naturally connected to other Cambridge schools – internationally and locally.  Many excellent South African schools (including some of the schools in the Curro network, Dainfern College, St. Johns, Nova Pioneer, the Generations Schools and others) offer the Cambridge curriculum.  Worldwide, Cambridge is offered at 10 000 schools in 160 countries.  This community of learning provides a natural platform for local and global collaboration and skills building. 

CAPS, IEB and Cambridge

We believe that the Cambridge Curriculum will provide an excellent foundation for your child’s academic success.  However, our research-based methodology means we are never limited to a single approach or curriculum.  Because we have a deep understanding of what works in pedagogy as well as a firm grasp on what it means to thrive, we are crafting an education that will truly serve the needs of your child in today’s world.  An education that will set your child up for success – not just at a job, but at real life.  When you start with what is proven to work, and you redefine your objectives to no less than success at life, school looks very different.

The Cambridge Curriculum is just one way in which we are delivering on our promise – an education to thrive for all.  

By Jean van Schalkwyk / Advisor for whole-child education at Skye College

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Books that Inspire Us in the Classroom

Today we’d like to share three resources that have inspired us in our journey towards relationship-driven learning.

The first – “How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk” has been dubbed “the parenting bible”.  First written in 1980, authors Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish have been inspiring more than one generation of parents to take a more feeling-centred and playful approach to parenting. 

Years later, Faber’s daughter, Joanna, released a follow-on book (our second recommendation) – “how to talk so little kids will listen”.  Though slightly different in their approach, both books focus on understanding and accepting feelings, and finding ways to build relationships with children.  Both books are filled with encouraging stories from parents all over the world who find better ways to get out of the house / put on shoes / eat dinner with their small people.  What we like about Joanna Faber’s book is that it focuses specifically on ages 2-7, and groups commons struggles together by chapter.  So, if you are struggling at bedtime, you can simply turn to the bedtime chapter. 

Our third recommendation provides much greater depth of understanding that, we believe, will help you better implement the suggestions in the first two books.  The incredible work by Marshall Rosenberg – “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life” is truly life changing.

Two truths that have inspired us in our journey towards relationship-driven learning weave like a golden thread through these three works…

  1. Accept feelings and understand the needs that trigger them
  2. Create positive feelings of cooperation through playfulness and choice

 Accepting feelings and understand needs.

Many parents struggle to accept and understand their child’s negative emotions.  Our first response is often to try to get a child to stop feeling a certain way…  Bottling up emotions can be dangerous, however.  Research suggests that not acknowledging an emotion can increase its strength.  On the other hand, successfully supressing emotion can negatively impact mental and physical health.  A 2013 study by the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Rochester found that people who bottled up their emotions significantly increased their chance of premature death from all causes.  Short term consequences include negative effects on blood pressure, memory and self-esteem.

Accepting and regulating emotions begin with understanding.  Emotions are not, as we commonly think, triggered by what someone else does.  Instead, emotions are triggered by our own, human needs.  Marshall Rosenberg has brought warring factions to peace through this simple yet profound principle.  His book, our third recommendation, can bring peace to your home by helping you create a safe space for feelings and needs.  To do this, follow four steps (simple, yet deceptively difficult due to the way most of us have been socialised to react when confronted with strong negative emotions.)

Steps to regulating your child’s emotions

Step 1.   Observe behaviour (e.g. yelling “No!”, hitting a sibling etc.)

Step 2.   Identify the emotion that is triggering the behaviour (Angry / annoyed / sad etc).

Step 3.   Identify the deeper human need that is being met / not being met to trigger that emotion (Need to decide for oneself / need for fun / need to feel safe etc.). 

Step 4:  Verbalise the behaviour you see, and guess the emotion and need.  You don’t need to be sure.  Simply allow the space for your child to correct / confirm your guesses and so continue the conversation.  We’ll share a link to a list of common feelings and needs at the end of this post… if you’re stumped, you might find you / your child’s need here. 

Step 5:  Make a clear request.

What does this look like in practice? Let us say you are trying to leave the house, where your child has been happily playing.  Instead of commanding, insisting, and threatening, you might say to a child who is stamping his foot and frowning: “I see your face look upset.  Are you feeling angry because you need to play / it’s important for you to play? Once you have correctly identified your child’s feelings and needs, they may be more open to hearing your own feelings and needs.  Continue the conversation, focusing on feelings and needs as they come up.  Once all feelings and needs have been heard, you can make a clear request.

It is impossible to do justice to the incredible work of Marshal Rosenberg in this post.  We highly recommend reading his book if you are interested in learning more. 

Create positive feelings of cooperation through playfulness and choice.

Adelle and Joanna Faber remind us of the simple truth… nobody likes to be told what to do, even if they know that what they are being asked to do is good for them.  Imagine coming home from work and having your spouse tell you – “Sit down.  Hang up your coat.  Eat your dinner.  Finish your food.  Don’t spill.  Brush your teeth.” 

How do you feel?  Like doing what you’re told?  Unlikely…  We all have a deep human need to decide for ourselves.  This need is real and valid.  When told what to do, we feel rebellious because our need is not being met.

Parents often have better results when they intentionally create positive feelings – helping their child to feel cooperative rather than rebellious, by meeting their need for connection and play.  Instead of trying to pin down your three-year old to put on socks, make the sock talk.  “I’m feeling so flat and empty and cold!  Oh, how I wish someone would put a nice warm foot into me…”  Most of the time, kids will be delighted to oblige.   You may also focus on playful choices.  Instead of saying “go get in the car,” you might say “how would you like to go to the car today?  Hop like a bunny?  Walk backwards?  Ride on my back?  Fly like a pterodactyl?”.  Most likely you will reach the car giggling, instead of yelling. 

We have only scratched the surface of these three wonderful books that have helped us to formalise relationship-driven learning as part of our Thriveway journey.  

We sincerely recommend them to each Skye College Parent. 

Get your copy from Takealot: 

How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish 

How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber & Julie King

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Facts or Fads… Equipping your child to thrive by doing what works

What works in education?  This question has been at the heart of an ongoing debate … until recently.  The most extensive educational research study ever undertaken presents us with clear, if complex, answers.  Over the past 15 years, Professor John Hatti and his team have investigated and ranked a myriad of influences that affect student performance at school.  His results are based on data from a staggering 240 million students (and counting) worldwide.  His findings surprised many…  Of the 150 influences he investigated, the vast majority (145) had a positive effect on learning.  Seems that almost everything done in education works.  But here is the catch – not everything works equally well.   Not by a long shot.   

Teachers who maximise their impact focus on the big ideas, the powerful strategies, those approaches that radically maximise learning and equip every child to reach their full potential.

The following is an all-too-brief summary of some of the key ideas that lie at the core of Skye College’s approach to education.  Thank you, John!

Effective teachers understand learning

Learning happens in three phases.  During surface learning, students are learning to understand single ideas, such as addition.  Over time, students move into deep learning – understanding deepens as students grasp connections among multiple ideas (for example, multiplication as repeated addition).  The end goal of learning, however, is transfer learning – the transfer of knowledge and skill to new domains.  Students have reached transfer when they apply what they know of addition and multiplication in the science class or while shopping. 

Effective teachers understand this learning process.  They know where students are at any given moment and adapt their teaching strategies accordingly. 

During surface learning, for example, the strategic use of concrete manipulatives should play an important role.  New math concepts can be effectively introduced using concrete objects like counting beads or fraction circles.  The use of concrete manipulatives should be followed by more abstract pictorial representations of these manipulatives (pictures of counting beads), preparing the child for the fully abstract world of numbers and symbols.  Maria Montessori perfected this concrete-pictorial-abstract progression in her rich manipulatives, which is why we love using Montessori equipment to help students move through surface to deep learning.

During deep learning, collaborative peer interactions become increasingly important.  Approximately 50% of math time each week should be dedicated to “learning out loud” with peers in pairs, small groups, or the whole class.  This is more than answer seeking.  Math talk includes explaining strategies, justifying answers, and comparing approaches – all skillfully facilitated by the teacher towards the end-goal of deep mathematical thinking.  The reality at many schools, however, echo the research – teachers spend up to 89% of classroom time in monologue and students seem to come to school to watch their teacher work.

During transfer learning, problem-solving teaching offers great potential.  Students draw on their knowledge and skill to collaboratively solve complex and meaningful problems, consolidating and further extending their learning as they interact with the real world.  The timing here makes all the difference….  Introducing complex problems too early in the learning cycle is not effective.  After all, it is impossible to creatively solve a problem you do not deeply understand.

"Effective teachers never value any approach over student learning."

Effective teachers are precise.

Effective teachers understand the learning cycle and use teaching strategies appropriately.  Importantly, however – they never value any approach over student learning.  Good teachers are constantly checking, in real-time, that students are making progress towards the learning goals of the lesson.  Such teacher can stop, correct, adjust, reinforce, and give timely feedback because they have their finger on the pulse of learning.  What is more, they view the results from student assessments (whether a quick verbal check for understanding or a mid-term test) as feedback on their own teaching.  They are learning teachers, always honing their craft.

Effective teachers create safety.

Great teachers create trusting learning environments.  In these classrooms, everyone’s voice is important, mistakes are opportunities to learn and learning, rather than results, are celebrated.  There is much that goes into creating a classroom culture where everyone feels safe.  One strategy is to intentionally teach students the language of respectful collaboration. 

Sentence starters are a great place to begin … 

  • “I agree with you because _____ and I’d like to build on that by _____”
  • “Would you mind explaining your thinking when you said “______” so I can follow your reasoning?”
  • “I disagree, because it seems to me ________________”

When students use the language of respectful collaboration, they hone a vital skill.  What is more, they co-create safe spaces where everyone can learn out loud.

Effective teachers equip students to drive their brains.

Remaining relevant in a future world will require your child to continue to learn, unlearn and relearn throughout their life.

Being in the driver’s seat of one’s learning requires several complex skills.  Importantly, you need the ability to think about your thinking (meta-cognition) and the self-regulatory skills to persist when things get tough.  It is equally vital that you know what to do when you are stuck. 

Effective teachers weave the development of these skills into the fabric of classroom life.  They think out loud so that students can observe and learn self-questioning. They value interesting mistakes and intentionally focus on learning to learn.  Good teachers provide feedback beyond the right or wrong answer – feedback that includes the kind of information students need to develop as life-long learners. 

Instead of “good job”, an effective teacher might say.

  • “I like how you approached that difficult passage by making a key-word outline – that’s a really helpful strategy.” Or
  • “You really developed your stamina by redoing that problem and I love how you built on your mistake.”  Or
  • “You don’t know? Well, show me what do you know…”

When teachers speak to students in this way, students develop an internal voice that will support, teach, and encourage their learning long after the teacher’s voice has faded.

"Effective teachers think out loud so that students can observe and learn self-questioning. They value interesting mistakes and intentionally focus on learning to learn."

Thrive in life.

At Skye College, we choose research-driven pedagogy because we believe in equipping every child to reach their full potential.  People who thrive have this in common…  People who thrive are also deeply connected and skilled at building strong relationships.  They are equipped to contribute to their world in ways they find personally meaningful.  People who thrive build good habits that lay down the rails for a successful and resilient life. 

Sounds like the education you wish you had?  Click here to learn more about how the Skye College Thriveway will equip your child to thrive.  Thrive today.  Thrive tomorrow.  Thrive in life.