Newsletters

Newsletter December 2018

Happy Festive season to all our sponsors, volunteers, students and staff. This was a very busy year and there is so much to share.

Knysna Education Trust is in their third year of presenting FET accredited Pre-school teacher qualifications. With a strong service provider, Professional Child Care College, KET offers part-time courses to students who work, while simultaneously accessing quality training within the Garden Route. A total of 27 students completed their courses at the end of this academic year.

Fifteen students completed the Basic Child Care Course. Six students graduated on a pass level, receiving on average, marks above 60%. Two students received marks above 75%, which is considered a merit, and six students received a distinction, above 80%, for their overall mark.
This year 12 students completed their Preschool Teacher's Course, which gives them a full NQF Level 4 Preschool Teacher qualification. With this they can register with SACE (South African Council of Educators).

Intensive Intervention Programme 2018 – This was the second year of this program and many positive changes were made . We started off with pre-screening 400 children in February and had 220 children in the Therapy Groups. A total of 24 weeks of Therapy Groups were presented twice a week at 18 different sites. Between all the hard work there was time to share fruit with the children, some tasting strawberries (for the first time) during our theme "Healthy food" and all the children in the groups each received their very own soft toy to cuddle when we discussed "Our feelings". The boys especially loved our theme "Transport". Wonderful books like The Hungry Caterpillar and Handa's surprise was read and discussed weekly and really aroused the children's interest not only in books and stories but also about the world around them. It was difficult for the team to say goodbye to the children in the therapy groups we have come to love them and is sad to see them move on to Grade R.

Our Parenting workshops were all well attended and we were able to upload the CareUp app on 350 parents' phones. In October the parents, teachers and schools who used the app the most was rewarded with certificates. All schools in the program received a certificate for participation. This year 50% of the children in the therapy groups were tested on the ELOM (Early Learning Outcomes Measure) to determine how successful the program and therapy groups were this year.

There are currently almost 300 children on the ACE (Adopt a child's education) programme, and thanks to the loyal support of our kind donors these young children are able to attend preschool where they previously would not have been able to. There is an on-going drive towards increasing these numbers annually. The only way to tackle the alarming national literacy and numeracy statistics is to teach these vital lessons to pre-schoolers. The ACE Programme continues to be a top priority for us.

To further assist with the Literacy and Numeracy development of the young learners we serve, the FONIX literacy and NUMICON mathematics programmes are implemented daily in 75 preschools in our area. These programmes tackle the essential skill of learning to read and count, in a fun and interactive way – Play is after all the best way for children to learn.

We remain humbled by the dedication of our preschool teachers who despite scares resources, trying conditions and a lack of fee paying parents, still strive every day to make the preschool years count, for every child in our community. WE salute them!

Regards from the KET team. 

Published 18/12/2018