Back to school 2021

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [02:30]Perhaps a little bit of information to contextualize where these decisions are coming from would be helpful for parents at this time. Nearly 2,000 teachers have died since the end of 2020, or towards the end of 2020, we lost that many teachers. We lost over 1,000 teachers who were marking in the government's exams. Teachers were lost in the IEB exam marking as well. This was all due to COVID-related illnesses, COVID deaths, people who were quarantining because family members had gotten the illness. This is no longer a situation where we're sitting looking at numbers on graphs and watching progressions and increases and decreases. We are in the most part, all of us know of somebody who quite close to us has gotten ill, has perhaps died. Some of us have attended the funerals of people that we know who have died of COVID. It's very real, the danger of this situation and how prevalent this infection is. Is very, very real. And I believe that's part of the reason we, we're seeing some of the flip-flopping from the government side of things as well. I think it's why we saw quite a bland address from the president on Monday night, which was extremely frustrating for so many people because clear direction was really not being given. And at that point, the director general of education had been quoted in the news as saying that schools would remain open. From Tuesday, however, a lot more information was presented to him as these meetings started, and he was getting a lot of pressure from the unions. And when he started seeing all of the stats and information coming in, he did have a change of heart. This is why in the meetings over the last few days, they have taken the stance of keeping the schools closed. While education is first and foremost on all of our minds, the health and safety of our children and teachers Has to take priority. The reality of the situation is the numbers are higher now than they ever were in the first wave. What we're actually dealing with now is, in my mind, something completely separate to the first wave. You know, we had an infection that we were dealing with. The government came up with a strategy to deal with the first round of infections, but it feels to me like we've actually, it feels a bit like this is version 2.0. This is round two, and how we deal with things now is slightly different. We can take all the lessons that we've learned from the first round and apply them to this round, but we are actually starting again. That seems to be a lot of the thinking that's been directing and driving the meetings and the correspondence we've been getting from NAISA, the National Association of Independent Schools, from ISASA, from the Command Council, because a lot of this is coming directly from them, and the DBE.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [05:14]As an independent school, you have a discretionary latitude. How are you applying it now, and what can parents expect next week?

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [05:21]Let me just explain that latitude, because I think a lot of parents are under the impression that in the independent space we get to call the shots suitable to our own school. For a large part, that is actually the case. In the school space, they're calling that differentiation. Do the private schools or the independent schools rather get differentiation or differentiated treatment? And the reason these questions come up is because we did get that differentiation last year. We saw it when we came down to level four and then level three, where the government schools were allowed to bring back grades seven and twelve, for example, the independent schools were allowed to bring back other grades, as long as we could suitably prove that our safety protocols were sufficient. However, that only goes so far. When directives are coming to us from the command council, for example, it's exactly the same as the alcohol ban. We don't get to say that we are going to do things differently. How the differentiation will work for a school like ours, however, is that we don't have to remain closed, as in no children getting any schooling until the 15th of February. We can go online, because as we saw from last year, we have the ability to do that very successfully. There's absolutely no reason we wouldn't do that.

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [06:51]We have the logistical challenge of making sure that the children have everything that they need to be able to do their schooling from home program. What we've decided to do is bring the children onto campus on Monday, but we'll bring them in in a staggered cohort approach so that we can sanitize in between the cohorts and make sure that everybody remains safe. We'll probably not have children in classrooms much on Monday either. We'll keep them outside in the assembly space for the greater part of while they're on campus. So the plan is this, parents, have a piece of paper and a pencil ready so that you know what the plan is. 7:30 to 9:30, all grade four to seven children need to be on campus. Please drop them off at 7:30 and collect them again at 9:30. In that time, we will issue them with all of their textbooks, and we'll spend some time with them just going through what they need to be able to do online to be able to do their schooling from home. We are also going to do a quick checklist with them to make sure that they have the suitable equipment that we discussed in the last podcast, which I will remind everybody of shortly. Then we're going to take a break between 9:30 and 10 o'clock where we get to sanitize the school. So you collect the grade fours to sevens by 9:30, give us the half an hour with no children on campus to sanitize. Then from 10 till 12, we would like the eights and nines on campus. Then we will go through the same process with them, issue all their textbooks, go through all the procedures, go through the checklist to make sure that they have their tech. From twelve till twelve thirty, we will sanitize again. Then from twelve thirty till two thirty, we would like the tens to twelves on campus, please. That also includes the four students who are class of 2020, please come onto campus so that you can hear exactly what you need to be doing. On Monday, we would like all the learners to come to school in their uniforms. We want them getting into the mindset that the school year has begun. And our new families, if you don't yet have your uniforms, you'll be collecting them on Monday as well. Tuesday morning, seven thirty sharp, we will be online carrying on with our schooling from home program. With the exception of our new students, we want them on campus in the classrooms with us. They will be sitting in the classroom, safely distanced from the teacher, but this will give us the chance just to do a little bit of induction and orientation with them, show them exactly the ins and outs of Google Classroom while the teachers are teaching, and showing them how we operate our Schooling from Home program. Then, very simply, from Wednesday morning, the whole school is at home, Schooling from Home again.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [09:21]During the Monday visit when children are on campus, you're doing an audit of what they have at home. Can you just remind us, please, what it is they're supposed to have before they do Schooling from Home on Tuesday?

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [09:31]We're looking at two screens on the work desk at home, one for work and one to communicate with the class. They need to have their webcams, their microphones, their over-ear headsets. They need to have their decent internet connection. Then we have thrown in the mix ESCOM and the fact that they have started load shedding again. We need to bear all of that in mind. So obviously first prize would be a generator at home, but if that's not possible, a UPS is pretty essential just to keep that Wi-Fi running. It'll give a couple of hours on the battery life on the laptop. I don't think it's going to get the child through the whole school day, but at least they won't be missing as much of the lesson. They can catch up that and must work a bit later.

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [10:17]We're sitting in a situation now where the decisions are being made by government because of the pressure on the hospitals. Despite the fact that we are sitting anywhere between 15 and 18,000 infections a day, we have fewer than 700 hospitals in South Africa, and that's counting both government and private. So the pressure on the health system right now is immense, and that is why they are doing what they're doing. The executive director, obviously also last night in the meeting, Lebochan Munjani, said something very profound which really resonated with me, and he said that all these decisions that are being made right now are about pragmatism. It's not about the way we want the world to be right now. Obviously, the way that we want the world to be right now is that we want our children on campus. Edu Inc is an on-campus school. We want to have our children on campus as quickly as we possibly can. That being the case, we will be reviewing the situation every two weeks. We'll be taking all the information into account, the numbers, the directives that we're receiving from all these different bodies as frequently as we are, and we will continue to review. At the same time, we know that Isasa will continually be lobbying to get grades back on campus. My appeal to the parents is simply that we are patient, which is difficult in such stressful times. I encourage parents to remember that our children are still very fortunate. You know, we've got a situation where they can have the technology they need to continue their education. I believe that to be successful in such a difficult period of time, it's an all hands on deck approach where we are kind to each other, we show each other a little bit of grace and compassion. We take these punches, we roll with these punches. Why does this lockdown feel so different to the last one? Because it is more stressful this time around. The first time around, we had no idea the length of time we were going to have to contend with this, and the fatigue has definitely set in. I believe that's part of where the stress is coming from. This is where we need to acknowledge that we are in this, and we just have to keep going through it. We will get there in the end. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that we will one day all be back on campus, and our school will be running. We'll be doing our thing. We have a bit of a road to walk. We have a journey to walk before we get there. Let's support each other. Let's support our single parent families who are juggling the schooling from home and their jobs. Let's support our children who are feeling very stressed by all of this. Let's support our staff, whose number one priority is your child's health and education. And let's do it together as a team, Team Edu Inc.