Purpose
Over 85% of South African children attend under-performing schools and only 40% will graduate from upper secondary school. The South African Extraordinary Schools Coalition (SAESC) is working to change that, one school at a time. The SAESC is a BRIDGE-run community made up of school leaders and teachers from a group of over 20 schools around South Africa that define themselves as ‘impact schools’. Impact schools are high-quality, achievement-orientated schools that provide disadvantaged learners across South Africa with affordable access (low fee or non-fee) to high-quality learning that prepares them for success in higher education and the world of work.
The SAESC was first formed in 2010 with seed funding from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. This CoP defined its own set of themes and objectives, which have guided its activities over the years. The SAESC is one of BRIDGE’s most advanced communities of practice with its own logo, website, Twitter page and Facebook page.
Key Activities
Classroom practice and instructional leadership are the SAESC’s main focus areas, with the aim of integrating effective practices into broader national education policy decisions. Member schools take turns to host national quarterly meetings, at which members share best practice, attend content-based workshops, observe classrooms in action and take part in assessment, monitoring and evaluation activities.
This CoP has developed its own School Peer Review (SPR) and School Improvement Plan (SIP). Peer reviews enable school leaders and their staff to observe each other’s schools in action. These are a good mechanism for schools to establish a process of self-reflection and continuous learning as well as to participate in and support each other’s school improvement initiatives in a non-judgemental and collaborative way. The School Improvement Plan is a tool developed by the Coalition to help schools formulate objectives for improvement and ways of monitoring these. Link to the SPR and SIP documents.
The SAESC also partners with the Global Teachers Institute to convene the annual AXIS Education Summit (#AxisEd). This is a five-day convergence of students, teachers and education leaders from across South Africa and around the world. The Summit allows a variety of educational stakeholders at any stage in their career an opportunity to collaborate and work towards a new vision for education.
Link to the BRIDGE Knowledge Hub for meeting highlights, presentations, tools and documented working practice from this community.
Contact: Patience@bridge.org.za
Purpose
There is a growing recognition that, in order to improve the performance of our education system and our students’ learning outcomes, we need to gather and interpret educational data of all kinds. Progress and innovation evolve from an understanding of the impacts of specific policies, systems or interventions on education systems. This understanding can only be achieved by systematic monitoring and evaluation (M&E) approaches. The role of M&E in educational transformation is becoming increasingly valued by government agencies, funders, programme implementers and programme beneficiaries.
Originally established as the M&E colloquium in 2010, this interest group emerged from the Maths and Science Community of Practice and later grew into a fully-fledged community of practice.
Key Activities
This community of practice shares expertise, experiences and tools relating to M&E, focusing on different models and trends as well as lessons learned from project evaluations. Those who attend the CoP range from expert and highly trained evaluators to those who have an emerging interest in the field as programme implementers or as practising educators.
Link to the BRIDGE Knowledge Hub for meeting highlights, presentations, tools and documented working practice from this community.
Contact: benter@bridge.org.za
