NEW School Website with NEW Services

Hello everyone,

This is just a short note, telling you that our new School
<http://www.schoolreportservices.com/> Report Services website is now up
and running.

What's new you ask? Let me tell you...

Firstly, we have revamped our entire registration model. Previously, we gave
you the option to register as a SCHOOL or as an INDIVIDUAL. But we got a lot
of 'tire kickers'. So in retrospect it wasn't one of the best decisions we
ever made. Now you have to be associated with a school to register - because
we now ask the school details right on the registration form. This is
hopefully going to save you folks a whole lot of confusion, and we hope it's
going to save us a whole lot of unproductive admin. This means we can give
more time and focus to our main customers - you the school representative!

We also decided to make a whole lot of free content available to all
visitors. These include a revamped Proposal document, some free material
your school can use to communicate to the parents, and the results of a
survey we conducted in Australia towards the end of last year. Registered
users get even more resources.

We decided to add a new service. This service allows us to provide your
school with its own customized Google Earth Satellite Location Pin. It
actually provides your school with its own mini-webpage using the Google
Earth program as the enabling technology. It's really cool and you can read
more about it HERE <http://www.schoolreportservices.com/GEPin1.aspx> !
What's more, it's also darn affordable!

We've improved the general layout and navigation of the site. This
"hopefully" makes it much easier to find what you are looking for.

Lastly, we couldn't have all this new cool stuff without polishing our web
page presence. So we employed the services of a design company to give us
artistic guidance. They did the new branding you now see on the site. We
also reworked our content significantly!

All in all, we hope you like it. - Adam Phillips

Education Expo - Good Stuff!

Hi,

I know I've been quite for a while - there's a lot going on.

First, we at School Report Services are frantically trying to tie up the
School Communications Survey that we did in Australia last year. It's 2
months late - my sincerest apologies. We were not happy with the quality of
the results that were given us - just a couple of bar charts - so we
undertook a deeper analysis of the data, which is proving MUCH more
interesting - it's also proving to be much more difficult and time consuming
than we first thought to prepare a document we think is worthy of further
distribution. When it's done, we will put the survey results on our website
as a free download. We will also be sending it to the schools in Australia
that wanted a personal copy (along with a humble apology letter for being so
late).

Yesterday, I attended the Education and Schools exhibition at Sandton city.
It showcased a selection of some of the BEST schools in South Africa. I was
impressed with the friendliness of the school staff that were there, and
especially impressed with the confidence and good manners of the student
representatives! Well done. It give me hope for the future of independent
education in South Africa! I still hold to my view that independent
education in South Africa is the way to go if you want to get quality
education. Except for the costs involved (which are steep) I wish the public
education sector would take a leaf out of their book, and get of their
collective rear ends and get more proactive in providing AFFORDABLE, QUALITY
education - which should actually be funded by the high taxes we pay.

We are also dramatically revamping our website
(www.SchoolReportServices.com). Here are some of the changes we will be
making:

A totally new look and feel, with a more friendly navigation interface.

New and Updated content

A NEW service (which is secret for now, but just to say, that this service
will provide your school with "missile targeted" marketing opportunities to
pop you way ahead of your competition). This service will be FREE for those
schools that use our standard reporting service.

That's all for now - I'll keep you posted.

SA School System in Meltdown

I’m baaacckk!!

 

Yes, I’ve been quiet for a while. Not because I’ve had nothing to write about – quite the opposite actually – just not enough time.

 

It’s quite a claim – South African School System in Meltdown!

 

Since the teachers’ strike here are some headlines from the South African newspapers. Make your own judgments.

 

·         Crisis of the drugs-and-sex kids – Community organizations take action to curb social ills among primary school children (Sunday Times – 9 September 2007)
In this report, 7 children collapsed at Simla Primary after taking Ecstasy tablets. The boy at the center of the scandal faces charges of assault.
A 9-year old girl in the community prostituted herself to fund her own drug habit.
A grade 2 pupil (about 7-years old) is addicted to cigarettes.
Grade 7 pupils (about 12-years old) play truant to host sex and drugs parties at their houses.
According to the report, the drug use leads to sexual molestation, underage sex, alcohol abuse, and theft.
In the Chatsworth community, “Sugars” (a mixture of heroin, cocaine, and rat poison) are in constant supply.

·         ‘Innocent’ bunking can lead to sex, drugs and crime (Sunday Times – 7 October 2007)
The gist of this report – two girls who started bunking when 13 years old, got bored, started to do drugs, and paid for the drugs with sex, then lied to their parents to cover it all up.
The Western Cape Education department found that at age 14, 11% of pupils were bunking. At age 16 – 16 %; 23% at 17. At 18, 49% had dropped out of the school system.
Statistics South Africa found that in 2006, 72000 schoolgirls got pregnant, and 547000 girls aged between 13 and 18 dropped out of school. That’s more than HALF A MILLION girls dropping out every year! That’s horrifying!! It begs the question – If that’s just the girls, how many boys can we add to that total????

·         Teachers can’t take it any more (Sunday Times 9 September 2007)
One in 10 on stress leave.
13-year-old bludgeons teacher with hammer.
Girls raped on the playground during break time.
The harsh reality is that, generally, South African schools are not safe places.
Unions and experts have warned that great damage has already been done to the education system.
Children found guilty of serious misconduct, such as rape and assault … were often not expelled. … even when a governing body recommended expulsion, heads of departments were reluctant to carry this out.

·         School Scam Exposed (The Star – 16 November 2007)
R13.87 for a pencil (costs R4.69)
R120 for R100 calculators
New guitars, but no music lessons taught at the school
Workbooks with 170 errors
Most of the school supplies are handled by EduSolutions as part of a contract from the Gauteng Department of Education. They seem surly, uncooperative, greedy, and uncouth. Yet the GDE insists that certain schools use them as their only supplier. I SMELL A DEAD RAT!! My advice, avoid EduSolutions like the plague if you can.

Heaven help this country with education in the state it’s in.

There’s more – much more – with very little good news. I’m going to stop this post now – I’m feeling positively ill at the thought of educating my young son in this county.

UNDER-Spending is Hurting Education

This is South Africa’s shame!

 

The South African Eastern Cape Department of Education has under-spent R139-million allocated for school infrastructure development for 2006/2007! … While the pupils in rural areas:

·         sit on tree stumps,

·         cram 251 pupils into three crumbling mud huts with only 15 desks between them,

·         do not have working toilets,

·         have no safe way of crossing rivers to get to school,

·         have no storage facilities to store books and equipment,

·         have to put up with a school building that is structurally unsafe.

These types of conditions are causing a high failure rate.

 

Now let’s do the math:

The Education department estimates that it costs about R5-million to erect a school. (I doubt it costs that much! You can build a fairly large “luxury” house in those areas for about R500,000 – so you should be able to build a sound, simple rectangular building with a number of classrooms, an administration office, and safe toilets, for about R1-million! IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE FANCY!!! JUST FUNCTIONAL! – I think someone is padding the figures in the hopes of making a huge profit!)

 

Even at that ridiculous price, the Education Department could have built about 28 dearly-needed schools. At the more realistic cost of R1-million, they could have built more than 130 safe schools.

 

I think it’s time for the government administrators to get off their collective rear ends, and do something that benefits the community instead of themselves!

 

When they eventually do build the schools, they can spend a few pennies in comparison, to give the parents of those pupils in rural areas, a concise summary of their children’s school progress report. School Report Services (www.schoolreportservices.com) has all the details.

 

Hell, it's tough down under!

I cracked up about this when I read about it. This is my first post about something “educational related” outside of South Africa. It appealed to me.

 

Some poor guy named Max, has a surname of Hell. This caused some problems because, according to the report, St Peter the Apostle Primary School in Melbourne, Australia, initially refused to admit him because of his surname. Now the Hell family – of Catholic persuasion – were understandably upset. The school later had a change of heart, but so did the Hells – based on grounds of victimization (or possible victimization). One could say they were “the Hell in!”

 

Well and good, but unfortunately it’s a fact of life that anything “unusual” gets teased (usually unmercifully) at school. I have a sneaking suspicion that poor Max is going to be teased his entire life. The best thing his family can do it to teach young Max not to take it seriously – perhaps even flaunt it and make light of it. So when someone says “Go to Hell!”, say: “In fact I already live there!”, or “Oh, so you’re coming over to my place then?”

 

Reverse psychology in such situations actually does work – I speak from experience, as someone who was also “victimized” his entire school life – albeit for different reasons.

 

At least Max can get his school report sent to his parents mobile phone, no matter what school he goes to if that school uses our SMS reporting service. Check out www.SchoolReportServices.com for more details.

 

Teachers Strike Today!

Well, it had to happen sometime I suppose. ...

Today about 80% of South Africa's teachers went on strike. At least most
schools informed the parents that there would be no school today.
Unfortunately, that made a huge dent in worker productivity for most
businesses, because the parents either had to take leave (unscheduled) or
bring their children with them to work (How productive can you be with a kid
or two bugging you the whole day?).

Am I mad about the situation? No.

Am I inconvenienced? Yes.

Am I upset? Yes - but not for the reasons you may think.

I am upset that the situation was allowed to get to this state in the first
place. It's just another indication of how REACTIONARY our government is -
instead of being PROACTIONARY.

Everyone knows that teachers paid by the government get a pathetic salary.
Granted, some of the teachers are pathetically unmotivated, and couldn't
care a damn about the students in their care. However, I know that most
teachers perform an excellent job, under some very trying circumstances.
Government perhaps has lost focus of how important the role of teachers are
in society.

Perhaps if government actually paid our essential services employees
(nurses, teachers, police, etc.) a better salary, they would be more
motivated to deliver the service they are paid to deliver (I know this is a
naïve thought, but I can hope and dream too, can't I?).

The other thing that really irks me is that we pay quite high tax in South
Africa. Our esteemed minister of Finance has managed to collect more revenue
than ever before, from the widest tax base ever, and the average middle
class citizen still has to pay for basic education (government or
otherwise). Like most people, I hate double paying! If our taxes were used
to visibly improve schooling, health care, and safety and security, I
wouldn't mind paying so much tax. (It's at times like this that I admire
countries like Australia, who seem to have a workable and well organized
education system.)

OK, I've had enough of a moan for now. What I'll be spending the next few
weeks researching is: Which country (or countries) have the best primary and
high school education systems. I'll be looking at factors like quality,
subject variety, teacher pay and other benefits, government assistance,
affordability, school infrastructure, other school services, extra-mural
activities, after care facilities, etc. We would like to hear your thoughts,
so please post a comment.

If you want an idea of how we can speed up report delivery for your school,
check out www.SchoolReportServices.com.

Health Screening in Schools

At last, I'm back! A new school term has begun.

I just recently read an American blog article on vision screening in
schools. It seems that there are a number of social and legislative
issues regarding stuff like vision screening in schools in the USA.

This got me thinking. When I was at school - not so long ago, every
child had his or her ears and eyes checked at least once a year. This
was performed for free, and if there was a problem, the parents were
informed of the results.

OK, we didn't have the luxury of having a resident school nurse like
many schools in the USA and UK - a nurse/doctor/optical technician
visited the school once a year. It wasn't a perfect system, and it had
some flaws. For instance, we had to line up in alphabetical order, and
read an eye chart. If you happened to have poor eyesight, and you were
at the back of the queue, and had a good memory - you tended to have
"perfect" vision.

The thing is, to learn effectively a child needs to be able to see and
hear. There is no getting around this. If a child cannot see or hear
properly, the challenges involved in educating that child are
extraordinary! Just ask any parent of a blind or deaf child.

Having been out of school for a while, I'm not sure how schools in South
Africa (or the rest of the world for that matter) handle this particular
situation. I certainly don't hear much about vision or auditory
screening in schools here. How would a school handle a case where the
parents can't afford classes or hearing aids for the child?

If you know what's going on in this area, please drop a comment.

School Report Services <http://www.schoolreportservices.com/> wishes
you a happy day further!

Religious Intolerance at School

Now this is a thorny issue, but one that has been in the news lately. It touches on constitutional issues, human rights, school rules, and religious freedom. These various facets are not always in harmony.

I bring this up, because a girl at a local school had a crucifix she was wearing confiscated, and was punished with detention, and had to pay a fine to get it back. The school said that it was against the legislated rules on school uniforms and that written permission was not obtained to wear it. The girl felt that this infringed on her right to freedom of expression and religious freedom. Both are correct from their points of view.

In my humble opinion, this matter shows just what comes from over-legislation – and the reliance on rules to govern, instead of the application of principals. It seems to me that in our efforts not to “upset” anyone, we actually have reached the point where we upset everyone. The application of law has become self-defeating.

Imagine this scenario:
A person of Jewish faith enrolls in a predominantly Catholic private school. What outcry would there be if the school FORCED that pupil to wear a crucifix in order to comply with everyone else? Now you start flaming the fires of intolerance. Therefore, stopping someone from wearing items of spiritual significance to them – whether crucifix, fez, beard, turban, yarmulke, etc., is doing the same thing. Some of the greatest crimes against humanity have been because of religious intolerance.

The principle should be tolerance. Instead of being scared of offending others, we should rather accept, and learn to live with the differences. Those that take offense at displays of spirituality not our own, are small-minded, weak-minded, and intolerant. Unfortunately, these are the people that are the most vocal. But there is an old saying: “Empty vessels make the most noise.”

In the real world, differences exist. People are of different races, cultures, customs, and religions. Some of these differences are in stark contrast to what we might consider “normal” or “right”. This doesn’t make the others “abnormal” or “wrong”. This is how life is – deal with it.

Our children should be taught to be tolerant of others, and perhaps more importantly, to learn the ability of being able to accept intolerance as well – the latter being the most difficult. “Protecting” them by over-legislation is not the answer.

 

Our Kids are FAT!

I was walking in the shopping center the other day, and I got to noticing how so many of our schoolchildren are so FAT! I got to wondering why, so I decided to speak to some friends about it – call it straw poll “informal” research.

It seems that the major cause of children being overweight is lack of exercise. When I was at school, PE, or Physical Education was somewhat compulsory. We ran, jumped, swam, and then did it some more. It was actually unusual to see fat children at school. The few that were, were teased mercilessly. Not that that was a good thing.

We also walked or rode bikes to school. After school we played or did chores.

It seems that walking or riding to school these days is not all that safe. So children are dropped off at school – even if they just live around the corner. And then they are picked up in the afternoon. I understand that this may be a necessity due to the levels of crime in this country, or the reckless drivers, or paranoid parents, or all of the foregoing.

When I was at school there wasn’t a MacDonalds on every second corner. Junk food also seems to be a contributing “fat” factor.

It’s a shame really, because physical exercise burns excess fat, increases muscle tone, relieves stress, takes your mind of sex, reduces depression, increases stamina, and is just generally good for you.

In view of all the benefits of exercise, I never understood why Physical Education was removed from the school curriculum in the first place. Now we have a whole generation of fat, depressed, sex-obsessed, stressed-out kids that prefer to play Playstation instead of ball. No wonder they have so many problems – they have no outlet.

Even though it may not be safe to let your kids out alone in the street, there are other avenues for physical exercise. My son and I walk, run, swim, and play ball inside our secure complex. I take him to parks. We work in the garden on weekends together. And it doesn’t cost a fortune. In fact it costs nothing but a bit of imagination.

Come on parents and teachers – get our kids playing again!

While you’re online, why not check out our service for school reporting at School Report Services. This service will keep you informed of your child’s progress at school, and it will save you a bundle in terms of time, money and stress.

 

Cyber-Bullying Increasing

It had to happen I suppose. With children becoming increasingly comfortable
in cyberspace, there always have to be those that come along and spoil all
the fun. I'm talking about cyber-bullies.

Just as a school ground bully physically hurts and throws insults at fellow
schoolmates, and generally practices anti-social behavior, so a cyber-bully
does the same - just online.

Cyber-bullying is on the increase, especially in "first-world" countries
like the US and UK where being online is almost ubiquitous. Cyberspace
social networking sites like MySpace, and other blog or instant messaging
sites seem to be the preferred place for online harassment.

Why? Because!

Cyber-bullying is "safe" - in the eyes of the bully at least, because it is
away from the eyes of teachers, parents, and other "witnesses" such as other
classmates. It can be highly anonymous. Bullying can be from "mild" throwing
of insults, to "severe" threats of physical or sexual violence. In a way,
this is worse than physical bullying on the school ground. On the school
ground, at least you know who your attacker is, can see who he or she is,
and can take precautions. This is not often possible with cyber-bullying.
The resulting psychological trauma can be severe. In some instances, it has
even lead to depression and suicide!

Some stats:

1. Girls are just as likely to engage in this activity as boys.

2. 38.3% of girls are likely to be cyber-bullied as opposed 34.4% of
boys.

3. Girls are more likely to retaliate or "answer back".

The internet being such an anonymous forum, will probably make the
cyber-bullying phenomenon very difficult to address. I think that parents
and teachers are going to have to get very inventive.

Please post your thoughts, and while you're online check out
<http://www.SchoolReportServices.com> www.SchoolReportServices.com

Brag Time Again!

Yes! The School Report Services web site has been updated again! This time we gave a lot of attention to the authentication an user administration. The new features of the site are as follows:

·         An entirely new look and feel.

·         A new leveled-subscription model. In other words, certain functionality is enabled depending on the type of subscription you choose. Currently there are only two levels – Individuals and Schools.

·         For international customers, we have included a new secure payment mechanism.

There will be more changes shortly, but these will be mostly transparent to the users of the site (unless of course we stuff up and bring the entire server crashing down … but we don’t think so).

It’s been a quiet month for blogging – not because of lack of interesting material, but rather because of updating our website.

January is usually a topsy-turvy month for schools anyway. They have to enroll more kids than they have capacity for, they have to teach from textbooks which still didn’t arrive, they have to withhold school reports from pupils who’s parents haven’t paid school fees (BTW: this probably wouldn’t have happened if the school was using our system), etc. etc.

This usually calms down after about a month – and as happens every year, life goes on.

 

Educators' Social Responsibility

A quarter of our population in South Africa are already unemployed.

 

To this will be added 176447 matriculants who failed their exams! 265673 matriculants did not pass well enough to get into university. 33 schools had a 0% matric pass rate! 106 schools had less than 20% pass rate!

 

The reality today is that a Senior Certificate on its own isn’t worth all that much in the job market. It’s a fact that about 50% of all unemployed people didn’t complete high school. Many unemployed people turn to crime, drugs and prostitution.

 

The Senior Certificate exam is just a reflection of what is happening in the lower standards. According to some educators, many of our matrics can’t read or write properly. We are of a lower standard than international norms, and fare worse than our neighboring countries. Basically, there are huge problems with our teaching system.

 

So, when there are problems with the system, this reflects in the students, and this in turn reflects in the unemployment and crime statistics.

 

I ask when will educators start taking ownership of the huge responsibility they have in improving the social ills of our country, and see their jobs as more than “just a job”?

 

Of course, there are solutions to these problems. I don’t have all the answers – but I do have one! Why not use an easy method of distributing pupil school reports to the ones that care most – the parents of the students. Every parent cares how their children do at school! They can encourage their children IF THEY KNOW. Check out www.SchoolReportServices to see how.

New Year! 2007

Gee, before we knew it, 2007 arrived.

 

With a BANG!

 

I see that Oprah Winfrey opened her new ultra-exclusive Leadership Academy for Girls as planned. She encouraged other businesses to get involved with improving education in South Africa. Well, we at School Report Services certainly do that!

 

Costs have gone up to get your kid educated. Woolworths have a good special on at the moment for school uniforms – but school fees are generally astronomical! The good news is that we at School Report Services have decided not to increase any of our charges. Our aim is to make our service as affordable as possible – and keep it that way.

 

Unfortunately, many pupils didn’t pass their Senior Certificate exam. This is going to put some pressure on our unemployment and crime stats (More on this in a later blog post). Maybe they would have passed if their schools had used our service throughout their school career. Why not check out our offering at www.SchoolReportServices.com.

 

Matric Results Are Out!

Today the matric results are released, and the agonizing wait is over for South African matric pupils.

 

According to the Education MEC, 78% passed, 22% failed. What that equates to in actual numbers, I can't tell.

 

Well Done! to all those that passed - but remember, the hard work only starts now! In my opinion, school only teaches you how to learn. It is supposed to arm you with the memory, reasoning, and researching skills you will need throughout your future academic and career life. For instance, in my chosen career, I have never had to use trigonometry, simultaneous equations, or chemistry. However, I have had to use the logic and reasoning skills that those subjects taught me. I wish you all good luck with the rest of your life. May you excel in it and enjoy it!

 

Special congratulations to Jacobus Jordaan from Hoërskool Roodepoort who achieved top spot in Gauteng with 10 distinctions. The secrets to his outstanding performance?

• Believe in your abilities.
• Aim high and work hard.
• Persevere.
• Don't rely on the teachers - use them for guidence. Rely on yourself.
• Don't get distracted.

Other special congratulations go to those that excelled in their exams dispite difficult and sometimes traumatic circumstances:

• Yusef Talia, who suffers from Duchene muscular dystrophy, obtained 4 distinctions.
• Kresha Prinsloo, who's mom died just before exams started, passed with exemption.
• Rethabile Latakgomo, who's father died as a victim of crime, passed with exemption and a distinction.

These are just some of the students that made headlines. There are probably hundereds, perhaps thousands, of other students who suffered equally trying circumstances, and who managed to rise above their circumstances and pass matric. To all of these pupils, we are proud of you!

 

Anyway, all these results, though good, are summed up by something that Prof. Mary Metcalfe (Wits Dean of Education) said: "... improvement in quality is built systematically over time and is rooted in quality primary and junior secondary education. We must concentrate our energies on building quality all the way through the system, rather than just focusing on matric." (italics ours).

 

One of the ways that we at School Report Services strive to do this, is to keep parents regularly informed of their children's academic progress by means of a simple cell phone sms. We do this for ALL school grades - not just matric. By doing this parents can identify weak and strong areas, and encourage their children more proactively. It is this encouragement that we feel keeps the child motivated throughout his or her school career. Why not check out www.SchoolReportServices.com to see what we offer in this space.