Week One of Winter School Masiphumelele is coming to an end, and what a week it’s been! Each day, 82 students from Grades 9 to 12 and 16 tutors from around the globe gather at False Bay College in Fish Hoek for days filled with fun and lots of learning!
Over the course of the week, learners and tutors have engaged in numerous different tutoring sessions, which take place in the morning before lunch. All four Grades have participated in Operation Fikelela Computer Literacy Courses with great success so far: Grade 10 learners mastered formatting in Microsoft Word; Grade 9 learners created Gmail accounts and learned how to manage and send emails; Grade 11 learners created and typed CVs; and Grade 12 learners were introduced to Excel and practiced speed-typing.
Grade 9 Girls celebrating their new Gmail Accounts!
Tutoring sessions also included great courses in Maths, English, Science, Business and Economics, Accounting, Geography. In the Mathematics class, learners are far more active than we expected. Maths is often considered a difficult subject by teenagers. But in Winter School, our learners have demonstrated great passion and talent in this subject, especially when they make every effort to solve a difficult question by themselves before turning to the tutor. Some girls in Grade 12 would not even go to lunch before they completely understood a question! Tutoring sessions have been busy and complex, but quite useful. This year, we are fortunate to have tutors coming from 5 different countries around the world, all of whom bring their unique skills, passions, and past experiences to Winter School.
During teatime, learners grab biscuits and a cup of coffee, and can get some rest between two intensive tutoring sessions. Learners and tutors will often kick the soccer ball around the assembly hall, or play outside during lunch on the warmer days. We’ve also had lots of fun with our icebreakers and team-building activities!
The Workshop portion of each day has seen several dynamic and exciting sessions. One major highlight is the Physics and Chemistry Workshops with Kevin, where learners have had a blast doing fun experiments and learning about new scientific concepts. Grade 11 learners Sibongiseni and Ncebakazi mentioned that Winter School has been “fantastic” so far, because they’ve “met new people” and been exposed to “things we had never seen before, like the science experiments” in Kevin’s workshops. Lauren’s Media and Journalism learners have been working on interesting articles, and Film Studies learners have just completed “Freedom Writers.” In Entrepreneurship with Janna, learners engaged in a mindset-activating session, followed by a Scavenger Hunt of different businesses in Fish Hoek. The Innovative Solution competition winners during Entrepreneurship were a plan for a new restaurant in Masiphumelele, and an idea for a translator device that would help all South Africans communicate and understand each other’s languages.
We have also been lucky enough to have several guests volunteer their time with learners this week, including the wonderful folks at Reel Lives, the impressive Simphiwe Ndzube, an art student at UCT who grew up in Masi, and the talented Cape Music Institute. Today, the Masiphumelele Clinic is joining us to run HIV testing with the learners.
Stay tuned for the announcement of Learner prizes, which will be awarded to students who demonstrate enthusiasm and positive attitudes, and for our update on the second week of Winter School. We can’t wait to see what else is in store! Check out this link for even more pictures of what we have got up to so far.
If you are interested in dropping by please contact:
Johnlyn Tromp – 079 885 4318
Johnlyn@ikamvayouth.org
Lloyd Lungu