5.3 Presentation of findings
5.3.2 What are the School Management Team members’ experiences of monitoring teaching and learning?
Page | 82 positions. The study has found that there were differences in the application of the strategy of checking exercise books between the two principals. Mr Kubheka confessed that time did not allow him ‘to pay individual attention to learners’. Meaning, he did not have time to check exercise books of learners which he did not teach. Instead, he only had time to check exercise books of his English Language classes. On the other hand, the other principal, Mrs Thwala, devised some means to check learner exercise books every Friday irrespective of whether she taught that particular subject or not. She regularly took three exercise books per subject in a given class. Piles of batches of learner exercise books could be seen on her table each time the researcher visited the school. Sometimes she took them home for checking over the weekend. The next section deals with the experiences of the SMT members of monitoring
Page | 83 Where SMTs attempted to conduct monitoring of teaching directly through teachers’ written records, teachers often requested postponements. This raised questions about SMT claims that teachers were cooperative. It was concluded that SMTs had a tendency to cover for the teachers by giving all sorts of reasons for non-compliance, as presented in Section 5.3.1.1 of this chapter. The postponements allowed teachers some extra time to catch up on arrears, filling up the necessary monitoring instruments to be submitted. As a result the intentions of monitoring were turned into a mere paper filling exercise that was meant to appease the SMT instead of an effective teaching and learning monitoring strategy.
5.3.2.1 Experiences of monitoring learning progress
The practice of monitoring learning was not a uniform approach used by the SMTs. In particular, principals adopted individualistic approaches. For instance, Mrs Thwala took home three learner exercise books per subject per grade on alternate Fridays. She checked numerous things including spelling. Hence, she commented on how much she hated,
“scribble, scribble” referring to illegible handwriting. Mr Kubheka on the other hand had no time set aside for individual attention. He expected the HODs to do that exercise. Like Mrs Thwala, most HODs regularly took random samples of learners’ exercise books; check progress on learning. In the process they would identify some gaps in the dates on which the tasks were given to the learners and when they were marked. Again, the SMTs were not decisive when dealing with culprits behind such inefficiencies.
5.3.2.2 Experiences with parental role
The majority of parents were not involved in learning programmes of their children. Parents also did not attend school meetings even when were specifically invited to collect learner reports issued at the end of each term. In some instances, SMTs blamed the learners for those parents who did not attend meetings. SMTs claimed that some learners did not want their poorly dressed parents and sometimes grandmothers to be seen by other learners at school.
As a result they did not give parents letters inviting them to school, but that is a topic for another study. Of the few parents that attempted to involve themselves in homework, some did not play a positive role. In particular, literate parents of children, for instance, at Samela Primary School had a tendency to literally write home works for their children. This practice defeated the purpose of giving learners tasks to be completed after hours.
Page | 84 5.3.3 Why do the School Management Teams monitor teaching and learning in the way they do?
The third question of the study, “why do SMTs monitor teaching and learning in the way they do?” was meant to establish the SMTs’ reasons for monitoring teaching and learning as well as for monitoring in the way they did. Most participants held a belief that it was significant to monitor teaching and learning in order to ensure curriculum implementation. They were of the view that without monitoring of teaching and learning, teachers would not teach and learners would not learn. The findings show that there were two themes that emerged from the data and were discussed in detail in Section 4.4 of Chapter Four. The findings demonstrated that there were contextual factors that influenced the kind of strategies that the members of the SMT used for monitoring teaching and learning. These contextual factors included the shortage of resources and other infrastructure needs which collectively posed a challenge to effective monitoring.
5.3.3.1 Human resource capacity
The few teaching and SMT posts allocated to the schools with lower enrolments was a major factor in terms of human resources capacities the schools had. According to the KZN DoE, circular (2015), for instance, Samela was allocated five teachers including one HOD and the principal. The sixth teacher was meant for Grade R only. The principal and the only HOD at the school had full duty loads like any other teacher plus the management duties they had to perform. Therefore, daily monitoring of teaching and learning in all grades including the multi-grade classes was a major challenge which virtually meant that teaching files could only be checked once every week. Even then, while certain sections of the files like curriculum completion and teacher preparations were prioritised, monitoring of quality teaching and learning was loosely monitored as a result of SMT shortages. The involvement of entry level teachers to play leadership roles was borne out of SMT understaffing.
5.3.3.2 Shortages of Learning and Teaching Support Materials (LTSM)
Inadequate number of books and stationery resulted in the lowering of monitoring standards.
The sharing of books by two or even three learners retarded the pace of both teaching and learning. The budget allocation for each school was less than R 95 000 for the year 2014/15 (KZN DoE, 2013). With this amount schools were expected to cover all forms of LTSM which included books, stationery and desks. The practice of sharing books prevented the teachers from often giving tasks to be done by the learners after hours when those tasks
Page | 85 required the use of shared books. The practice of photocopying certain sections of a book was curtailed by ink and paper shortages at Samela Primary School. Such a condition did not assist in ensuring even the completion of annual teaching plans (ATP). Consequently, trailing behind was tolerated, particularly in multi-grade classes.
5.3.3.3 Infrastructural challenges
In both schools there were no staffrooms for the teachers. Even the SMT members did not have specialised rooms and offices that could accommodate departmental meetings. It was a challenge to hold regular meetings to review policies during school hours without being disrupted by the learners. For instance, at Lawuma Secondary School, a classroom was used as the principal’s office which he shared with the administration clerk. That could be the reason for not holding regular departmental meetings. The copy of minutes and attendance register submitted on behalf of the department as proof of meetings held had names of people who had left the institution. This implied that the meeting to adopt the departmental policy was last held during the previous year. Staff meetings were not held regularly.
The lack of electricity connection at Samela Primary School hindered the duplication of assessment tasks and other monitoring instruments. It was difficult to arrive at any finding regarding reasons as to why after some weeks they did not have completed tools to show that monitoring had occurred. It was not clear whether it was problems with the electricity generator or it was mere complacency.