Africa-Press – South-Africa. Cape Town – The Schools Evaluation Authority (SEA) has released the reports for how well some schools in the Western Cape are performing.
The SEA independently evaluates Western Cape schools and develops reports which are published for parents and communities to know how well the schools in their areas are performing. The evaluations provide an independent and external examination of school practices and include recommendations on what should be improved.
The schools are assessed on:
SEA’s chief evaluator, Karen Bydell, said the reports are based on gathering a range of evidence that is evaluated against a standard framework and takes the relevant policies and legislation in areas such as diversity into account.
“The purpose of the SEA is to raise standards and improve learning outcomes. It aims to drive school improvement by evaluating the quality of education and practices at all schools (not only those underperforming), as well as identifying and sharing focused and innovative programmes that are in place to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
“The SEA aims to assess the true quality of education in the province in a manner that is fair, consistent, objective and an honest reflection of how well a school is functioning, with a particular focus on the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom; not just compliance with policy,” Bydell said.
Eight full evaluations were conducted in February and March 2020.
The eight schools were: Bruckner de Villiers Primary School, Bottelary Primary School, Sans Souci Girls’ High School, Goodwood College, John Graham Primary, St Andrew’s Secondary School, West Bank High and Zonnebloem Nest Senior.
“When work was halted due to Covid-19, the evaluations were revised to focus on schools’ responses to Covid-19. Fifty-four evaluations were conducted across all eight districts from August to November 2020,” Bydell said.
“The final reports will be sent to the respective principals, governing bodies and district directors as well as the head of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) and MEC of Education.
“These independent evaluations will assist the WCED in supporting schools to become better functional institutions which offer innovative and varied solutions so that all schools in the Western Cape steadily improve,” Bydell said.
The reports for parents and communities will be published on the SEA website: http://seawc.gov.za/reports/
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