Addressing the educators’ negative attitudes

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To implement the process of change, analysis of data indicates that the principals of the three secondary schools started by trying to address the negative attitudes that teachers had consistently demonstrated, and which would not assist in implementing the change process. Contexts of deprivation are usually demotivating and participants started by trying to keep their educators motivated and instilled in them the need to go an extra mile in trying to arrest the situation. For instance, at Kuyasa Secondary, the school principal and the SGBs communicated encouraging messages to the educators so that they do not despair. The SGB and the School Management Team organised a variety of motivation initiatives such as an Awards Day at the end of the year where educators from all grades were given awards, in the form of certificate, recognising them for high performance in their subjects. At Thuthuka Secondary, they addressed their teachers’ attitudes differently. Educators who were teaching Grade 12 were taken to the planning meeting (normally called Bosberaad) at the end of each year. That

Bosberaad served like a team building exercise where teachers had the opportunity to mingle,

talk and learn from one another in an environment that was free from formal setting of a school. The school would then subsidise the high performing educators by paying part of their trip. For example, instead of paying R1500, the educator would end up paying R500. The principal’s argument was that the practice motivated other educators and inspired them to come and teach Grade 12. That practice apparently created a larger pool of teachers that the principal could tap in, in terms of educators who were emotionally ready to teach Grade 12. Automatically, two teams emerged in the school whereby, teachers started what I can call a healthy competition amongst themselves. They had formed Team A and Team B in terms of academic performance and everybody wanted to belong to Team A. That in itself boosted their morale and ultimately, the school’s academic performance. This is what the principal had to say:

Those other educators who were not teaching matric, would envy this and pronounced that they could also teach matric and this assisted the school to beef up the matric team by having other educators who were willing to come and teach matric. The school ended up having Team A and Team B teaching (Thuthuka Secondary).

The issue of a planning meeting (Bosberaad) was also highlighted by the Principal of Phumelela Secondary, who indicated that it was for all staff members and that it afforded educators an opportunity to discuss a number of issues concerning teaching and learning. Invariably, topics discussed in that planning meeting were aimed at improving the school’s academic performance. This is how he put it:

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Every two years, the school organises a Bosberaad (Team building exercise) for all staff members. During this planning session, educators would converge at a certain place and discuss topics meant to improve the school’s performance (Phumelela

Secondary).

Attending to the basic work environmental needs has also been noted as working at Phumelela Secondary. The school created an appealing environment by improving the educators’ staffroom and their rest rooms. The improvement was based on the introduction of air conditioners and buying additional material, which was additional textbooks and certain study guides for Grade 12 and educators. The main objective of the exercise was to motivate educators and to enable them to deliver quality education. In addition, the school principal praised educators who were performing well. That motivated them to do go the extra mile and they understood that everything that was happening was about the work of supporting the learner; when some disagreements cropped up, they began to understand that those were based on the work that was not done or that was poorly done. At Kuyasa Secondary, the school also bought additional resources like teaching aids for the educators, to enable them to implement the curriculum. What is notable is that working in these transforming and performing schools also opened up opportunities for educators to move either, to better promotional positions or to other schools where they would be paid incentives for performing certain functions. This could be seen as one of the motivational factors, which kept them committed to their schools and eager to perform well in their subjects.

The school has been affected by the movement of its educators to senior positions in the department offices where they would take up subject advisory positions. Some educators are being promoted to other schools within the District. Others are being utilised as Cluster Coordinators (Thuthuka Secondary).

The discussion above shows that various initiatives that principals started as a way of turning around the performance of the schools were largely beneficial. However, although some sentiments from some participants indicated a potential loss to the schools due to the migration of teachers to other schools, overall, the schools managed to develop and generate a larger pool of highly motivated teaching staff who were willing to give it all to support their learners’ success. The practice of recognising commitment and excellence in the teachers’ work is widely acknowledged in the educational leadership scholarship (Gillett, et al., 2015; Klar & Brewer, 2013;Leithwood, et al., 2012; Mkhize & Bhengu, 2015; Peter & Archippus, 2016).

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Once schools have a pool of motivated teaching staff, the next logical move is to ensure that the work of teaching is monitored, and the next section is dedicated to this important issue.