Monitoring teaching and learning

There is agreement among various scholars that school principals are instructional leaders, and as such, their core function is to ensure that effective teaching and learning occurs. The principals of the three participating schools, agreed with the assertion that they are curriculum managers. They viewed their role as being an important one although they expressed a belief that the other SMT members also had a great role in this matter, especially the departmental head as they have content knowledge in the specific subjects.

I agree with this assertion as the school is about teaching and learning. Educators are then expected to know what needs to be taught. The school then needs curriculum managers, which are in this case, SMT members, starting with the departmental heads, deputy principal and the principal. So, as the principal, I am also a curriculum manager as I have to make sure that things are happening around curriculum matters (Phumelela

Secondary).

The Principal of Thuthuka Secondary asserted that whilst the principal is a curriculum manager but the departmental heads also played an important role in that regard, as they are subject specialists.

I agree although I do not believe that if you are a principal you should know everything. In my school, we have a team of specialists who were dealing with the curriculum

(Thuthuka Secondary).

The Principal of Kuyasa Secondary accepted the notion that principals are curriculum managers and further contended that principals have to be prepared for the different roles that are assigned to them. This is how he put it:

It is combined; the principal’s role has become too complex. As the principal, you are expected to be everywhere; where things are happening. So, we have received workshops as school principals with regards to matters of curriculum management. We must also be good readers on matters of curriculum management so that you know how to instruct the educator (Kuyasa Secondary).

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These principals had clear curriculum management plans, which articulated the processes, which had to be followed in order to strengthen curriculum delivery and ensure that it was effectively managed and monitored. They also had tools to monitor the implementation of the curriculum processes at their schools. At Phumelela Secondary, in addition to the five departmental heads, the two deputy principals were responsible for curriculum management instead of the practice of assigning curriculum management to one and administrative duties to the other. The principal’s view was that if he only assigned the one deputy principal the administrative duties only, that was going to affect her in future when she is promoted and then expected to manage the curriculum. Therefore, one deputy principal was supervising the departments of commerce and sciences whilst the other two departments, the languages and humanities were supervised by the other deputy principal. The principals acknowledge that they have to play a major role in the management of curriculum in their schools. One of the principals said:

As the principal, I am also a curriculum manager, as I have to make sure that things are happening around curriculum matters. I have a plan that indicates meetings with the school management team, educators and parents. The plan also addresses submissions as it has dates for submissions by the school management team and educators to the principal and submission to the departmental heads by the educators

(Phumelela Secondary).

The observation during my visit to this school was that there was a clear direction on what is happening on daily basis. The principal was very quick in showing me the tools he used to control and check that curriculum delivery was indeed taking place at his school. The principal also noted that he received support from other SMT members as they have an important role to play in their different portfolios and as they have requisite expertise in some of the issues. The Principal of Kuyasa Secondary also believed in having a hands-on approach on curriculum management matters when he responded that:

I read every literature related to specific subjects even to the Grade 8 learners. Where I am not sure, I attend the orientation workshops with the teachers and these workshops are organised by the Department of Education. Then I have designed the programme in which SMT members monitor the curriculum on daily basis. I have a tool, which I use to control the curriculum (Kuyasa Secondary).

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I noted that the Principal of Thuthuka Secondary also believed that he was a curriculum manager but also emphasised the importance of working closely with the deputy principal and the departmental heads as they had relevant expertise on various subjects.

At the beginning of the year, I would call the departmental heads and subject specialist to discuss how the school is going to manage its curriculum in such a way that Annual Teaching Plans are completed at the end of third team (Thuthuka Secondary).

I asked these principals to give me their curriculum management plans in order to check whether the information they were giving me was correct. I could also find out from other SMT members as they indicated that the principals had certain dates in which they asked for the work of the teachers. During my visit to these schools, I also picked up that the school principals were teaching certain subjects. For example, the Principal of Kuyasa Secondary taught History in Grade 11. I could pick up this during my data generation process because when I arrived at his school, he was in class. I then asked him about the subject he taught and he confirmed that he was busy in a class with the Grade 11 learners. The Principal of Phumelela Secondary taught Life Sciences in Grade 10. He revealed this during my visit to his school and I also checked the school composite timetable. The Principal of Thuthuka Secondary is a Mathematics educator, and taught the subject in Grade 9.

I also noted that thecurriculum management plan of the Principal of Phumelela Secondary, indicated that he had weekly meetings with the SMT. These meetings would address issues like the submission of files by the SMT and educators to the principal and also submissions to the departmental heads by the teachers. The departmental heads had meetings with the teachers once in two weeks although they had to submit their files on a weekly basis. The school’s control measures ensured compliance as the submissions were recorded and the teachers signed during the submission process and the departmental head counter signed. If the submission was not done, the teacher would have to report in writing and give reasons for not submitting on time and submit immediately thereafter.

As part of the document reviews, I have decided to present the monitoring tool that was used at Phumelela Secondary School. A closer look at the tool corroborates some of the issues raised by the principal; for example, the issue of signing of the form by various educators within the school and sections in the form where line function supervisors can give feedback are clearly

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visible. It is also evident that the principal is involved in the curriculum monitoring process. What follows is a copy of the monitoring tool used at Phumelela Secondary School.

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At Thuthuka Secondary, the principal, departmental heads and subject specialists (Subject Heads) at the beginning of the year, discuss how the school was going to manage its curriculum in such a way that Annual Teaching Plans (ATPs) were completed at the end of third team. Their weekly meetings, which were attended by the SMT and the teachers from all grades, discussed the following issues: the implementation of the turnaround strategy, teaching and learning, control of the learners work, monitoring of teaching and learning in terms of educators covering the curriculum, lesson planning and time management in terms of educators going to their classes. The school would invite all educators into the meeting because they wanted to ensure that a solid foundation was laid in the lower grades like Grade 8 and Grade 9 so that it would be easier for learners from those grades to adjust when they enter the higher grades like Grade 10 and Grade 11 in preparation for Grade 12.

The school introduced extra classes in all the grades, as from Grade 8 up to Grade 12. Everyone had to work hard to achieve the targets set for the subjects and the grades. The principal promoted team teaching in which educators had to share expertise in teaching a particular subject although assigned to an individual but someone would gladly assist by teaching certain chapters in which he/she had relevant expertise and was sure that he/she could assist the subject to perform well. The principal had asked educators to state the other subjects or sections of certain subjects beside the ones they were offering which they could easily teach and perform well. That assisted the school to promote its team teaching exercise as one Grade 8 teacher ended up assisting with trigonometry and geometry in Grade 12. Other educators also assisted in certain subjects in which they were good. That assisted the school to share or conduct team teaching in Mathematics and that assisted the school because Mathematics was one of the underperforming subjects. The school had to work with what it had at that time.

The Principal of Kuyasa Secondary had so much interest in curriculum management in such a way that he read every literature related to specific subjects even to the Grade 8 and would attend the orientation workshops with the teachers in the subjects in which he was not sure on how to manage them. Those workshops were organised by the Department of Basic Education. In monitoring the curriculum, he would monitor the work of the deputy principals, the departmental heads and the educators, using different tools. Whilst the departmental heads and the deputy principals were expected to monitor curriculum implementation on daily basis, he would monitor their work once in two weeks and then check and control the one for educators every month.

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In monitoring the work of the SMT members, the three principals, would focus on the following aspects for the deputy principals: policies of each department that is managed, ATPs for all subjects, programme of assessment for the school and the monitoring and evaluation reports from the departmental heads work monitored and the recommendations. They checked the following aspects from the files of the departmental heads: subject policy, annual teaching plan of each subject managed, list the people being supervised and their subjects, the programme of assessment, duty loads, feedback from the monitoring and evaluation processes comments and follow up if they have been attended, minutes of the subject meetings to check if relevant things were discussed in their meetings and the list of learners whose work was checked. Lastly, these principals checked the following aspects from the educators’ files: subject policy, policy documents, record of resources issued, lesson plans, annual teaching plan, personal time table, formal assessment and the learners’ written work.

The research conducted by the Department of Basic Education evaluation unit on the high performing schools in Quintiles 2-4, in the National Senior Certificate revealed that the principals of these schools closely monitor the curriculum and that they work closely with their departmental heads (DBE, 2017). Mbokazi (2015) further contends that successful principals in the three Soweto schools in which he conducted his research had focused on the curriculum management. They had undertaken the following activities: ensured that the teaching and learning support materials were available, had ensured that lesson plans were adhered to, monitored the work of the departmental heads by checking their work plans and portfolios and had given educators feedback after visiting them in their classes (Mbokazi, 2015).

There is some form of correlation between the practices of the three principals (Phumelela, Kuyasa and Thuthuka) and the literature on the strategies for effective curriculum management that assist schools to achieve positive learning outcomes. This could have been some of the reasons why their schools have managed to turnaround their performances from underperformance to performing and managed to sustain good performance. The next section presents a discussion about the second strategy that principals used to turn around the schools’ situation from underperformance to performance.