Site selection and sampling

The site, that is, School A, has been selected as a suitable example of a rural Western Cape public school incorporating more than one Grade-R class, grappling with a low literacy success rate at school level and with gaps in curriculum delivery at district level. It must be stressed that as there are so many factors affecting success rates and curriculum delivery, this study has no intention of specifically identifying all those factors, but rather of bolstering the capacitation received by the Grade R teachers who are pivotal to the educational process.

The sample involves the four Grade R teachers in school A. The Grade R teachers have been selected because their application of subject knowledge of VPS, found in the CAPS-curriculum and diagnostic assessments such as Barriers to Learning Assessment Battery (BtLAB), via regular classroom practice, is foundational for pre and early reading instruction. All four teachers are involved as a sample so that a teamwork dynamic between them can be perpetuated and a broader range of data can be obtained via the data collection instruments. The question arises as to why BtLAB is included in the research. The BtLAB is a diagnostic assessment of Grade R learners usually conducted each September and October by Learning Support Advisors and Educators in order to help the education department identify and address any significant developmental barriers in the transition to Grade 1. In connection with this, the Grade R teachers’ experience of BtLAB will need to be examined more closely to gain a better sense of its importance.

The site was initially chosen after a comparative analysis of 2011 Systemic Grade 3 test data arising from selected schools in Circuit 7 in the Cape Winelands District (South Africa, 2011b:12). The selected schools all conform to a Western Cape rural public school setting which include a Grade R facility. The relatively low Grade 3 pass rate in School A (20.4%), at 10% below the provincial average (30.4%), did not indicate proof of dysfunctional Grade R and Grade 1 setups. Neither did the fact that two of the Grade 3 classes delivered literacy pass rates of 10.3 % and 3 % respectively, a 15% drop from the previous year. Instead, the Grade 3 pass rate at

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School A was reflective of results across Circuit 7(20.9%) and the Cape Winelands District (24.0%). However, it must be stressed that the sample is more of a focal point to this study than the site in the sense that curriculum delivery begins with teacher subject knowledge of VPS, as indicated in Chapter 2. I would also maintain that the Grade R literacy pass rate of 20.4% is asking for more than a Grade 1 reading intervention. Such a low pass rate is asking for solid Grade R curriculum delivery orientated towards visual training for early reading.

The site’s Foundation Phase results provide a backdrop to the statistical analysis discussed in Section 3.7., as the site is a school setting inclusive of Grade R. In 2012, School A appeared in the top quartile on an annually and internally circulated list titled Top 200 Repeaters. This list features 200 of the WCED schools with the highest proportion of Grade 1 “repeaters” in a given year. The statistics on the list, once again, are not referred to in order to indicate a dysfunctional Grade 1 setup. They simply aroused interest in the Grade R setup because 57 of the 149 Grade 1s (almost 40%) enrolled in School A in 2012 did not pass, and about 80% of all those Grade 1s constituted the school’s own cohort of Grade Rs in 2011. The statistics invite intervention that will be of value firstly to the Grade R teachers in School A. Therefore the statistical analysis discussed will not include data from the broader sweep of Foundation Phase results, but will focus on Grade R results relevant to Grade R teacher subject knowledge of VP.

Furthermore, the site has heightened significance as a focus school in the circuit and as a pilot school for BtLAB in the WCED. Focus schools require knowledgeable intervention, not labelling or blame. The teachers in the sample are dedicated workers. Relatively low FP results are not automatically indicative of gaps in curriculum delivery. Instead, they suggest a range of contextual factors which affect early reading achievement, which are not included in this study. The results are given in order to cast the need for workable solutions into sharper relief. Subject- knowledge driven teacher capacitation is and should be proactive, not reactive, as reflected in the solution-oriented nature of this study.

The immediate challenge to such curriculum delivery is that the Grade R teacher has to address a wide range of developmental and learning barriers in order to ensure that early reading skills, including VPS, are in place at the onset of Grade 1. The

necessary time, skill or resources to do this rely heavily on systems which support the professional development of the teachers, of the curriculum and of suitable learning environments.

A further challenge to curriculum delivery is the bottleneck created in a school when too many learners have to repeat a year. Here the school and department have to collaborate in the implementation of policies designed to manage such contingencies. It has been observed that in School A there are many Grade 1 learners who fail Grade 1 for the second time and who, due to curriculum policy, are put through to Grade 2. A 2013 WCED policy calls for a 90% Grade 1 pass rate. Learners who progress due to policy as opposed to ability usually still carry a literacy and/or numeracy backlog. This backlog has been aggravated by the withholding of interventions, also according to policy, until the second year of Foundation Phase, for Grade 1 repeaters or struggling Grade 2s.

Another study would have to thoroughly document the actual effects of the development of VPS before the start of early reading instruction on the Foundation Phase in a specific educational district. This study will limit itself to the aim of describing teachers’ subject knowledge of VPS with reference to VPS content in the Grade-R CAPS curriculum, the Grade-R diagnostic BtLAB and recent Grade R assessment results. It will focus on teachers’ subject knowledge of VP as a key factor in developing grassroots turnaround strategies for Grade R and the remainder of the Foundation Phase in School A and in many schools like it.