Subtheme 1: Extra classes and school camps

At Schools A and B, extra classes for Grade 12 were the tools that were used the most to raise Grade 12 academic achievement. Morning and afternoon classes were common practice across all three schools. Teacher A and B concurred that their schools did offer morning and afternoon classes.

Morning and afternoon classes help a lot in raising Grade 12 results and honestly, parents do not have a problem with their children attending those classes (Teacher B).

However, as much as Teacher A and Teacher B were in agreement about morning and afternoon classes, Teacher A commented in frustration that she was overloaded and the SGB did nothing about that. She also mentioned that she was not in good health, making it difficult for her to offer morning and afternoon classes as she is expected to do:

The SGB really do not care about the shortage of teachers, like myself, I am not in good health but I am having many classes to teach. I travel a long distance to work hence I am offering morning and afternoon classes. At the same time, I am standing from morning to afternoon as I have many classes and this affect my results. I am teaching the difficult subjects (Math and Math literacy) (Teacher A).

Principal A was very much aware of the shortage of teachers, but he gave an explanation as to why they did not have enough teachers and that it was very difficult for them to get an SGB teacher at least to relieve the overload of other teachers. He commented:

Our school is a small school and the department funds us based on the enrolment. This makes it very difficult to appoint SGB teachers. Even our parents are struggling to fund raise because parents do not have enough money. Also you need to note that our school is a no fee school and that means the school is solely dependent on the department’s budget and it’s not enough

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However, the issue of a lack of budget that hinders the SGB and the school to appoint SGB teachers was highlighted by SGB member B, namely that it was difficult for parents to do a fundraising to address the shortage of teachers. She commented in agreement with Principal A:

If we don’t have a teacher for a certain subject and the department cannot give us a teacher, as the SGB, we organise the SGB teacher and we only give that person what we have as a thank you because we don’t have money, parents do not have money either. But we make sure that learners learn (SGB B).

Another method of extra classes that all participating schools utilised was school camps. All participants agreed that school camps helped a lot in raising Grade 12 academic achievement. The study revealed that parents also supported schools’ camps in different ways. Some volunteered to cook and to sleep at the camps and others contributed money towards the school camps. However, the Department of Education (2018:1) urges parents to support and monitor their children during the school camps. This should be done by giving learners enough time to do their take- home activities at home. Participants agreed that they did have school camps.

We have school camps here at school. We sleep here, there are no phones and teachers are always here to monitor us to see who is studying and who is not (Learner A1)

We are having camps from June where learners study (Principal A)

These days, we have school camps for learners to perform better (Teacher B)

We do encourage them to study their books so that they pass. They also go to school camps to study (Parent C1).

Yes, these camps help a lot because we managed to have better results (SGB

C).

As mentioned earlier, parents do support the school camps, but contribute differently towards it. Some contribute money and some offer their voluntary services to assist during the camps. These camps are organised by teachers and the SGB. The study also revealed that these camps do raise the Grade 12 academic achievement.

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According to the Department of Education (2018:1), the school camps aim at assisting learners in subject areas that have been identified as areas that need extra support in order to improve the academic achievement of Grade 12s.

Principal A, Teacher B, Teacher C and SGB C agreed that school camps boosted the Grade 12 results.

After introducing camps, the results went up because parents were involved, they even came to see what was happening in the camp (Principal A).

Camps help a lot in raising Grade 12 results. Parents supported it (Teacher B).

No, I am not happy with Grade 12 results. We last had involved parents in 2016 and we had good results. Last year we dropped because parents did not want the school camp, saying that they don’t have money and that they will assist their children at home. Oh, the results dropped (Teacher C).

However, SGB C was slightly in disagreement with Teacher C that only parents did not want the school camps. He commented that even the community did not want school camps and that affected their results.

But in the past two years, parents and the community stopped the school camp and the results dropped (SGB C).

The findings of the study suggested that parents supported the school camps as extra classes (cf. 2.6.3), but they were not fully involved physically during these camps. Principal B, Principal C, Teacher A, Teacher B, Teacher C and Parent C2 were in agreement that most parents did not avail themselves during school camps (cf. 2.6.3).

Verbally, parents do support school camp but to avail themselves, no they don’t. It’s only teachers who walk an extra mile to see that camping is a success but involvement of parents is minimal (Principal B).

No what they normally do is that when we starting planning the school camp, they all support but when the camp is on, they don’t come and only few come

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As long as there is no money, parents do not render any voluntary service. Even the SGB does not assist during the school camp (Teacher A).

They don’t cook; teachers take responsibility on the camp issue. Parents only supply food for their children (Teacher B).

I am the coordinator for the school camp. We call parents to come and sleep over, they don’t come. We ask them to at least cook for the learners, still they don’t come. So as teachers, we make plans that learners are taken care of in the camp (Teacher C).

We only contribute money towards the camp. Those who are employed to cook for learners every day are the ones that supposed to cook for camp (Parent

C2).

Although the study has revealed that normal extra classes and camps as extra classes help to improve Grade 12 academic achievement, parents do not support them in the way the schools expect them to do. However, few parents avail themselves to help during school camps. In addition, motivation plays a huge role in raising Grade 12 academic achievement. The next theme will discuss motivation further.