11 Jan 2022

Today’s firstdayer at primary school is not really a first dayer.    Back in the days a first day at primary school was one of tears, cajoling, pampering by teachers and a lot of unhappy, even traumatised little faces.

That could very well be expected, as small children suddenly had to spend entire days with complete strangers and sulky classmates.

All that is history thanks to the introduction of reception classes in both public and private schools.

As schools opened for 2022 on Tuesday, BOPA visited Mogoditshane Primary School to gauge the mood at this peri-urban school.

The different mood on those school grounds and in classrooms was altogether different from what one would see in the past.

Here, a total of 120 ‘Ma One’ have been enrolled. The curious little people that they are, these first dayers are the definition of excitement. It is as if the children have known each other all along – which to a great extent is actually the case as many of them attended pre-school together, or have had opportunity to be in a school setup before as kindergarten or preschool pupils. Registration for the standard one classes started last June to prepare classes and other resources and to accord parents enough time to prepare school uniforms and fees, among others, said school head, Mr Samuel Setuke.

This year, the school has had to reduce intake by 30.

 “We have reduced our intake to adhere to COVID-19 safety measures,” explained Mr Setuke. In the previous year the school had to resort to a shift system for their 150 standard one pupils, but they soon realised that it was not ideal, hence the change.

As for challenges with children wanting to go back home, or crying for mummy or daddy, Mr Setuke said such problems were now as extinct as the Dodo bird, largely owing to early socialisation of children by parents.

It was a beautiful feeling, only tempered by the realisation these little children were coming to a school greatly short of resources.

For example, only 13 of the 19 classes at this school are in use as the others are old and too small for use in the era of social distancing.

“However we turned one of the old classrooms into a library and computer room. Last year we couldn’t have reception classes owing to lack of resources,” said Mr Setuke.

But teachers at this school have learnt to do much with little, and have in the midst of their many challenges produced fairly good results.

In the last year, the school scored for Standard 7, a 73.3 pass rate with 27 As. The school had potential to do much better, said Mr Setuke.

That, however, was only possible if parents played an active role in the education of their children. Ends