As a principal, I have conversations with parents all the time, and these conversations often reveal to me underlying desires - the things that as parents we really want for our kids at school. Have you ever stopped to think about it? What do you really want when it comes to what your child is learning at school?

For the longest time, education systems have changed at the proverbial glacial pace. And the longer our schooling systems remain stagnant, the more pressure there is for the industry to transform, to keep up and prove that it is fit-for-purpose in the modern world.

In recent years, education in South Africa has undergone significant transformation which is driven by several key trends. This is ushering in an era where South African children are increasingly being educated in different ways, in different kinds of school environments with their teachers serving in different roles. In short, schools look quite different from the ones that we experienced as parents, and are needing to adapt even more to be relevant for our children in today’s world.

When I ask you to describe a creative person, who comes to mind? It could be someone like Majozi - talented musician and songwriter. There’s no doubt that he oozes creativity! But do you want to know who else comes to mind for me when I think about creativity? Our accountants. That’s right - accountants. Now, this might come as a surprise, as accountants are not often thought of as particularly creative. I asked ChatGPT to describe an accountant, and it gave me a bullet point list of characteristics required in the field. It said that accountants should be analytical, detail-oriented, good at Maths, understand law and have integrity. You know what it didn’t say? Accountants should be creative.

“I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world." ― Socrates. That has never been more true than today. When we talk about ‘global citizenship’, we are referring to the idea that we all live on Earth, whatever our background, culture or geography. And this global citizenship comes with both rights and responsibilities, as does any form of citizenship. My actions, sitting at my desk at the southern point of Africa, have an obvious effect on the people in my house. But they also impact people all around the globe, and thanks to an ever-changing and innovative world, our global connectivity and impact seem to be getting more and more significant.

This is a hot topic around this time of year. Final exams seem to be looming closer every day; teachers are frantically trying to get those last pieces of content covered, parents are stressed, and learners are finding impressively creative ways to avoid studying. I call it exam fever… and it’s highly contagious!
No matter which school or curriculum you find yourself in, tests and exams are a reality for all learners. And we want our learners to thrive in tests and exams. So we need to know how to be exam ready.

Education is such a crucial aspect of child development, and a traditional approach to school choice has long been the norm. Lately, we are seeing rapid changes in the educational landscape with far more choices becoming available to parents. The challenge is making sense of the options! Once ‘niche’ options, both homeschooling and online schooling have emerged as popular alternatives to traditional physical schools.

In South Africa, learners following the CAPS curriculum achieve their Matric qualifications (National Senior Certificate – NSC) either through writing the assessments of the Department of Basic Education (DBE) or the Independent Examinations Board (IEB). However, this is not to say that DBE and NSC learners just write different final examination papers. There’s a lot more to it than that.

What drives a person to succeed in the face of challenges? What makes someone like Sean achieve what many of us would think of as impossible? Many psychologists agree that one of the key soft skills that drives people like Sean is the same soft skill that is required for all of us to achieve any measure of significant long term success.

This hot topic has got many people polarised. Parents, teachers, learners and policy makers are scrambling… and for good reason! Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already made a massive impact on education, and more is surely to come.

As a principal, I’m always fascinated by the contents of my inbox. During certain parts of the year, I get a sudden influx of emails from parents about the dreaded ‘A’ word. Assessments!

Online schooling is ALL ABOUT accountability. We've seen several other online learning models crash because they assume that kids and teens are able to learn either in very large groups or completely alone, in both cases without consistent accountability. Our small Pods mean that everyone is accountable academically. Everyone is seen, everyone is heard!

Over the coming years, we will see the continued growth in online learning in South Africa, and the world. Current online schools with deficient models and without academic rigour and accountability will not survive, while strong and sustainable online schools will thrive.

Trying to keep up with the ever-developing world of social media often leaves parents feeling like the underdog! We sat down with attorney Arinda Truter to talk about our online rights and responsibilities, providing guidance not only to keep our children safe, but to help them thrive online.

Everyone is talking about online schooling! Where does Koa Academy come down in the conversation?