Peermont School Support Programme

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The Vula Amehlo team previously developed, managed and implemented the Peermont School Support Programme (PSSP). PSSP, launched in 2010, was a 6-year, R40 million programme supported by Peermont Global and Emperors Palace. The programme supports 25 schools (7 high schools and their 18 feeder primary schools) in the Ekudibeng region and touched the lives of some 45 000 learners and almost 1 400 educators over the six-year period that it operated.

 

The model of the programme was to grow a community of practice to share ideas, solutions and best practice, and to benchmark outcomes. The high schools were selected in 2009 from a universe of 45 schools that had been identified through analysis of a number of indicators made available by the department. Schools were invited to compete to be accepted into the programme and were required to complete a baseline assessment as well as a school development plan as part of the selection process. The programme had ‘17 touch points’ divided into three key areas of intervention:

 

1. School leadership and management – developing effective management and leadership practice

2. In the classroom – understanding ICT as a potential game changer through its effective integration in teaching and learning

3. Beyond the classroom – developing 21st century skills and awareness through extracurricular activities.

 

The programme’s objective was to support multiple interventions that act as catalysts to grow centres of education excellence in existing public schools. Each intervention was developed in consultation with the supported schools and was conceptualized in such a way that they were scalable and replicable in other public schools. The Programme evolved in practice and through consultation with the served schools – it was substantively about driving behaviour change and establishing ‘excellence as the standard’ where the benchmark of excellence was 60/60 in 2015. Our goal was that 60% of matrics score above 60% in their core subjects by 2015.

 

We believe a number of significant breakthroughs were achieved during the period of operation, and we left the schools well on their way to meaningful behaviour and attitudinal change and becoming ‘centres of excellence’ relative to their peer schools. The PSSP schools showed significant improvements in their results and consistently perform above the Gauteng and National averages.

 

The following gallery details the programme elements that were run in the schools over the 6 years.