Being at Lebone has changed my perspective of teaching so much!

Being at Lebone has changed my perspective of teaching so much compared to the level of education I got in my school days. Teachers are committed to providing each student with a high quality holistic education by using an array of innovative learning practises to foster a teaching climate that is self-driven, highly reflective and always thoughtful about the evidence of impact on student learning.

As a student-teacher at Lebone, I regard myself very privileged because here you are given all the tools necessary to make you a great teacher and the technology used, is of great quality. The school is also blessed with the best IT staff that makes communication and facilitation effective. Even the class layout is very different to help group and differentiate amongst students according to their level of understanding.

Lebone is greatly focused on student and teacher development as we attend programmes to enrich us with knowledge of developing new ideas and methods of teaching and learning.  So the long hours spent here are very profitable for people new like myself, as they give you time to interact with colleagues and students and get used to the space and be open to mingle with others. Lebone operates as a research driven school, where high quality learning programmes are developed in line with international best practices.

 Race is not an issue at Lebone as others want to learn languages that are foreign to them. Yes there is a language barrier that others use to denigrate other through distractive slogans and so forth. Students must get used to diverse cultures from an early age, to eliminate misunderstandings and avoid using language as a bullying tool to exclude others as Gerda indicated in her reflection.

The school is academically orientated, with many co-curricular activities to balance. The truth is Lebone has been generously staffed for its student numbers. For the most part, we all have a much lighter teaching load, and an exceptionally light co-curricular load compared to other schools. This means we have more time during the school day for lesson preparations, marking and meetings compared to teachers at other schools, and therefore more time to give to students in other arenas besides academically.

Students are presented with lots of opportunities to prove and show off their talents and gifts. There are sports and cultural programmes for their physical growth. There are also opportunities in their academics for students to shine brightly, like the Eskom Science Expo where two students came up with the idea of making an application to prevent hackers from getting into your accounts. The system at Lebone is rewarding for hard workers so that you do not become reluctant and quit in your efforts of making Lebone a better place.

Furthermore from the teacher-parent meeting observed in the primary school, a question was asked on how do teachers structure a successful parent-teacher interaction? My response would be that you need to communicate and send out the invitation as early as possible. Research has shown that students do better in school when their parents/guardians are involved in their process of learning. Face-to-face contact is the best way to communicate with parents. Parents who attended and saw the video of their kids were overwhelmed and very proud and were given essential tools to help their children at home and developing them to grow.