6 February 2024
Boys respond to teaching in different ways. Research shows that approximately 34 percent of them are effectively engaged by the system currently used in South African state schools. Durban High School (DHS) is, however, proactively ensuring its learners are offered optimal learning conditions.
The latest evidence of that was presented when Liezel Patterson, from the Victor Daitz Foundation, recently cut the ribbon on School’s impressive Nonpareil and Cambridge Wing, which was built with the support of the Victor Daitz Foundation and the DHS Foundation Trust.
Carolyn Dickinson, the Head of Nonpareil and Cambridge learning at DHS, explained: “We’ve aimed this at the 70 to 75 percent aggregate child, because this is for the extension of the child who is in a mixed ability class.”
It enables those learners who are performing well to operate in smaller classes, usually about 16 boys, in which they will feel most comfortable engaging with their peers. This makes for a more interactive and stimulating learning experience.
Huge improvements
In the first year that the option was offered at DHS, Dickinson said her top performers, who had been achieving around 82 percent in mainstream classes, improved their marks to 95 percent in the Trial Exams.
“They were sharing ideas, they were talking, they were alert,” she said, describing the positive changes she saw in them.
The failure rate among boys in the first year at University is 50 percent, she added, but the Nonpareil and Cambridge Academy aims to bridge the gap between school and university.
“Boys need to be able to analyse and apply, and critically think about what they are learning. This is what we have been trying to do with this academy. We have applied a lot of the Cambridge ideas to the Nonpareil. The boys are excited and happy.”
Learners need to be taught in different ways to get the best out of them, to make school an exciting and inviting environment. As an example, while some boys respond to oral teaching, others fare better with a visual approach. The multi-nodal model being employed by DHS aims to place boys in environments where they will flourish.
An invigorating environment
At the opening, DHS Headmaster Tony Pinheiro said the Nonpareil and Cambridge options have produced results because they offer an invigorating environment: “It has stretched our teachers. They had to be stretched, and it stretches our boys.
“The words that we use in that space are words like creativity, research, collaboration, critical thinking. These are the skills that people are crying for out there.”
The Academic Support Centre
He also spoke with pride about the Academic Support Centre (ASC), which offers boys with learning challenges the kind of support that is commonly found in primary schools, but which is largely absent in high schools.
Most boys with learning challenges have to go to special schools, Pinheiro said. “Those schools emphasise, far too much, that the boy has a barrier to learning, and they don’t give the overall experience that a boy who comes to this school will get.”
To ensure the ASC was as good as it could be, he procured the services of Mr Noel Moodley to oversee the facility. Moodley was previously the Headmaster of the Open Air School, which provides specialised schooling for children with various impairments.
Since ASC began this year, the response has been eye-opening. It is fully booked out for 2025 and more classrooms will be required soon.
“Many of these boys are exceptionally bright. Each one has his own barrier, but they are fully integrated into the school, and they are loving the Durban High School experience, which they wouldn’t get at a remedial school. These boys will go on to be successful,” the Headmaster stated.
The Brave Generation Academy
The next multi-nodal space will follow within a month, with the installation of the Brave Generation Academy. It’s an online education system, which requires boys to do their online work at the school. They have a choice of either the Cambridge or Pearson curricula.
It also allows them to work at their own pace. If a student is a fast learner, he could finish the syllabus early and begin university work while still at school because 28 universities have already signed on with the programme and more are being added.
There are over 100 Brave Generation Academy campuses around the world, predominantly overseas, and the online nature of those academies creates other exciting opportunities, Pinheiro said: “If one of our boys is a top musician, and he wants to go to Barcelona for a month, for a music camp, he can attend the Brave Generation Academy there, still keep up with his studies, and still live his dream.
“We want to get overseas students here and have them interact with our boys, which will enrich our boys and enrich those students.”
On the DHS campus, there is, furthermore, a tertiary option, the NewBridge Graduate Institute, which began with 20 students and now is home to over 650.
Career Guidance
The rollout of facilities is, however, far from complete, the Headmaster declared. Plans for a career guidance centre, which will take its lead from the Blue Roof Life Space, are already at an advanced stage.
One of the primary goals of Blue Roof is “to offer support to students and young adults as they make subject and workplace decisions through the state-of-the-art Career Guidance Centre and then to link individuals to a job or entrepreneurial opportunities.”
While commendable progress has been made to ensure a stimulating and effective learning environment for the boys of DHS, Pinheiro insisted the school is far from done in promoting further additions to the school’s multi-nodal approach.
Electives Programme
At present, apart from the aforementioned Cambridge Assessment International Education, the Nonpareil Academy, and the Brave Generation Academy, an Electives Programme offers learners 32 options outside of the traditional curriculum.
They include, among others, basic life support, business incubation, community engagement, film and television production, international studies, logistics, machine learning, photography, principles of flight, python coding, social media and digital literacy, Toastmasters and web development.
The Chris Seabrooke Music Centre
Meanwhile, the Chris Seabrooke Music Centre‘s state-of-the-art facilities include nine practice rooms, a sound-proof project-recording studio, and an auditorium, which is fully equipped with instrument backline and sound system.
There is an impressively wide array of options available at DHS. In the school’s quest to enable boys to learn to the best of their abilities, those options continue to grow in a manner that enables each and every learner to find his node and his optimal learning space.
“These are exciting times,” Pinheiro said.
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