Results
“Comparisons across cohorts and with quintile averages and comparator schools indicates a great deal of potential to demonstrate a fundamentally different trajectory to no-fee schools in the next phase of the project.”
~ Human Sciences Research Council
For me this is something so good – especially for schools in under-privileged communities because they provide additional resources that government cannot provide such as teacher, learner, leadership support and training, and the community can see the difference that Common Good has made in the school. The parents want to send their children to this school.
SGB Chair, Disa Primary,
Bonteheuwel, Western Cape
High Schools:
PSP schools’ NSC pass and bachelor pass rates show a cumulative upward movement in comparison to other no-fee schools.
In 2023, Apex High achieved a 94,5% NSC pass rate and a 55,3% bachelor pass rate. Silikamva High scored a 93,3% NSC pass rate and a 54,8% bachelor pass rate. In 2022 and 2021 both schools had 85% NSC pass rates and 53% bachelor pass rates, lending a measure of predictability and consistency to the schools’ work. These results place both schools among the top no-fee schools in the province, above the national fee-paying average and on par with the quintile five average.
In the Eastern Cape, Dudumayo High and Dumalisile High achieved 82,5% and 81,2% NSC pass rates with 40% and 30% bachelor pass rates. These schools, which operate in a challenging rural environment in the Eastern Cape, demonstrated an improvement from 30-40% at the beginning of the partnership along with declining rates of learner dropout. NSC and Bachelor graphs
Primary Schools:
Few standardised and objective measures exist for evaluating learning outcomes in primary schools. The project’s SOPs have used the Western Cape’s systemic assessments, as well as the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) in the Eastern Cape.
Independent standardised assessments have validated these scores and provided further insight to inform remedial strategies.
At primary schools, the most reliable measure remains the cohort comparison of Grade 3s, compared to the Grade 6 scores three years later in comparable assessments*.
As learners in Collaboration Schools progress from Grade 3 to Grade 6, the improvement in their scores in the systemic assessments was 12-15% higher than the provincial average over 2016 to 2019.
Post-2020, recovery has been muted across the province, which is in line with the anticipated learning losses. Provincial average scores for systemics decreased by 3% to 7% across grades and subjects.
While most PSP schools showed significant improvements in the 2019 assessments after years of sustained implementation, their 2021 and 2022 scores were equal to their 2018 scores. The pandemic learning losses, despite their magnitude, were balanced out by PSP interventions.
In the Eastern Cape, improvements in early grade reading (from non-reading to developing and competent readers) show that foundation phase learners are laying the groundwork for future achievements. Nationally, EGRA scores dropped in 2021 and 2022 because of COVID-19 school shutdowns. In both years, learners “on track” at AmaJingqi schools have been around 20% above the national average. Zithulele schools, which joined the PSP project in 2022, have seen improvement in their post-COVID scores to a lesser extent.
Many of these measures show the clear impact of home language and other individual school contexts that affect learner outcomes. As the project looks to the next phase of implementation post pilot, it will continue to explore diverse measures that are sensitive to the context and complexity of the public school partnerships environment.
Systemic Assessments
PSP schools have seen incremental progress with their systemic assessment results and, despite Covid-19 learning losses, have consistently been above quintile and provincial trends.
2019 saw the first big improvements in systemic results after two years of the pilot programme. With the loss of over half of school days in 2021, and further losses in 2021 because of Covid-19, systemic assessment results dropped across the Western Cape in 2021 and 2022 (systemics were not conducted in 2020 due to Covid-19). However, because of the support PSP schools received, they continued to be above the provincial trend and were far less affected in comparison to other schools in the same quintile. In a sense, PSP “balanced out” Covid-19 learning losses, with PSP schools’ 2021 and 2022 results on par with their 2018 results.
Notes on COVID:
Across the province, average scores for Systemics (and NSC pass%) decreased by 3% to 7% across different grades and subjects. This corresponds to losing ~ 55% of school days in 2020, and further losses in 2021 depending on school timetables. Quintile 5 (wealthier) schools were the least affected, and Quintile 1-3 (no-fee) schools were typically affected worse than Provincial average.
Grade 9 Maths specifically, is characterized by poor performance across the board, and more so during the pandemic time.
The Group of Public School Partnership Schools overall tracked similarly to the Provincial Trend.
* Few standardized and objective measures exist for evaluating learning outcomes in Primary schools. The project’s SOPs have used the Western Cape’s Systemic Assessments, as well as the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA). Bespoke standardized assessments have validated these scores, and provided further insight to inform remedial strategies. Some measures could not be run at all in 2020 (Systemic Assessments), or faced implementation challenges during the pandemic.
National Senior
Certificate
Top Performing
Schools
Silikamva High won the
Provincial award for
most improved matric
pass rate in 2021
Silikamva High
Hout Bay
Silikamva has not only endured the effect of COVID-19 pandemic, but has also demonstrated the results of persistent turnaround efforts at a school that scored poorly prior to the pandemic.
Apex High
Eerste River/Forest Village
Apex High was newly opened in 2018, in partnership with the School Operating Partner Acorn Education. Their grade 12 class of 2021 were the first to sit the NSC exam.
Achievements
Teachers from Apex High School, a Collaboration School in the Western Cape, scooped four awards out of a possible 14 categories in the recent provincial leg of the Department of Basic Education (DBE)’s National Teaching Awards. Renate van der Westhuizen (Principal of Apex High), went on to participate in the National Awards and was awarded the national honour of best high school principal.
Renata van der Westheuizen
Apex High
National teaching award for excellence in secondary school leadership 2021
Marieke Pretorius
Apex High
Provincial award for excellence in teaching Physical Sciences 2022
Robyn van de Rhede
Apex High
Provincial award for excellence in secondary school teaching 2022
Read More:
Statement by the Western Cape Education Department.
22 October 2021
Tweet from Premier of the Western Cape Alan Winde.
06 October 2021
Western Cape educators win at national awards. First published on 07 October 2021 by IOL.
