The Anna Foundation 3 R’s “Reading, Running, Right-ing” programme has undergone a number of positive changes over the past few months. Through our literacy and numeracy hour (Reading), sports lessons (Running) and life skills programmes (Right-ing), we aim to move with the times and focus on our learners’ greatest needs.
Although the structure of our Reading (literacy/numeracy) programme has stayed the same (grade specific worksheets for children with life skills themes guiding each lesson) we are aware that a great deal of children are not able to complete worksheets at their grade level and this problem needed to be addressed and taken back a step. Special remedial programmes have been designed to address specific problem areas of learners – our project managers and remedial volunteers give much needed tailor-made assistance to those children who require additional one-on-one academic support. In addition to this, greater attention to numeracy in 2011 also meant that we became acutely aware of the phenomenal investment that needs to be made with all learners of all ages regarding basic mathematics. Our teacher in charge of all education matters at the Anna Foundation (Nellie de Wet – Head of Education) started designing new numeracy programmes focusing on simple concepts such as adding and subtracting (for Grades 1 – 3) and multiplication and division for grades 4 until 10. Numeracy games have been introduced to encourage the children to practice their times tables and basic maths concepts.We will now be looking at how we can take our learners back to basics with home language. We will be designing basic programmes using simple readers and stories to assist children with language.
In our Running programme (physical development and well-being of each child) we have focussed on assisting with the development of specific motor skills. This development is crucial to the child’s all round well-being as poor motor skills can lead to poor concentration and poor school results (and poor self-esteem). Over the past few months we have also paid attention to developing the children’s fitness levels, team sports such as soccer and tag rugby, including fun games and general bike skills.
The Anna Foundation has had many more teenagers join in our programmes over the past few months and as such started doing teenage workshopsas part of our Right-ing(life skills) programme. We found peer learning and peer interaction between farms was a great tool for encouraging positive attitudes with our teens. Peer pressure is a large part of these teenagers’ lives and ensuring this pressure is positive can make all the difference. In addition to these teen workshops, we have takentwo groups of children camping for 3 days each during the past few months. The camps took place on a farm outside Barrydale which is also a baboon sanctuary and wellness centre. The children spent time learning about the wildlife, interacting with the group of Barrydale farm children (learning to give back to others) and learning valuable life skills. They also rode bikes, played team building games, did drumming and dancing and spent time sharing life stories. The teenager camp was specifically used to help these children with matters such as group pressure, drugs, early pregnancy and future goals.
Note from wwh – You can support this worthy cause by purchasing the ANNA FOUNDATION WINE CASE online.
