The Billion Child Foundation is, to the best of our knowledge, the only organisation in the world to have proven programmes with the capacity to empower every ministry of education to simultaneously
- set all their underperforming schools on a journey to become centres of excellence enjoying the support of teachers, students, parents and the community
- ensure each child is supported by a committed informed parent/carer
THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE PROGRAMME
The International Schools Centre of Excellence Programme has a proven track record and is cost-effective, sustainable, replicable, scalable and resilient.
The Programme empowers the entire education supply chain (heads of national and provincial departments of education, district directors, circuit managers, principals, middle managers, teachers, students, parents and each school community) to become fully engaged in simultaneously transforming the culture of their underperforming schools into cultures experienced at high performance schools. The text is changed Dan)
This culture change Programme inspires teachers to
- Join and commit to a crusade at their school to deliver quality education
- Become part of a team on a destination to transform their school and the lives of students
- Play a specific, indispensable role within the school team framework
- Prepare and present lessons effectively .
- Seek and adopt new methodologies and technologies to upgrade their ability to provide quality education in their classroom.
The Programme is commissioned by heads of national or provincial ministries of education, driven by district directors, led by circuit managers, implemented by school leadership teams and teachers, and the high performance culture is lived by students, parents and the community.
The BCF system of Monthly Implementation Progress Tracker Reports© enables all levels of management in the education supply chain to monitor implementation by school, circuit, district, province and nationally.
Track record – South African Secondary Schools
The percentage of students who gained a university or technical university admission matriculation pass increased from 53% in 2015 to 71% in 2022 at schools whose school leadership teams attended this Programme between 2011 and 2016. (Results provided by the South African Department of Basic Education)
These results demonstrate that as the culture and routines at schools become embedded, results improve over a number of years. The important ingredient offered by this Programme is that it lays fallow ground in which teachers become emotionally engaged and not only prepare and deliver lessons more effectively but that become more amenable to implementing the training they receive and often actively seek training and support.
Despite Covid, the percentage of students gaining a university (A Level) or technical university matriculation pass in 2021 declined by only 2% compared to 2019. This is a remarkable achievement as schools are situated in economically deprived rural villages and the sprawling townships on the outskirts of towns and villages which experience intermittent electricity supply and many families could not afford data to permit online learning..
Track record – South African Primary Schools
Primary school results achieved by learners in Years/Grades 5-7 in the Northern Cape Province were equally remarkable.
Discover what primary school principals say about the remarkable success they achieved after attending the International Schools Centre of Excellence Programme – click here.and here.
Track record in Lesotho
The International Schools Centre of Excellence Programme was presented in Lesotho during 2015.
In the Report by the Lesotho Ministry of Education and Training to UNICEF, who initiated and funded the Programme, the Ministry reported:
- The Programme was a significant success.
- The percentage of learners graduating at the end of year 7 at previously under-performing primary schools whose principals had been trained by their school inspectors increased by 54% in 2016 while the pass rate of control group of schools declined by 7% indicating an overall improvement of 61% compared to school in the control group who had not participated in the Programme.
- The role of the Inspector changed from being a compliance officer to that of an Excellence Leader who empowered principals to reinvent their schools to become centres of excellence.
- This Programme did not focus on academic outcomes. It focused on changing the culture of each school to become a centre of excellence. The excellent results followed.
- Principals acquired the skills to make progress on their journey to reinvent their schools to become centres of excellence and in so doing inspired the staff to improve the culture of effective teaching and effective learning.
- The number of schools gaining 100% pass rates increased from 3 schools to 7 schools.
THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS STRATEGIC PLANNING PROGRAMME
Hundreds of school leadership teams have developed robust strategic plans unique to the circumstances of their school.
Principals report that they have
- developed a highly successful school
- fostered a culture of empowerment and collaboration among academic staff
- improved marks in all grades
- developed high performing teams throughout their school
- created a high performance culture at their school
- mobilised and built relationships between all stakeholders – school leadership team, teachers, students, parents , school governing body, community leaders
- provided each learner with the opportunity to become a well-rounded individual who will succeed in the world
- effectively developed the reputation and image of their school.
Discover what principals say about the progress they have achieved. click here.
NATIONAL PRACTICAL PARENTING SKILLS PROGRAMMES
This Programme is designed to train teachers, other professionals and church and community leaders how to conduct parenting skills training workshops which they present annually in their local language. To date the Programme has been presented in six languages to over 270,000 parents.
Outcomes of this Programme
- Parents learn the practical parenting skills they need to raise their children to be self-reliant, confident individuals
- Parents become involved in in their communities through the establishment of Community Parent Forums
- Parents become actively involved in many aspects of their children’s education including the monitoring of reading and homework each day and talking up education in the home.
- A reduction in callouts by police to family violence and violence against women and children.
- Parents enjoy being parents
- Parents report the creation of harmonious cohesive homes.
- Pastors and teachers who facilitate this programme become informed authorities on practical parenting skills in their communities.
- New parents generally adopt the parenting methodologies used by their parents, or do the opposite. When children of the parents trained themselves become parents, they will in all probability deploy the same cutting-edge practical parenting skills appropriate for the 21st century used by their parents. The gains made by this intervention are therefore sustainable from generation to generation.
Each parent attends three two-hour workshops every year from the birth of their first child until their children have left school.
BCF encourages each school to form a Community Parenting Forum
Initiatives launched by Community Parenting forums include:
- The creation of child-safe, child-friendly and supportive environments
- Walking taxis’ to ensure children can commute to and from school safely
- Launching drug rehabilitation initiatives for youth in their community
- Raising funds for a range of new projects and facilities to create a child safe community
- Launching career counselling programmes
- Launching cultural and sporting programmes
- Bringing successful people who previously lived in the community to provide role models and tell success stories to inspire people to strive for a better life
- Persuading food chain stores to donate soon to be out of date food products to enable community members to provide daily feeding programmes for indigent families and child-headed homes
- Providing children who live in informal housing with a venue with electric light such as a church where they can complete their homework after school hours.
- Launching an Angel Parenting Organisation where abandoned children and children from child-headed homes are able to visit their Angel Parents every afternoon to discuss health, learning and social challenges including bullying they are experiencing, to report on their day at school, to report on successes they have enjoyed during the day, on homework completion, and importantly to experience an adult praising them when they achieve.
- Establishing a Council of Elders to assist children who want to escape being a gang member, stop abusing drugs and smoking, satanism and being a child prostitute.
Discover what parents and teachers say about this programme – click for parents here. and click for teachers here
See teachers delivering this Programme – with passion in Sesotho, isiXhosa and Afrikaans.
THE BCF PROGRAMME TO INSPIRE LEARNERS TO SEIZE EDUCATION
Most principals of under-performing schools report their greatest challenge is the lack of self-motivation of the learners, that they sit through school because they have to, pay little attention to homework and cannot wait to escape at the end of the day to their after-school social activities.
BCF is currently developing this programme which makes no attempt to tell learners why they need an education but rather to discover for themselves why education is important to them personally.
It relies on 20 minute interventions every month which involve each learner in activities in which they ultimately discover for example that they will need mathematics to become an apprentice motor mechanic, English to gain a salary sufficient to buy the kind of car which they hope to drive when they leave school, etc.
THE BCF SCHOOLS AND HOSTEL SAFETY PLANNING AND EVACUATION PROGRAMME
BCF trains personnel from schools to develop their school’s unique school and hostel safety plan. During training evacuation of schools and school hostels is practiced.