To download pdf click on the link: Vol-17.edt-1.pdf
In 2023, we’re happy to be starting the academic year with a new fence. However, we’re surprised and a little disappointed not the have a full class.Matjana Preschool started off her new year in mid January with 13 kids. We were hoping to enrol 30 children. The school committee is on a community drive to identify preschool-age kids who have not yet enrolled and try to facilitate their entry into early childhood education.Again, this year we have a gender imbalance in our students- we have just 3 boys and 10 girls. This is something which we cannot explain. Even in 2022 it was the same situation- we had only 2 boys.
New fence
If you have been following our website you would have read that our former teacher Londiwe Dlamini applied for fence funding. Our committee and teachers made a follow up this year but were told that the sponsors do not have money yet. Because the poor state of the fence was causing so many problems- the school committee then decided to use the schools money to repair the sections of the broken fence to at least keep away the goats and cows out of the school yard. Cows and goats were getting into the school yard through the old, broken section of the fence. They would then sleep- and defecate- on our kitchen and classroom porches. Anyone that knows anything about cows and goats knows that they poo a lot!
No more cleaning animal droppings
Our teachers are very happy they’ll no longer start their day cleaning up animal dropping in 2023. Teacher Nokuphila said, “Before the kids went inside the classrooms we had to clean the goat poo. We could not start teaching if we hadn’t cleaned the porches.”And getting animal dropping of the cement porches is no easy task. “You need to scrub it with a broom and water because the animal dung gets stuck to the floor. It is disgusting to clean the porches because the dung stinks,” Khetsiwe said.When teachers were asked how often do they had to clean up after the livestock, teacher Khetsiwe said, “ It is much better in winter, now during summer it is almost every day and Mondays are the worst because there is a whole weekend of crap to clean up.” Our school is very close to the grazing land. During summer-rainy season some farmers will not take their livestock home because the kraal is too wet . So they would leave them on the grazing fields and they would find shelter from the rain on the preschool porches.
Primary kids returning to play
The broken fence also made it easy for the children from the nearby primary school to enter the yard. Our preschool is close to Matjana Primary School and most of the primary students graduated from the preschool, so they’re familiar with, and apparently miss, the swings. Teacher Nokuphila, herself a former Matjana Preschool students, said. “It is always good to get visits from our now primary school kids but they even come to play on the swings when there is no one around because they can easily get in through the broken fence. It is not safe for the kids to be around the school premises without an adult as anything can happen.”
Co operation
The support that we get from parents is always amazing. They have outdone themselves working towards the fencing of the school. They started cutting and transporting logs (by carrying them on their heads from the forests to the preschool) for fence posts last year. By December 2022 they had those logs ready which will be mixed with treated poles which have been bought from the hardware store.The parents have also started digging holes and placing the fence posts. Fencing materials, have been purchased and delivered. We are hopeful that by the beginning of May our school will be fully and securely fenced. Teacher Precious said, “We can’t thank our parents and financial supporters enough! The cows may miss sleeping on our porches, but we will not miss cleaning up after them!”
Other improvements to look out for in 2023
We are about to purchase the desks and chairs for the preschool students, for the second classroom. Because of financial challenges this is long overdue . We have looked at different types of furniture and decided to get the desks and chairs custom made by a nearby carpenter. Our kids are kids and our furniture gets a lot of use. We did not think the furniture sold at the shops will be sturdy enough to cope with all the fun of preschool, so we’ve ordered sturdy wooden desks and chairs, which will be painted brightly in primary colours.
Next on our wish list of project is improving the playground. This includes repairing so of the existing play equipment and expanding the outdoor play area. For now we don’t have enough money to start this, but we’re hoping with the playing equipment outdoors, which we couldn’t do even if we had the money because of the fencing problem.We are also hoping to renew the book centre in our classroom/s. Our kids love reading, which inevitably means that the 30 or 40 books that we have pass through lots of little hands and gradually get damaged over the years. Some of our books are really falling to pieces. While others are still useable, we want to buy more books and ensure the future Matjana kids get an opportunity to learn to love reading early in life.
