The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) and primary schools throughout the province are engaged in a massive programme to introduce the revised national curriculum in Grades 4 to 6 in 2005.

The huge project involves thousands of primary school teachers, school managers and support staff.

More than 7 780 primary school teachers and 1 840 school managers attended about 150 training courses across the Western Cape during the July school holidays.

Schools are now completing learning programmes for 2005, with the support of the WCED’s Education Management and Development Centres (EMDCs) in each district, and head office staff.

The department is now completing training for WCED officials who have to support implementation of the revised curriculum. They include circuit managers and other specialised education professionals.

The national Department of Education published the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) for Grades R to 9 in the Government Gazette on 31 May 2002 after a lengthy process of revising Curriculum 2005.

The RNCS has fine-tuned the original curriculum, with a special focus on clearly defined objectives, or outcomes, that define what children must know and be able to do in each grade and learning area, and how their progress should be assessed.

Provincial education departments are introducing the revised curriculum in stages. They introduced the curriculum in Grades R to 3 (the Foundation Phase) in 2004. Grades 4 to 6 are known as the Intermediate Phase.

Education departments will also introduce the RNCS in the Senior Phase (Grades 7 to 9) in stages, starting with Grade 7 in 2006, Grade 8 in 2007 and Grade 9 in 2008.

Preparations for introducing the revised curriculum are very much a collaborative effort with schools.

We are very impressed by the professional approach of our schools on this issue. We deeply appreciate their willingness to turn out during the school holidays. The massive turnout reflects the commitment of our teachers and schools to making the curriculum work, in the very best interests of our learners.

We are also aware of all that schools are doing themselves to prepare for next year. They have already done well to implement the revised curriculum successfully in the Foundation Phase this year.

Our curriculum staff, EMDCs and other support staff have performed well to ensure that we are ready for 2005. Our teachers have commended the WCED for excellent organisation, well-prepared facilitators and a variety of interesting teaching methods.

Curriculum staff also prepared attractive training materials in the three languages of the province, along with online, web-based support.

Our work with school and teachers is not yet complete – schools and teachers need affirmation that their preparations are on track. They are still asking questions on assessment. We will work with schools on finalising the most appropriate systems, to ensure effective evaluation of learner progress.

School management teams have a critical role to play. The principal and senior staff are essential in developing curriculum plans for their school to ensure that learning takes place and that those who struggle are identified early and supported appropriately.

The challenge for the rest of this year is for Intermediate Phase teachers to find time to plan, and for their management staff, support staff in the education department and parents to support them in this process.

Given all the work that has gone into these preparations so far, we are confident that our primary schools will excel once again in the next phase of the revised curriculum roll-out.

More information is available on the WCED’s Curriculum Development website at http://curriculum.wcape.school.za