Eversdal Primary staff’s “can-do” attitude lays foundation for school’s solid COVID-19 response
12 June 2020
Proud principal Henk Arangies says that when schools closed in March 2020, his entire staff (School Management Team, educators, general workers and ground staff alike) had upped their game in displaying the “can-do” attitude that he has gotten so used to from them.
When schools shut, they sensed that they were not going to return anytime soon, and used the few days leading up to vacating the premises, in preparation for the lockdown. The school, situated in Durbanville, was thoroughly cleaned.
Remarkably the school had been working on a fully-fledged online learning system since 2015 with not only their whole curriculum already being in e-format but their learners all enrolled and skilled in working on its e-platform.
“Our teachers therefore had no stress regarding the curriculum when they returned to school, and I think this made a huge difference to the attitude of the teachers,” asserted Arangies. “The other reason for the calm within our teacher community is the fact is that they had completed everything that they needed to for term 1; and for term 2 they were in daily contact with their learners.”
But Arangies didn’t just leave it all up to his staff to be proactive for any eventuality; he took charge by keeping the school community abreast of developments making regular YouTube videos to communicate with them and also made use of live broadcasting on YouTube to explain how the staff would be handling things at school and what their approach would be.
Asked if there was anyone he wanted to single out for his school’s gargantuan effort – both during the lockdown and in preparation for the Grade 7’s return, Arangies was obviously reluctant to do so, for his school, he believes, the well-oiled machine called Eversdal, thrives on team work. When gently nudged, he said, “If I have to single out one person, it will have to be Mr Joseph Muller, our foreman who was a solid anchor during lockdown and during the whole cleaning programme.” Muller, he feels, has an unwavering love and passion for Eversdal Primary School. “I do not know if we (and I) would have been able to have been so relaxed about our school premises during lockdown if it wasn’t for him – I SALUTE HIM – “Hy is ’n YSTER!”