A New Era at Settlers

A New Era at Settlers?

By Caitlin Rafferty

When learners walked into Settlers at the beginning of the year, they probably wouldn’t have expected the leadership of the school to look quite so different by the time we reached the second half of the year. Since late May, the school has had a new Acting Principal and two new Deputy Principals, and whether you’ve been paying attention to it or not, their arrival has brought a few new things with it.

Mrs De Kock has taken on the role of Acting Principal, while Mr Abrahamse and Mrs Basheer have stepped into the roles of Deputy Principals.

But what has actually changed?

Well, maybe not as much as you would necessarily expect from the title. There hasn’t been some dramatic “new leadership, new school” transformation. Instead, there have been a number of new approaches and decisions that have quietly helped learners’ school life. From the way summer sports sign-ups were handled, to changes in the academic calendar, to the way certain situations with learners have been managed, the past few months have given us a chance to see each of them settle into their roles.

Take Mr Abrahamse and sport, for example. This year saw the introduction of a new system for signing up for summer sports. With a large number of learners signing up for different sports, organising the process seems like a task in itself. Doing sign-ups in our CE classes offered a different way of managing sign-ups and gave learners a more straightforward way to get involved in the sports they wanted to participate in. It may seem like a small thing, but it is an example of how existing processes can be approached differently.

Then there’s Mrs Basheer and academics. This year, Grade 10s and 11s wrote their English and Afrikaans Paper 3s at the end of their control tests, rather than writing them at the end of Term 3 like previous years. While it may not sound like the biggest change on paper, it has helped a few learners out, since they were already “locked in” because of tests, two more papers were nothing they couldn’t handle instead of writing a week later and have already developed the “holiday” mindset.

As Acting Principal, Mrs De Kock has a much broader responsibility, and one of the things that has become particularly noticeable is the way she handles learners. She has a way of dealing with situations that makes students feel comfortable approaching her for guidance, while still being able to maintain authority when it is needed. Perhaps most impressively, she has managed to get learners who would not normally be the quickest to comply to listen, something any teacher will know is not always an easy achievement with a school full of teenagers.

There have also been moments where the leadership has been willing to try something different simply because it may make things work better. One example was replacing assembly with textbook checks in CE classrooms. Rather than teachers having roughly ten minutes in the morning to check around 30 textbooks, learners brought their books in on Fridays. Teachers had more time to complete the checks properly, while learners didn’t have to carry all of their textbooks around for an entire week hoping that theirs would eventually be checked. It was a simple idea, but one that worked surprisingly well.

Perhaps that is what has been most noticeable about the leadership so far. It isn’t about making Settlers feel like a completely different school. It is about finding ways to make the school day work a little more smoothly, while still maintaining the environment and identity that learners are familiar with.

Of course, the school is still the school we know. There are tests, deadlines, sports, homework and all the usual chaos that comes with being in Settlers. But there is something to be said for leadership that can introduce new ideas without making everything feel unfamiliar.

Mrs De Kock, Mr Abrahamse and Mrs Basheer may have only been in their new positions since late May, but the way they have approached their responsibilities has already made an impression. Whether it is through sport, academics or simply the way learners are handled, their leadership has brought a sense of efficiency and a lighter atmosphere to certain parts of school life.

And maybe that is exactly what Settlers needed, not everything changing but things just working a little better around us.