February 2023
Page 6
Teacher survival tips to help you survive and thrive in 2023
Page 8
How to build a growth mindset
Page 12
Principles of cooperative learning
Page 14
The importance of professional development
Page 16
Competition - Win, win, win!
Page 20
New product - John Catt
educational titles
The five pillars of our transformation journey
Macmillan Education South Africa strives to build a transformed, inclusive and diverse organisation.
Welcome to our first E-newsletter for 2023. We do hope you find it informative and enjoyable.
It is difficult to believe that it is nearly the end of the first term, and the April school holiday is only three weeks away. Time is flying!
At Macmillan Education, many exciting things happened in the past few weeks. The Macmillan Online Teacher Campus (MOTC) was launched so you can do workshops at home on your own time and at your own pace. To celebrate World Read Aloud Day on 1 February, we launched the Macmillan Reading Corner, an online magical world of stories. The sales and marketing teams brought fun and joy to learners in all provinces by reading them stories on this special day.
Macmillan Teacher Campus’s team was also very busy developing new workshops during the first two months of this year. Their vision is to empower, motivate and develop educators in South Africa and to provide you with a learning pathway to continue your professional development. The MTC workshop schedule for March is packed and includes a Coding Week for teachers from Gr R to Gr 6. Have you ever wanted to code? Then this workshop is just for you!
If you want to be a modern mathematics teacher and meet the needs of 21stcentury learners, for Maths Madness Week!
There is a series of poetry workshops for the Grade 12 Afrikaans First Additional Language teachers to help you master the ten new poems. You can’t miss out on this!
All the above workshops are offered online to make them accessible to all educators.
Enjoy the upcoming school holidays!
Regards, Macmillan Team.
“Many exciting things happed in the past few weeks”
World Read Aloud Day is celebrated on the first Wednesday of February, and this year it was celebrated on 1 February.
This day is dedicated to reading, specifically to the art and practice of reading aloud. It also highlights the importance of sharing stories. People were encouraged to grab a book and read it aloud to an audience.
The Macmillan Sales & Marketing teams took up this challenge and read stories all over the country at ECD centres, schools and children’s wards at hospitals. Listening to stories helped these sick children forget their pain and sorrows for a while.
In Mpumalanga, stories were read to grannies at an old age home. They were reminded of their important role in telling their grandchildren folktales and stories about their families.
View stories from this day
Storytelling is magic!
Through storytelling, children learn to love reading and associate with it as fun activity. With Macmillan Reading Corner it is easy to make storytelling part of your child’s daily routine.
More about the stories:
• Lively and original stories presented by mother-tongue speakers.
• Stories that will help children to discover the joy of reading and learn more about the world they live in.
• New stories in various languages are to be added every month.
• Enjoy the stories on your cell phone, tablet or desktop.
How to access these amazing stories for FREE:
1. Scan this QR code or,
2. Type this link in your browser: https://bit.ly/rcorner or,
3. Search for “Macmillan Reading Corner” on YouTube
Prioritise your tasks to not feel overwhelmed. Create 4 different categories of work you need to get done:
4 To do today: This is stuff that requires immediate attention – urgent phone calls, time-sensitive forms, lesson plans, meeting prep, resources for tomorrow etc.
4 To do tomorrow: These tasks do not have pending deadlines
4 To do when convenient: These tasks can be done when you have a good amount of time available
4 ‘To do’ work for parent/learner volunteers: These tasks will save you a tremendous amount of time. Plan ahead and have volunteer parents/learners help with time-consuming tasks – many parents are just waiting for an invitation and an extra benefit is that you will have a chance to build a great relationship with your parents!
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Avoid the staff room where one can easily get stuck after school – no chilling and chatting … even if you are desperate for some adult interaction. Learn to close your classroom door during your hour of prep after school or early in the morning before anyone is there. You will be more focused and accomplish more. An added benefit of using the hour after school is that it will give you time to decompress.
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They will help you free up some time and benefit you in multiple facets of your life! Schedule appointments – having to be somewhere at a specific time is a great way to get you out of the schoolyard on time and spend some much-needed time on yourself. Macmillan Teacher Campus offers a great course on time- and stress management – look out for our schedules on email and social media to make a note of when this topic will be covered in our Teacher well-being week range.
If you say that you are only going to work for one hour after school, then ONLY work one hour after school. Focus your effort … refrain from searching for great lesson plans and then going down the rabbit hole of Pinterest and eventually, 3 hours later, finding yourself looking at a YouTube video on “How to become a giraffe whisperer” … wondering where the time went and how nothing got done (including the lesson plan you initially researched!). With that said … avoid timethieves such as your phone, social media and emails. We are so quick to pick up the phone to see what was missed during the day, and sadly, it’s usually nothing super fantastic that couldn’t wait a few more hours. This steals your time and distracts you!
I remember the times when I was a victim of throbbing bag syndrome. Throbbing bag syndrome is when you jam-pack your bag full of all kinds of papers and lists and documents and textbooks … including marking you need to do, memos you need to read, and that note you wrote to yourself after that hurried phone call from Faith’s mom. You take your bag home, full of all the best intentions, imagining an evening spent dealing with everything so you can start the next day with a clean slate …. you bring in your bag, where it sits in the corner like a malevolent beast, and you don’t touch it at all. But you never stop thinking about it … get rid of throbbing bag syndrome by simply refusing to bring work home as a rule (accepting there are always times when this is not possible).
Each time you need a copy, you probably don’t walk to the copy machine one paper at a time. You likely save up until you have a few things that need to be copied and walk down all at once and make the copies together – it saves you time, right? Think of all the phone calls you need to make – bundle them and do all your calls in one sitting. Do the same with work. Batch your work. When you plan, plan all your art lessons and then all your math lessons for the week. Then, take care of all the paperwork at the same time, make all your copies at the same time, then gather all your materials at the same time, and so on.
When I first started teaching I thought I had to … I shudder at that thought now. That was crazy. I didn’t know. I hated marking. Then, one day someone told me that you should only grade something after they have had enough practice with the concepts. So, sometimes I give checks for doing it, sometimes learners check their own work, sometimes we check in class, sometimes I check as they do it. For example, teaching creative writing FET Phase ... you do not mark the whole essay when you are actually focusing on teaching learners to write a great attention-grabbing first paragraph. Don’t mark every mistake. I spent so much time marking every mistake in learners’ writing. I deducted points for little errors in math work. Now I only look for mistakes that pertain to what we’ve been learning. I scan learner work instead of studying it. I learned to consider if learners demonstrated what we’ve been learning, instead of looking for perfection.
Network with teachers in neighbouring schools, get to know them and collaborate, exchange assignments, tests, great lesson plans. Get help. Ask an experienced teacher for ideas. They are usually very excited to share. Check out sites such as Teachers Pay Teachers or Twinkl for ideas, amazing lesson plans or activities.
Save time by ensuring that you are waiting at your classroom door first, before your learners arrive to line up. This way, you are “marking your territory” – yes, just like a dog. They will understand that they are entering your space now. You set the tone from the start. For more practical classroom management tips/discipline in the classroom, contact Macmillan Teacher Campus to join their very popular and effective “Strategies for positive classroom discipline” workshop.
If you are lucky enough to have technology in your classroom, have an earlyarriving learner boot the computer and digital whiteboard each morning. Something as simple as that makes a difference for the busy teacher. Think through the “start of day” and “end of day” tasks. Delegate them to learners. It promotes responsibility and is one small thing that helps build community.
Try your best not to take work home regularly.
Do NOT mark everything. Seriously. Don’t.
A growth mindset is the belief that our basic abilities can be developed and improved through dedication and hard work. Without a growth mindset, we don’t exert the required effort and so we remain perpetually stuck.
With a growth mindset, we can break through the sense of being stuck and achieve the results we desire, whether that be at work, in our relationships, or in other aspects of our lives.
If we have a “fixed mindset”, we may shy away from challenges because we do not want to feel embarrassed or humiliated in front of others. But this can be problematic because our fear of making mistakes can lead us to avoid challenges and new experiences: experiences which would help us grow, improve ourselves in important ways, and create the life we desire.
If we have a “growth mindset”, we enjoy challenges, despite the risk, usually because we value learning and growth more than whether others think we know what we’re doing. And because we’re always trying new things, we often don’t know what we’re doing. Still, those of us with a growth mindset often build new skills more easily because we believe we can and so we really work at it.
Developing a growth mindset could contribute to a fuller, more meaningful life because the vast number of experiences that you encounter will be considerably broader.
Changing one’s mindset from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset may seem like a difficult task, but by taking small steps, you can build a growth mindset.
Acknowledge and embrace imperfection in yourself and others: after all, this is what makes us individuals.
Face your challenges bravely. If you find yourself terrified in the face of a serious challenge, stop and reframe the situation in your mind.
Pay attention to your words and thoughts. If your thoughts or words are low or dark, the results will also be low and dark. Replace negative thoughts with more positive ones to build a growth mindset.
Stop seeking approval from others.
Become more authentic. Be yourself. Pretending to be someone you are not, disrespects who you really are.
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Cultivate a sense of purpose. Does your life feel like it is purpose-driven? If yes, define for yourself what that purpose is.
Redefine “genius”. We all have strengths and weaknesses. Explore and appreciate
your strengths, and work to improve your weaknesses.
Turn criticism into something you can learn from. The purpose of criticism is to make things better.
Value the process over the end result. During the process you learn and grow.
Learn from the mistakes of others.
It is OK to say “not yet”. When struggling with a task, remind yourself that you just haven’t mastered it yet. If you stick with it, time and practice will lead to improvement.
Take risks in the company of others. Try not to take yourself too seriously. Be willing to make mistakes in front of others, because if you’re growing, this is bound to happen. And making mistakes in front of others will usually get easier with practice.
Be realistic. It takes time to learn a new skill.
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Speed is not important. When you have a growth mindset, the end results are less of a focus.
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Own your attitude. If you value having a growth mindset, then take the time and make the effort to develop it.
Having a growth mindset means that you embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, take responsibility for your words and actions, and acknowledge that effort is the path toward mastery. You have heard of the statement: “practice makes perfect”.
By choosing to make the extra effort to build a growth mindset, you can make your mental processes work for you. This will most definitely ensure that you get the results you’re looking for and live the life you want to live.
• It’s where most learning takes place
• It makes learning meaningful
• It caters for the variety of learners in the class
• It optimises learning experiences
• It builds a cohesive classroom community
• It creates a pleasant work environment.
1. Know each learner as a person. This can give you valuable information about who they are which will be an advantage when teaching them.
2. Make personal connections with the learners by spending time with them daily.
3. Use an overload of positive messages and quotes making every learner feel like they are destined for greatness.
4. Constantly provide feedback that is positive.
5. Allow the learners to freely express themselves through their own expressions – display their art, showcase their talents, have a suggestion box so that they can anonymously contribute to improving
the learning environment.
6. Create an environment that encourages free speech and non-judgemental opinions.
7. Create a relationship so that learners feel free to come to you to confide and share.
8. RESPECT is key – respect for you, for others and for themselves.
9. Discipline and accountability should act hand in hand – every action has a reaction.
10. Make the physical environment of your classroom as comfortable and cheerful as possible.
“Teach as if every child is your child. Teach like you would want your own child to be taught.”
When the achievement for one is a benefit for the others
Pair- and group work members see themselves as a team working towards the same goal
Every participant contributes equally to the final achievement
Every individual is responsible for their learning
Every individual takes responsibility for their role in the group
Individuals have the ability to think as individuals, and also as members of the group
The learners can be cooperative and independent in their learning
This engages as many learners as possible simultaneously
The ability to work with one another by taking individual responsibility but still having a dependence on each other.
Social interaction
Learners get to know their classmates
Interact with classmates that they would not have automatically interacted with
Minimises the disengagement experienced by some learners
Allows the learners to take charge of their own learning
Allows for mixed-ability groups
Learners may have a better method in terms of explanation to their peers
Learners may see this as a burden to their normal learning
Learners may have to be intrinsically motivated and this may prove difficult for lower-achieving learners
Objectives must be clearly outlined at the start of the lesson
Plan the group size
Identify the resources that are required
Clearly outline the criteria
Set the rules
learners work together within their group encourage learners to ask questions encourage peers to provide explanations and not answers listen to each other help each other stay on the task
the teacher should only be asked if everyone in the group has tried to explain without success
the members of the group should face each other ensure all materials are ready each team member is assigned a duty team members take turns encourage terminology such as: "please can you explain?", "does everyone understand?" etc.
It does not really matter in what line of work we find ourselves; all of us are expected to continue learning about our field and doing our jobs to the best of our abilities. Regular professional development ensures that a teacher’s academic qualifications, as well as their practical teaching methodology, do not become outdated or obsolete. Teachers that continually engage in professional development activities stay abreast of the latest trends and ensure that they frequently upskill or reskill.
Professional development
• is about your obligation to your own continuous learning
• is a personal responsibility to keep your knowledge and skills current
• inspires you to look forward and recognise opportunities to:
– learn about the latest methodologies
– revive knowledge and skills, and keep up to date with the latest trends in your profession
– learn new concepts, or just refresh existing (sometimes forgotten) knowledge.
• the wide range of courses that Macmillan Teacher Campus – an accredited training provider – offers
• educational conferences
• online or face-to-face training workshops
It can also take place informally, such as
• discussions between colleagues
• independent reading and research
• observing a colleague’s lesson
• learning from a peer.
Professional development is not just a formal qualification, it is a journey of continually improving your skills and capabilities, not only to improve workplace performance, but also so that you can climb the ladder of success –opening up future career prospects.
Sometimes you will undergo professional development without even realising that you’re doing it and other times you will have a planned approach to your development.
Professional development is successful when it is done in a methodical and purposeful manner. You need to set goals and reflect on:
• what you hope to get out of your development activities, and
• how you will go about reaching those goals.
By engaging in regular professional development activities, you:
• show an ability to improve yourself and demonstrate to your superiors that you have a willingness to improve your skills, you have self-reflected and identified knowledge gaps, and that you are investing in your career
• will be able to keep your qualifications up to date, upgrade your CV and stay competitive in the ever-changing educational sphere
• will be able to stay on top of the latest trends in education
• will be able to progress on a journey of gaining expert knowledge, without fulltime commitment to studies
• will be able to maintain and enhance the knowledge and skills you need to deliver excellent teaching to the learners in your charge.
The school has an inevitable and important role in supporting the mental health of their teachers and learners. Attend this exciting webinar to learn how to “read the warning signs” and develop an empathetic approach by exploring coping mechanisms and strategies relevant to the school’s unique context.
Outcomes:
Clarifying and contextualising the concepts “wellness/ wellbeing” (social, physical and mental) and “staff morale”
Diagnosis: How to measure staff wellness and identify critical incidents impacting on the school’s culture, climate and staff morale
• How to cultivate, foster and maintain wellness by identifying and discussing useful strategies
Stay up to date with the latest trends in education by attending this popular interactive online workshop!
Scan this QR code to register or simply type this link into your browser instead: http://bit.ly/3Rae75d
6–9 March 2023
Grow to be a modern mathematics teacher who will meet the needs of the 21st century learners. Broaden your knowledge, enhance your skills and continue your professional development through our Maths Madness Week online workshops.
Ken jy die see?
Datum: 23 Maart 2023
Tyd: 15:00 – 17:00
Koste: R300
Wetenskapmannetjie & Sproeireën
Datum: 19 April 2023
Tyd: 15:00 – 17:00
Koste: R300
Dans van die reën & Haar uitvaart
Datum: 8 Mei 2023
Tyd: 15:00 – 17:00
Koste: R300
Die hardloper & Die Hanswors
Datum: 24 Mei 2023
Tyd: 15:00 – 17:00
Koste: R300
Die heks van Hexrivier
Datum: 26 Junie 2023
Tyd: 15:00 – 17:00
Koste: R300
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NATIONAL
Sibonelo Mkhasibe
Head of National School Sales
Cell: 066 474 3793
Email: Sibonelo.Mkhasibe@macmillaneducation.co.za
Antoinette de Vries
Head of National Commercial Sales and Marketing
Tel: 011 731 3455
Email: Antoinette.deVries@macmillaneducation.co.za
Magda Scheepers
Head of National CSI – Gauteng & Western Cape Sales
Cell: 072 463 7552
Email: Magda.Scheepers@macmillaneducation.co.za
Tel: 011 731 3300
Email: customerservices@macmillaneducation.co.za
Tel: 011 731 3409
Email: za.mtc@macmillaneducation.co.za
Gan Krishna
National Sales Manager: TVET Colleges
Cell: 078 804 0592
Email: gan.krishna@macmillaneducation.co.za
Jayshil Bhula
Sales Representative: TVET Colleges
Cell: 076 222 2798
Email: jayshil.bhula@macmillaneducation.co.za
Ayanda Nkunzi
Sales and Marketing Representative
Cell: 082 949 9664
Email: Ayanda.Nkunzi@macmillaneducation.co.za
Peter Ledwaba
Provincial Sales Manager Cell: 076 994 0986
Email: Peter.Ledwaba@macmillaneducation.co.za
Asheena Patel
Provincial Sales Manager
Cell: 066 138 2746
Email: Asheena.Patel@macmillaneducation.co.za
Phathi Kona
Sales and Marketing Representative
Cell: 060 908 8209
Email: Phathi.Kona@macmillaneducation.co.za
Sane Ngubane
Sales and Marketing Representative
Cell: 082 528 3712
Email: Sane.Ngubane@macmillaneducation.co.za
LIMPOPO
Mmatapa Moabelo
Sales and Marketing Representative
Cell: 078 804 0612
Email: Mmatapa.Moabelo@macmillaneducation.co.za
MPUMALANGA
Lillian Vuma
Sales and Marketing Representative
Cell: 078 803 9918
Email: Lillian.Vuma@macmillaneducation.co.za
NORTH WEST
Mmaabo Modisane
Provincial Sales Manager
Cell: 071 399 1337
Email: Mmaabo.Modisane@macmillaneducation.co.za
NORTHERN CAPE
Liezl Abrahams
Sales and Marketing Representative
Cell: 071 441 9144
Email: Liezl.Abrahams@macmillaneducation.co.za
WESTERN CAPE
Liezl Abrahams
Sales and Marketing Representative
Cell: 071 441 9144
Email: Liezl.Abrahams@macmillaneducation.co.za
Tania Zeederberg
Sales and Marketing Representative
Cell: 066 211 4352
Email: Tania.Zeederberg@macmillaneducation.co.za
AGENCY AND DIGITAL
Kilayne Pelser
Agency and Digital Sales Manager
Cell: 076 994 0985
Email: Kilayne.Pelser@macmillaneducation.co.za
Nicole Smith
Agency and Digital Sales Consultant
Cell: 082 944 6968
Email: Nicole.Smith@macmillaneducation.co.za
