Rustenburg, President Mangope, 17 April 2018

President Mangope High, Rustenburg, 17 April 2018 (290 learners)

An early start was essential to make provision for traveling slowly on farm roads lined with game fences either side. Apart from numerous spur winged fowls an Impala Ram showed his face before darting off into the bush.
The schools were located using Google maps which were printed out for reference. What I should have done was to locate the individuals schools using my GPS to speed up the process. After getting lost a few time but heading in the right direction we arrived at President Mangope. One is greeted by a different ethos at this school with friendly faces and personal greetings from both staff and pupils.
After the customary procedures of sitting down in the Principal’s office it was decided that the school hall would be the ideal place to host the demonstration. I was certainly not expecting 290 learners to pitch up. What made it easier was the arrangement of the whole group in a full circle around the demonstrations table. It also made a huge difference when the learners were fully engaged in the demonstration and I enjoy these interactions immensely.
A subtle change was also the introduction of giving out handbooks as ‘prizes’ for learners who were prepared to engage with me. Many aspects of carer guidance were interwoven into the presentations. There were a few very strong learners in the group with positive feedback from the teachers.
Being a technical school I was also introduced to some of the innovations that the learners were working on and look forward to them participating in the competition. The turbine challenge took a while but it was solved in the end.