Why did you create this innovation?

Teachers & schools in South Africa face large primary classes of 45-60+, to which they have to deliver an overcrowded Primary Maths Curriculum. It is almost impossible to mark so many Maths books every lesson!! Hence teachers are not able to plan ongoing lessons to accommodate the current understanding and progress of their many learners.

How does your innovation work in practice?

Our offering consists of the GS Suite - online tools for Maths teaching & learning; ‘warmware’ - comprehensive and ongoing stakeholder implementation and integration support; and real-time, customised learner progress dashboards for all stakeholders from learners, carers, teachers, school management to Education officials. The weekly, curriculum aligned ‘Maths Curriculum Online (MCO)’ activities encourage complete curriculum coverage; at a correct pace, level and difficulty. The real-time results introduces a depth and immediacy of feedback for both learners and teachers that was not previously available. Data from MCO weekly activities and termly assessments are aggregated & online, real-time, queriable visualisations of learner data are provided to teachers, school managements & education officials. Stakeholders, at all levels of the system, are able to identify and collaborate to design strategies and interventions to tackle major learning barriers and systemic issues as they occur.

How has it been spreading?

We started with eight schools using the Integrated Maths Program (IMP) in 2012 and we are now supporting 742 schools, 354, 714 learners, 8, 478 teachers & 294 Education officials. The IMP is being deployed in schools across 4 Provinces and 12 Districts.
The IMP is available in the two languages of learning. The IMP has been successfully implemented across the socio-economic & geographic scale. We are working productively with schools in all contexts from rural, multi-grade farm schools (around 100 learners) to large urban township schools (more than 1200 learners). The Western Cape Province is now implementing the IMP in over 500 schools across its 8 Districts.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

For South African schools/learners - you can register via www.gsed.co.za
For organisations wanting to use this solution for school/district/province clusters - please contact Jo Besford or Mark Swartz via admin@gsed.co.za
For organisations wanting to look at deploying this model in a different country -please contact Jo Besford or Mark Swartz via admin@gsed.co.za