The Cape Town Book Fair, June 13-16th

We were fortunate enough to receive a space at the Cape Town book fair this weekend, and have made some great connections, with potential funders as well as new volunteers. We have had lots of visitors! seen here with Kathryn and Maurita are Diane Kerswill, our link from our Claremont Centre, and Leigh-Anne Nathan, one of our links from Zonnebloem. Kerry White, our office manager has been key in setting up and running the stand. We have had visits from Timon from the Times Book section, From Sindiwe Magona,the author, and Helen Leiberman, the founder member of Ikamva Labantu. Jeff Jones, a key volunteer who has helped us set up our school libraries came and visited. In addition, we have seen our local Government WCED circuit manager, Vanessa, and Ms Govender, a WCED official. Dusty Holloway, one of our volunteers at Zonnebloem came to keep me company this evening, and Josie Boraine, photographer, who is a donor (and one of our official Shine photographers), swung by to say hello. Monday has been an enjoyable and very worthwhile day! In addition, we had Rosemary and friends from the Soroptimist's society, Karen from Real Gap Experience and several young Shine fans come to say hello.

Swap Shops....

We have had a very productive day today: both Nicole and Oli at Prestwich, and and Leigh- Anne and Madeleine at Zonnebloem, have worked hard getting books ready for our in - class swap shops. St Cyprians donated nearly 1000 books, and we have been able to divide them into batches and create in class libraries for both schools. We will be training the grade 7 monitors to run these, and I will post more information once we launch next week. Thank you to everyone who has made this possible.

A snippet from one of our volunteers....

Sally Bean, Volunteer, Zonnebloem, to her learning partners: 'Do either of you know what this animal is (indicating a reindeer)?'
Luvuyo: ' I know, I know - its a Christmas donkey.' I love it!

A testimony from one of our volunteers, Suraj Valand.

'I am also so grateful to be part of such a wonderful group of people. I am one of those who does not quite fit the standard 'profile' of the volunteers here but I really do feel like I am a part of it unlike some other things I have tried to volunteer in, as well as feeling and seeing the effect of my contribution in a very tangible way.
I have to thank you for creating such a project and driving it through. I also have to thank all your managers- Carrie (who I know this email goes through) and especially Nicole at Prestwich who does a sterling job of organising us all. My experience would not feel so warm and caring without them being there. Thank you again for a chance to make a difference in this world. Which is exactly what we are doing with as little politics as possible! It makes it more worthwhile than other causes that involve a lot more talking and high-level discussion.'

Suraj Valand

Teacher/ House Mother training for Home from Home, May 2009

Shine was invited by Pippa Shaper from Home from Home to go out to
one of their premises in Khayelitsha to give a short training session to some of their house mother and assistants.

We covered 'paired reading,' 'shared reading' and the importance of books and story -time in the children's lives,and the significance of 'have a go' writing. We spent two hours plus talking about the importance of books for all ages, starting with babies, and how to encourage the children to read. We used a combination of Shine resources and Praesa/ Centre for the book material. Thank you Pippa for enabling us to come and visit one of your centres, and share our teaching methods and resources.The true spirit of Ubuntu: a wonderful opportunity for professional sharing.

Some of our Board Members, 2009

Maurita, Val, Kathryn, Kay and Mandy, 2009

Shine Video

The wonderful things our Volunteers organise....

We feel so honoured to work with such special people: our Shine Centre in Claremont has been using very high stools from the science lab, and the children have not been able to reach the cross bar, and therefore have not been able to work comfortably. One of our volunteers, Gill, persuaded her husband to make little footstools for all the chairs to enable a more effective working session. Thank you Sam! Such a simple yet highly effective idea.

An article by Cynthia Querido, recently published in the Cape Times

The Wonderful World of Shine

The wonderful world of Shine
I’ve travelled the world twice over
Met the famous: saints and sinners
Poets and artists, kings and queens
Old stars and hopeful beginners.

I’ve been where no-one’s been before
Learned secrets from writers and cooks
All with one library ticket
To the wonderful world of books

Janice James

Familiar words. And it goes without saying that only by reading can we begin the journey, and that the only travel gear you need, apart from a library ticket, is literacy.

Elementary, my dear reader? Don’t be fooled. We who read with ease or have the choice as to whether we read at all; we whose children learn to read as naturally as they learn to walk, (so that we hardly notice) should not take this for granted. These are the lucky learners whose needs are served. For haven’t all we moms and dads been through the bedtime-story ritual, the homework saga? But for millions this is not the case: those who sit in crowded classrooms, whose teachers’ nerves and capacities are stretched beyond the limit, and who return to equally stressed environments where learning is neither nurtured nor reinforced. Too often it is simply not an issue because there are so many more pressing issues, so many dire distractions.

But now a ray of sunlight shines across a few Peninsula schools and some who struggle with literacy have the fuel to start that journey. And I am privileged to be one of those particles of light. Each Tuesday, two eager 8-year olds are brought to me in the Shine Programme Centre’s ‘Shine Room’ at Prestwich Primary School, and I continue to be astounded by their lack of literacy. If they’re lagging behind in Grade 2, how in the world – this fast-paced world - will they ever embark on those journeys that a love of literacy facilitates: journeys toward knowledge, journeys that trigger new interests and inspire one to reach for dreams. Nor underestimate the pleasure cruise that a good escapist read may offer. And if they battle to get a grasp, how many other influences are waiting to whisk them off to less benign worlds.

Founded and directed by Maurita Weissenberg, the Shine Centre Programme aims to form a partnership between children and volunteers in a warm, nurturing environment, in an endeavour to bring them up to speed. The camaraderie between the volunteers, who represent an amazing cross section of the literate population, is just one of the incidental joys of a group whose motivation is the sheer joy of giving.

Each lesson is carefully structured and before we read, we start with the stepping stones: game playing, finger puppets, articulating sounds, writing out letters, repeating the beginning and end letters: d-d-d-d, g-g-g-g-g, d-o-g, lotto word games – it’s that involved! It is only during the second half-hour, that we get down to the business of books and then we read together. And every book is a journey no matter how short or simple –a peep into another home, a trip to a different city, to the beach, a farmyard, or maybe around our bodies. Slowly, slowly at the learner’s own pace … as long as there’s pace, no matter how many sessions it takes, we will get there. Powered by Shine, they will become literate. They say ‘give me a child until he is seven’. Shine takes them from eight when there’s still sufficient flexibility to turn them into readers.

There is no doubt that Shine’s efforts will be rewarded. Maybe someday these will be the writers of the future; maybe their books will be reviewed on this very page, or, given the changing times in which we live, its incarnation.

This is the wonderful world of ‘Shine’.
Cynthia Querido

The Franschhoek Book Fair.

We had a stand at the Franschhoek Book fair this weekend: we had some of our lovely volunteers come through to help man the stand, and we felt very excited to have a presence at such an auspicious event.It was a great practice for The Cape Town Book Fair in June. Thank you to Margie Orford, a friend of Jenny Hobbs, the organiser of the fair, to give us the exposure. We hope to be able to make it a regular event in the Shine calendar.

Thank you to St Cyprians for books!

Thank you to St Cyprians, who donated nearly 1000 books to the Shine Centre. We have been able to distribute them across our four schools, and get the books going out for Swap Shop on a regular basis. We went to say a big thank you to the school last week.

Parent Workshop, May 2009

We had a team of four St Cyprian girls helping us on Saturday: we had over 50 parents who came to listen to ways in which they can help their children with learning to read, nutrition and the importance of story telling and books.

Zonnebloem, May 2009

Our new centre in action....

The launch of our 4th Centre, schools 4 and 5!

Zonnebloem opened with a flourish last week: smooth sailing all the way. A huge amount of work has gone into this centre, and there really are to many people to thank:however, I have to mention Leigh Anne Nathan, one of our more seasoned volunteers, and Carrie Mashek who worked tirelessly to make sure that the centre opened without a hitch. Thanks as well to Mathy Joffe, one of our links at Zonnebloem, who has been a breath of fresh air to us all.We truly respect and appreciate all the extra effort you have all made at Zonnebloem: we Could not have managed without any of you. x x We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with the two schools. An auspicious first week, with a small but dedicated team of volunteers. x

A Brain Storm Session with the team....late April 2009

Anne, our new Financial Director, hosted a delicious brunch meeting for us last month: we discussed numerous strategies for future fund raising which will be rolled out in the near future. Thank you to Trevor, Anne,Richard, and David for giving their time and sharing their expertise to us.

Angel Wings....

One of our very close colleagues told us that we need to 'wrap The Shine Centre in Angel Wings' and take a break: which we did. We have come back refreshed. And Raring to go! Countdown to Zonnebloem: first teaching day is on the 28th of April, next week: we cannot WAIT! Making final adjustments and tweeking, arranging furniture and rearranging......roll round Tuesday!

Putting our training DVD together: we have a gem!

Thank you to Shafeika, Bronwyn and the AV network team, who helped make the editing process an enjoyable and painless exercise. Such professionalism: with heartfelt thanks to you all. it has been a true pleasure working with Elizabeth Nadlir Nir, our trainer: I have learnt so much from her, including the importance of eating when we are hungry, and taking deep breaths and laughing when it gets tough! Bless you, Elizabeth!

Games making at Zonnebloem

Thank you to the lovely team who turned up during the last week to help put nearly 80 sets of games together! alot of work was done, with the help of chocolate biscuits and rooibos...the power of team work!

Shine Training for new volunteers 27th March 2009

The dedication of our Shine Team appears endless: 50 plus (we have not processed the paperwork yet, so we only have a rough head count!) new volunteers arrived at Observatory Junior School for instruction of our curriculum. Thank you to every one of them. Welcome to our team, and we look forward to working with you!

Filming our curriculum with Nomsa , Paul and Elizabeth

We spent the morning filming on Thursday: it is 'in the can' as they say. We have our whole 2 year curriculum filmed for demonstration purposes: thank you Elizabeth,our Remedial Specialist, Terence our cameraman, Nomsa and Paul our learning partners, and Kay, the owner of 'Kayos,' for enabling this to happen.

Latest Results at Observatory, our first school

We had fantastic news last week: the WCED tested the literacy rates across the Western Cape of the grade 3's late last year, and Observatory rates are up by nearly 12% in two years amongst the grade 3's at Observatory.

In 2006 the grade 3's reached 71% literacy, meaning this percentage of children reached the level they should be, and by the end of 2008 they rose to 82.7%. A real feather in the cap of our Shine programme!

Zonnebloem Launch, March 13th 2009

We had Stanley Hermans, a writer and artist, and a former pupil of Zonnebloem, to come and open the new centre: it was a very special morning, with supportive and caring sentiments from all angles:we will be supporting 40 children at Zonnebloem initially, and we are hoping that we will get enough volunteers to open 3 days a week eventually. Thank you to all for your involvement!

Maurita, Our Founder Director

Maurita is very modest, and doesn't like many photos of herself, so w hen she sent me this saying she doesn't mind it beign used as a publicity shot, we jumped at the chance to use it on the blog!

Our New Logo

Many thanks to Alex and Derek from ALLBRANDNOFLAKES for designing our fabulous new logo pro-bono: we are so happy with our little guy... we think he looks like a mini Obama! X

Thank you, Astrid and Wildsplash

Astrid, our official Shine photographer, and Juan Davy of Wildsplash, have put fantastic posters together for us, so each child is represented in the Shine Centre. Now they can come into the centre and see their lovely shining faces on the wall. Thank you to both of you for your commitment! X

Kayos and AV Network

A very big thank you to both Kay and Terence from Kayos casting, and to the team at AV network for producing and editing our wonderful training video. What a valuable re source to have as a training tool. Such big hearts, thank you. The true spirit of ABUNTU.

A big thank you to one of our sponsors, ALLBRANDNOFLAKES. The launch of the new Shine Brand

Alex Levetan of 'All Brand' has come up with the most wonderful logo for us: thank you Alex and Derek Lubner for your immense generosity of spirit... we will post the logo once it has been finalised. All very exciting. You are the best.

Atmosphere, The PR Gurus!

A chance meeting late last year in the desert, led to a wonderful link between the highly successful PR company Atmosphere, and The Shine Centre. The team at Atmosphere has been unfailingly supportive, creative and effective. We LOVE our association with them,and are so grateful for the exposure and help they give us... not only are they giving us their expertise pro bono, but some of their staff members are volunteering for us: what an awesome organisation!

Progress to Date.

Ok. So it is now Feb the 18th, and we haven't posted on the blog since December. Anyone not ' in the know' would think we had been resting on our laurels, and having a leisurely summer holiday. We wish!

Since we last blogged we have as a team........ written two training manuals,one for the volunteers and one for the centre 'links,' revised and added to a curriculum with a remedial specialist, Elizabeth Nadlir Nir, made a training video,trained over 150 volunteers, re - designed our logo with the advertising organisation 'allbrandnoflakes,' are not charging us, started working with a PR company, Atmosphere, who are doing pro-bono work for us, designed over new 30 games, and made over 1500 copies for each of the centres, resourced and bought readers for our two new centres, OPENED 2 new centres in Cape Town, had five radio interviews between us. In addition,Maurita has been filming with a TV company over the last few days, we have had an article in the Big Issue, plus several other newspaper articles,negotiated a deal with Zonnebloem Boys and Girls school to take over a premises from the 1st of March, and done a huge amount of approaching companies for potential funding. Oh, and been given a free stand at the Corporate Social Investment ( CSI) conference in Jo Burg next month. That's all?!

Prestwich Launch Jan, 2009

A lovely collection of our Prestwich School. We had a press launch on the 28th of january, and had a lot of lovely coverage. Nazli Domingo Salie from the WCED Department officially opened our centre for us, and Margie Orford was our local celebrity guest. We had the BIG Issue and the Atlantic Sun covering the event,as well as KFM radio.

Prestwich Launch, Jan 2009

Eye glasses

One important aspect of the Shine Centre is check our learners' eyesight and hearing. In the past we have found that several of our children have hearing difficulties and extreme eye problems. Shine volunteer, Leigh Anne, has been wonderful about getting in touch with an optometrist in Claremont who gave our students eye examinations and discounted glasses. Thank you so much to Leigh Anne and Mr. Francoise du Toit at Eye Q in Cavendish for his support and time!!

A fun field trip and eye glasses

One of our lovely volunteers, Leigh Anne, took her students on a field trip earlier in December. The boys enjoyed their trip and will have many memories to share with their friends. Here's what she had to say about the trip.

"The 4 boys and myself had a lovely day yesterday - they enjoyed the Pengiuns at Boulders Beach, Kalk Bay Harbour, a run on Kommetjie Beach, unfortunately Top Billing were filming at the Slangkop Lighthouse for the day so we could not climb it, but the Camel rides seems to have been the highlight!"

Summary of October/November assessing

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to have the opportunity to see say thank you to everyone who helped with our assessing in the last few weeks of October and beginning of November. We assessed every child in Grade 1 at Obs and our new schools to see who will be a member of the Shine Centre for next year. Our assessment is based on letter recognition (sight and sound) and the decoding of words. It's always fun to see the volunteers practice the sounds of the letters themselves as I think many of us have forgotten how we learned to read when we were small! Here's a short recap of the assessing:

We started with 10 volunteers helping at Claremont Primary, which is one of our new schools for 2009. We were able to do a class of 40 in about three hours - a task that wouldn't have been possible without their help. Snuggled right in Claremont this is certainly a well loved school and we're anxious to lend our support to those readers in need.

The next week we went to Prestwich Primary (in Greenpoint) which is the other school that will be opening in February 2009. We spent two days in the school and assessed over 80 children. We sat in a lovely room with nice big windows that will become the Shine Room next year. Prestwich has a wonderful population of children who the majority are, unfortunately, extremely weak and who we hope to turn into great readers next year.

The next two weeks were devoted to our future project: Zonnenbloem Boys and Zonnenbloem Girls. We were able to assess each school (one class per grade at each school - schools are on the same property and sit next to each other) with help from our wonderful volunteers. These schools currently do not have a room for us to use for the beginning of 2009, but we look forward to finding a solution for that problem sometime in the next year.

After completing Zonnenbloem, we turned our focus back to our pilot school, Observatory Junior School. We had an overwhelming response to helping out with assessing which was not only our Grade 1's, but our current Shine Learners in Grades 2 and 3. We were able to do ALL of their assessments in one week and had astonishing results! (In a future blog)

After all the assessments were completed (at all schools) the Grade 1's were scored and the children who scored below 50% will be our new Shine learners in Grade 2
(2009). Our assessment of Grade 2 and 3 children will let us know if they have made enough progress to leave the Shine Centre or if they will continue on in 2009.

It was an enormous effort to take on all of this assessing and we could not have done it with the generosity of our volunteers and their time. I must definitely thank Kathryn though because she is the one who orchestrated the entire assessment schedule, scored most of the assessments (250+), went back to meet with the Headmasters of these schools and has been an instrumental force in the Shine Roll Out project for 2009.

Thanks to everyone and happy holidays!
Carrie

money from Tori

THANK YOU TORI! TORI RAISED NEARLY 1500 POUNDS RUNNING LAST MONTH! WE WILL BE PUTTING THIS TOWARDS TRAINING NEXT YEAR. WE TRULY APPRECIATE YOUR EFFORTS TORI: I KNOW IT WAS A HARD SLOG FOR YOU! WE WOULD LOVE A PHOTO!

A letter from Rosemary Hickman, one of our volunteers

I was so excited when I went to Shine today - not only is my little grade 2 Qamanande reading like a bomb: (he couldn't recognise letters of the alphabet in February )This is mostly down to the remedial help he's had from the teacher and from his exposure at Literacy hour and a bit from me, but in the foyer there was a display of the trip the Astronomy quiz team took to Sutherland where they saw the International space station go over and meteorites and visited SALT and stayed over for a weekend - sponsored by Hertz (the vehicle and a tank of petrol) and Truworths a major donor; the science teacher went along as well and he was overwhelmed with what he learned. The same woman who coached them and took them, Margie Rosenberg, was the person who submitted a garden application to Nestle - she got an award from Woolies and they got (amongst other things) 300 seedlings and a great deal of publicity including a film being made, and the relevant children and teacher being able to go to the film studio; lastly as I was leaving, a group of elderlies were getting off various buses for a tea which the (I think grade 7's) were hosting in the hall.
Really inspiring!

Rosemary

an update on The Shine Centre

We have got to a most exciting stage of Shine: we are ready to roll out to other schools: we hope to start with Claremont Primary, Prestwich in Greenpoint, behind Somerset Road, and hopefully Oranjekloof in Hout Bay, if we get the go - ahead from the principal.
We are busy recruiting volunteerson a weekly basis, who will be able to help is with the testing of the current grade ones in these schools, to help us identify which children will come to us in grade 2 next year. They will be able to start at school as a learning partner by the end of January 2009.
We hope to be able to start 20 schools in the next two years, so that by the end of 2010, we have a strong presence across Cape Town.
We are very busy with fund raising,and we have the most fantastic team of people helping us roll our project out: a dedicated team of people who are working flat-out on the various aspects of our organisation: marketing, PR,training, finances.... we have a great team leader/project manager, Trevor, who keeps us all very focused, who has streamlined our strategy planning onto Liquid Planner, a great tool for staying on- track and on the ball.

In the next two weeks we are moving into schools to test, and the training for the volunteers is taking place every week, so we can harness as much energy with new volunteers a s possible. There is an amazing energy about this: it has taken on a life of its own.

Tori is running for us over the weekend in London

One of my dearest friends, Tori Bacon, is running a half marathon in London for us this weekend:she has already raised nearly nine hundred pounds for The Shine Centre. Thanks from all of us, Tori, and we truly appreciate your dedication: you are a shining star! Kathryn

Our First Dancing Pencils Anthologys: 'I want to Shine' and Thoughts on Xenophobia'

We are very excited:our books arrived today: the children worked very hard over the last year, and we have managed to capture some lovely, moving, funny, poignant stories within these pages. if you would like a copy of either of these books, please mail us on shinecapetown@gmail.com

Fifty books per class

Maurita has managed to find the funding for a small in class library for the Grade R's and ones. We are very excited about this. Every Friday, the children get to take home a book from a carefully selected collection of books: a choice of non- fiction, wonderful stories, a picture dictionary, beautifully illustrated, 'Africanized' Nursery Rhymes,poetry books.... the children have a bright orange carrier for easy identification, and they are able to take the book out until the following Wednesday. The excitement was unrestrained on the day Maurita handed the books over to the classroom!

Buddy Reading

We have continued to be worried about the progress of the Grade 4's,and their slow progress, so Maurita has initiated an 'early bird' buddy reading system between the Grade 7's and the Grade 4's. Every morning at 8 am the grade 4 children will meet their Reading Buddy for 15 minutes in the Shine Centre. We very much hope that this will become a format throughout the school: it gives the children the opportunity to help one another, and create a true sense of 'Abantu.' A big thank you to all the grade 7s involved. Good luck and have fun!

Presentation of Shine Centre at CPUT, Mowbray, on Monday the 11th of August

Workshop for Headmasters/ principals of other schools

Tomorrow is a big day: we have invited over 70 heads to join us at CPUT ( Cape Town University of Technology),to showcase the Shine centre. We are very keen to share our knowledge, and we hope by tomorrow we will be on the road to launching more Shine centres throughout Cape Town and the surrounds. We have already helped Stanford start a Shine of their own, and with a little effort (and lots of sponsorship!) we hope to have at least 20 Shines by 2010. We have a fabulous team helping us get this off the ground: very committed and dedicated people.

Swap Shop, June 2008

Our children come every lunch time to choose a book to take home for the night. It is open to all first, second, third and fourth graders. A very popular and worthwhile project. The children are clamoring at the door by 1pm!

Leigh- Anne, Lufefe and Zara.

Lufefe and Zara are our most recent graduates from the Shien Centre. They have worked so hard, and done so well that they are able to move on to make room for new children who need that extra bit of help! Well done to you all.

Fiona and Leigh Anne:the Shine effect!

Fiona
It has meant much to me to work as a volunteer at The Shine Centre. Working with children is always inspiring because of the energy they bring. Working within a professional framework set up by Maurita Weissenberg and her team is an exceptional experience; it's what makes the whole process work; it is an exciting project. Lastly, there is a well of love. This is really what fuels the work of The Shine Centre and it nourishes everyone involved and especially the children; there is a meaningful atmosphere in which children are truly cared for and in which they are encouraged to learn. This is the heart of it.

Leigh Anne
Approximately 3 years ago I read an article in our local Southern Suburbs newspaper -The Tatler, which featured Maurita Weissenberg and the work she was doing at Obs Junior School. She had created The Shine Centre within the school, which immediately caught my attention - who does not like to Shine in their lives - what a lovely name for a place of learning!! So I filed it and knew that as soon as my youngest child started High School I was going to get involved with this fabulous programme in assisting children who needed extra time and attention regarding their reading, spoken and written English, and school work in general. Initially Maurita targeted Grade 2 pupils but this has now increased to Grade 3 and 4 pupils as well.

From the time I walked into the school and was introduced to the two children I was assigned to work with - I was hooked!! I believe Maurita and her willing volunteers started off with not much other than donations of desks and equipment and she fund raised to be able to buy books and recourse, and over the years have transformed a few classrooms that the school made available to her, into these colourful, warm, happy, well equipped areas that are perfect to both teach and learn in.

It was obvious that the Head Mistress, Mrs. Naidoo, and her staff welcomed the extra assistance for the children who needed it, and the volunteers were all so committed, patient and loving to the children. Above all , I could not get over the joy it bought to a child who was chosen, to spend a few hours a week at the Shine Centre!!

I noticed their self esteem improve so quickly, the effectiveness of one on one teaching,and to have some other dependable adult to be able to chat to and share their lives with. It is all such a good recipe for a child's advancement and ability to want to learn!!

Maurita is really the Shining Star to have worked so hard to get to the stage - although she would say all the pupils are the ones that Shine!! And her more full time volunteers like Kathryn, Carrie, and Ginette have been so supportive and effective.

I feel incredibly privileged to be involved at the Shine Centre, and the joy of seeing my two pupils develop and progress over the last year and a half has been wonderful.

Lufefe and Zarah, who are now in Grade 3, proudly received their Certficates of progress on break-up day of the 2nd term. I will miss our special times together, but will look out for them in the corridors to give them a hug and continued encouragement!!

And then of course, I will start with some more young stars who will Shine!!

But there would be no Shine Centre without the volunteers, so I encourage anyone who can spare one or two hours a week during the school terms, to join in and enjoy the pleasure of helping the children of Observatory Junior School. It truly is addictive!!!! Leigh Anne Nathan

Shine Volunteers share their experiences.

FROM JENNY
When I retired as a remedial teacher a few years ago, I was introduced to the Shine Centre as a possible venture where I could be of some use. My experience has enabled me to give assistance with the children who need to have assessments done in order to plan strategies for their learning. I feel I have been able to be of assistance by working with the children who have been assigned to me, specifically with their literacy skills. It has truly been my pleasure to share my knowledge of teaching reading, spelling, creative writing, and language skills with them. We have learnt together and we have had fun.

This has been such a learning experience for me as I am now working with children from a totally different background from those attending the privileged school from which I retired. They have taught me so much about the difficulties of their daily lives - having to get up very early to be transported to school; the battle to make ends meet and, from most of them, the incredible motivation to get an education.

FROM LEORA
I have been involved with this amazing project for about 9months now and I can say that working with everyone at Shine has been one of the most rewarding projects that I have had the privilege to be involved with.

We have a major problem in education with the English literacy and failure rate in our schools.
The brilliance of Shine is that Maurita - a few years ago – so cleverly pre-empted this impending disaster and in her quiet way started the amazing concept of Shine.

I think that everyone who volunteers at Shine realizes very soon that they can make a difference if not to one child’s life, to a few children’s lives and therefore to the greater community.

At Shine I feel that if we work with these children and help them to develop their own self- respect and self -esteem, we may assist them in achieving just the smallest of their hopes and dreams.

The Literacy Hour is a very interesting new addition to the one on one working with the children as it endeavours to work with larger groups and thus spread the net of the allocated time involvement with the pupils.
It is an hour of intense working, which is always a great challenge to the group of 4 volunteers involved with the project.
It is a fantastic sense of achievement when we realize that as novice volunteers we have the ability to stimulate the imagination of the children during the reading and story-telling sessions so that when they are tasked with writing their own stories they are stimulated and confident to put pen to paper.

It is an honour to be involved with the volunteer work at Shine and each week I eagerly await that beautiful and knowing shine on some child’s
face which I know will lighten my week and perhaps their future.

FROM JEFF
I have worked at the Shine Centre for almost a year and have found it to be a wonderfully rewarding experience on a number of levels.

It is intellectually stimulating to find ways to get the best out of the children’s’ abilities, Each child has their own level of reading, and whether one is working in a group situation with a number of children, or one-to-one on an individual basis, the work is challenging, exciting, sometimes tiring, but always fun.

It is also emotionally fulfilling to work with children who are so keen to improve their reading. When one considers how deprived most of them have been of reading material due to their disadvantaged home background, their enthusiasm to improve themselves is often amazing. Many of them come to the Shine Centre as often as possible, even when they aren’t supposed to be there. It is obvious that they find the Centre and the volunteers to be helpful and supportive in a way far beyond merely being a way to improve their reading. It is a source of comfort and joy to them.

I do not find it strange that the children feel this way as the Centre is such a friendly place to be working in. The volunteers are from varying backgrounds and of a number of different nationalities. This, in itself, makes for a stimulating experience for a volunteer. The friendliness of everyone, and their obvious desire and dedication to make a difference to the lives and life-chances of the children is infectious.

I knew from the start that the Shine Centre would be a place where I could contribute and my efforts would be rewarded. Such dedication and enthusiasm is bound to succeed. One never feels that one’s efforts are wasted at the Shine Centre. I felt from the start that it was a programme that could be of benefit in a great number of primary schools in the Western Cape, given the country’s poor literacy levels.

It gave me great delight to read in the latest Shine Centre newsletter that there was an improvement in Grade 6 literacy from 48% to 78% in only two years. That achievement is phenomenal by any standards, and proof that the system works; it is wonderfully stimulating and rewarding for both volunteers and the children

Workshop in Stanford

Maurita and I had a 3 day off -site in Stanford last week. We held a workshop for 16 of the volunteers at the Die bron 'Star Centre' which was well received, and stimulating to give. The Star Centre has similar challenges to us, and it was good to be part of a professional sharing afternoon.
In addition to the workshop, we spent 2 days brainstorming our new initiative: we hope to roll out the Shine Centre to 20 other schools of a similar demographic in the next two years. We have got the ball rolling, and we are very excited with the reality of this project. We are looking for people to help us with fund raising and marketing our project: Any ideas would be thankfully received!

More good news

We have managed to pay a down deposit for a nice place for Pemba's family in Maitland. Wonderful how a little hand- out can become a hand- up. We have worked very closely with Pastor Alan Noble of Trinity Church, Vriend St in Gardens who have been happily housing this special family, and between him and the Shine Centre this family have the possibility of a new beginning. Thank you to everyone who has been involved.

9th June Update from Maurita

Richard, my husband and I did the books again today. To date we have spent roughly R2300 per family and as there are seven families this totals to about R18 000 spent on mattresses, uniforms, clothing, toiletries, underwear,medication, towels, food, airtime, temporary accommodation and contingency cash. I say roughly because we are still waiting for one or two slips to be handed in. I am going to give the books to the Shine Trust's CA to give it a once over and once this is done you will all be sent a copy of the financials.

Donations of clothing have been wonderful as this has meant that everyone has received a number of outfits. Thank you so much! We are also starting to collect household goods as well. Many, many thanks to everyone who has helped. Please forgive me if you have not received a personal thank you yet.

I have no idea how these families would have coped without your support. Although we have eleven children who attend Observatory Junior we have had to help everyone in their family which brings up the total of people supported to thirty.

Two of our volunteers are parents at the International School in Wynberg and Ndzele and I went and did a short talk to the seniors who are going to assist us by doing a fundraiser. Ndzele has spent 6 months in a refugee camp in Tanzania and 18months in a refugee camp in Malawi. Have I mentioned that? I can't wait to meet her father one day because he is a remarkable man who has managed to do so much for his family with so little. I believe that he escaped death for the 4th time in Congo because one of the soldiers recognised him as the man who had fixed his radio. Apparently that was his job. Repairing televisions, radios, stoves etc. He is now a security guard. Still in the firing line.

The parent of one of our overseas volunteers last year has given us a very generous financial donation and this is the money that will be used to give each family a chance of building their lives up again. It is important that this information is confidential because there are many children in our school who could do with financial support and we want this initiative to remain between us and each family. What a gift this is. I still can't believe that someone so far away can be so caring. It leaves me speechless.

Some of the volunteers have approached me with a plan of funding a 3 day week position in the Shine Centre and library with a view to opening the position to the mother of Maria and Zacharius. If twenty five people were prepared to set up a monthly debit order of R100 we could raise the funds for this quite easily. We already have three volunteers and one teacher prepared to commit to this. Please contact me if you are interested. This is something that both the Shine Centre and the library would benefit from as there is a huge amount of admin work that is being covered by very overworked volunteers.


Soetwater refugee camp this weekend has had some awful things happening and Tessa went to fetch Ndzele and her cousin earlier then arranged as they have been very scared and unable to eat all weekend due to Somalians declaring a hunger strike for everyone. Tessa can only take care of the girls until the holidays and so we hope that by then something positive has come up for the family. The girls are the only teenagers there. Everyone else are adults or children. I still can't get over how poorly managed Soetwater has been right from the beginning.

I want to end this email on a positive note. The children we have helped are doing well. They are coping at school and walking proudly in their new uniforms. They know that if they are having a bad day they can come to the Shine Centre for support or a quiet moment. Their parents are feeling supported and although the one Dad confessed that he finds it very embarrassing when I ask him to let me know if he needs something, I can see that he is managing much better to discuss plans for the future then the week before when he seemed shell-shocked. Gloria and Brenda are settling into their home-schooling environment and who knows; this may be just what they have needed. School has not been easy for them. Their leaving has meant that the Shindano's two little girls can take their place at school as they were schooled in Mitchells Plein before.

Let's hope that the government is able to make the right decisions, that volunteers will find the strength to carry on doing their best for each shelter, that people will continue to work together to support those who are unable to fend for themselves.

With warm regards

Maurita Weissenberg
Shine Trust

The Refugee situation: a journal.

I believe it is important to catalogue what Maurita and the wonderful team at Observatory school and the Shine Centre have been doing over the last seven days. We have been overwhelmed with the help we have been given, starting with Mrs Naidoo, her team of teachers and the learners and parents, to our wonderful volunteers.
Thank you to everyone, but special mention to Tessa, Leanne, Leora, Margie, Mrs V, Ginette and Carrie, and all the other wonderful people who have gathered around and created a web of care... at times like this, it is important to know that we have such good friends. We continued with our teaching programme this week, and in the meantime, went about locating the students affected by the Xenophobic atmosphere in this blighted, beautiful country of ours. Below is a daily journal recorded by Maurita. I wanted to share it with you, as it captures the mood of the moment, the highs and the lows.

A week in the life of Maurita and the Shine Centre team.

Monday 23rd of May 2008.
This morning we did a check- list of everyone who wasn't at school and called to find out what their situations were.

Out of fifteen children checked we found out the following:

2 families have lost everything due to their homes being burnt down.

One is a single parent home where the mother only has two days of domestic work in Kenilworth and is staying in Strandfontein right now. She has requested mattresses, bedding and clothing for her 12 year old daughter (shoe size 4 and a half) and 13-year-old son (shoe size 7). I called her back later that day because I realised that she had only requested things for her children. She is a size 36 and her shoe size is 7.
I would like to try and find accommodation for her close to school, as she would dearly like to her children to be back at Observatory Junior. However, if she can't, she will have to resettle in Strandfontein where her brother is. I have also promised her R500 just to start off with and a hamper of food. If you could have heard the relief in her voice when I spoke to her. The fact that we are trying to help her get back on her feet was such a miracle to her.

We have another family staying at a church in Gardens. They have also lost everything to fire and looting. I will be visiting them tomorrow to find out what they need.

Another family is in Soetwater refugee camp. Nzele, whom I had spoken about in my initial letter to you, and her family have been there since Friday and don't know if they have a home left in Phillipi or not. Kathryn went down to visit the family and drop off airtime, which they had requested - they were desperate to find out the whereabouts and condition of family and friends. Nzele was not there as she was taken to speak to the minister of safety and security amongst others as her English is good and the authorities wanted to hear what had happened to them. She called me tonight on hearing that Kathryn had been there and was so happy that we had found them. When I told her that her class had been praying for her she was so touched. She asked me for blankets and mattresses as she says they are freezing at night and sleeping on the floor. They are right on the beach. Her younger sister doesn't even have a jacket with her. I read in the papers tonight that Soetwater has been given donations of clothes and bedding but obviously not enough. Nzele told me that the police had been very unhelpful and in fact had stood by and watched things unfold on Friday.

We have not been able to locate two other families yet.

The two families I helped settle over the weekend are still in shock and worried about their friends and family members who are still displaced or homeless. There has been much need for rescue remedy for the children who have complained of sore tummies. They are so thankful that we were able to take away the burden of costs of transporting their belongings, and get them storage space. Both these families have wonderful men who are such dignified men and of great integrity. Their gratitude for the help we have been able to give them is immense. We have had bikes donated and are busy making them roadworthy so that the two fathers and young son can move easily between work/school and home.

The biggest challenge is where these families will live in the long term. I have been looking at Oude Molen eco-village, flats in Woodstock etc. The families would be an asset to wherever they lived. They have been living with me for parts of this week, and have been model house guests. Let's think out of the box.

Just to let you know that we are keeping a careful record of all donations and gifts. I have written out receipts for all donations and they will be available in the Shine Centre next week once things have quietened down. If you prefer a scanned copy to be emailed to you, please let us know.

Thank you so much for the support we have received. I know this looks like it's bigger then all of us, but when you break it down to people and faces, especially ones you know, then you can never feel that what you are doing is a drop in the ocean. 20 000 people sounds like a lot. But there are many more people in Cape Town than that. Keep encouraging friends to support the various drop off stations. Hout bay is in need of baby clothes, baby milk and nappies. They also need plastic knives and forks. Dr Billie, a friend of mine in Hout Bay, is helping with that particular community. I will happily take things to her if you want to drop them off at the Shine Centre.

Warm regards
Maurita



Tuesday 24th May, 2008
The Dos Santos family staying in a church in Gardens will start coming to school too. We will be giving them uniforms today.
Many, many thanks for the support. It has been a wonderful surprise in a bad week to find out how fast and how far you are prepared to go to help, either through this channel or otherwise.

Weds 28th of June

Today I am feeling quite traumatised by yesterday's events. It was very difficult going to see this family at the Soetwater Refugee camp. It did not help that it was pouring with rain.

Nzele came running to me and was so happy to have some contact with her school. It was overwhelming giving everything that I had brought for her and her family as many people quietly stood by asking for things they needed. However, they were polite and did not take anything from us.

The tent for the woman and children is a bit disorganised to say the least. Lots of big pieces of carpets put down on the sand and ground to attempt to keep out the cold. The mattresses were such a gift for them and I need to give them more as I could only fit 3 in my car. They have only been given sandwiches for the last week and so the apples and bananas were happily received. I also gave mom some homeopathic pills (Calm Shen), which certainly help me, feel calmer and hopefully will give her some sleep. The children were given bottles of chewy vitamin c tablets, books, puzzles, crayons and paper. Thanks to those who helped collect them. I think the outbreaks of diarrhea in the camps are because of the change of diet.

Nzele doesn't feel safe in the camp especially if she has to go to the toilet at night. She is a young woman and feels vulnerable amongst all the men around her. The campsite needs to be much bigger with more tents and space. People had to queue up in the rain for whatever they were doing. I gave her a torch and will get more to them tomorrow. Still struggling to find clothes for her age (13-14 years) and for her mother's size (36). Any donations of shoes especially size 5, 6 and 6 will be grateful as they are wearing sandals. I do have money to buy these but I want to reserve as much funding as possible for the next stage. Clothes are so expensive to buy brand new.

The hardest thing for me was that Ocean View Police station was not answering their phone and yet had people on duty when I got there with plenty of police vans outside. I ended up giving a young man a lift into the camp but he was refused entry, as the camp was declared closed. When I drove away at 6pm in driving rain and darkness there were a group of about 9 people walking away into the scrubland with nothing but blankets over them. The Disaster Team did nothing to help them. Surely they could have organised the police to fetch them and put them in the police station for the nigh? I was told to take this man to Atlantis as they have space there! After causing a fuss they phoned Youngsfied and said that that 40 people had left there so we could go there. With this information I left and delivered him there safely. They did nothing for the other group and I lay in my cosy bed last night trying not to think of how they were coping.

In the last two days when I have been accompanying some of the refugees we have been victim to taunting by young men. Builders at Kenilworth Shopping Centre and some petrol attendants near Youngsfield. They were menacing towards us and this has also left me feeling very worried about this situation.

Thursday 26th of May 2008

We have received a wonderful amount of financial support so far. Thanks so much to all of you who have contributed
It seems to me that the biggest gap in City and Provincial attempts to mitigate the crisis is project management: there appears to be insufficient managerial and organisational capacity to make the various official responses add up to a working solution. Maybe the UN will be able to provide the expertise and leadership required if and when they get here. In the meantime, there's really just you and your fellow members of involved civil society, applying the glue and string, stepping into the breach.
Best regards
Richard Weissenberg, Maurita’s husband

More good news. Thursday 29th of June 2008.
We have found two more of our girls and their families who have been sleeping in Cape Town Station. Mrs Naidoo is working with a parent who is part of the Disaster Team and we want to try and put the Omari and the Shindano family in Churches or Mosques near school so that they can start coming to school during the day. They need that sort of normality. Please help us in this regard if you have contacts. We will ensure that they are kitted out with the necessary so that they are not a drain on the resources of the establishment. Both these families have fathers who are managing to get to work each day. Children at the school have been bringing in clothing and food for us as well and I think this is very important.

Please do not stop giving what you can to all the requests that we are receiving through the papers. Any form of bedding is needed more then clothes I think. As long as people have a warm little nest that they can rest in during the cold days and nights they will be okay. A change of clothing is great but not as essential as a warm bed. I will drop off any surplus that we have to places that need it.

Parents workshop

We were so pleased that so many of our dads/ brothers / uncles turned up!  We ran a  Parents workshop on the 10th of May, which was well received. It is always satisfying to see so many of our parents, and very good to know that our children have such enthusiastic support from home. The parents were given demonstrations on paired reading, shared reading, and the importance of it, and were given idea for the kind of games that could be played with their children. We gave the parents the opportunity to pay for eye tests, and also to buy second hand books for R5 each, both of which were very well received.Thank you to all the staff that came in to support us.  

Gabrielle

We had the lovely Gabrielle working with us for 3 months: we miss her calm and collected presence sorely! She has returned to New Zealand to pursue her long term goals, but we are hoping against hope she will be back! Such lovely photos she has shared with us.

A selection of Shine Centre Photos

Term one, January- March 2008

Well, it is nice to be missed. After the launch of our brand new website, we took the decision not to continue the blogsite, as it was felt that we would be doubling up, and that the website would suffice. However, it has been missed by too many people to disband it, so here we are again. What a lot has happened since I last wrote.

*We have had some wonderful volunteers over the last few months. Gabrielle fitted in so nicely, it was hard to remember a time she was not around. We will miss her terribly, and we hope she keeps us up to date on her progress. Deanne, who is a warm and engaging presence every Tuesday and Thursday: a lovely reassuring individual with so much to offer. The sprite- like Jennifer, who flitted in and out everyday with a smile on her face, and took everything in her stride: a true Tinkerbell.

*We held two workshops for new volunteers, which were very well attended, and helped us secure around 15 new volunteers.

*In addition, we ran a parents workshop which was attended by around 40 of our parents: it was very rewarding to share our knowledge, and a delight to meet the parents of the children that we teach every week. We are scheduled to run these twice a term, to help build a firm relationship between the parents and the school.

*We have started the process of working with two new volunteer programmes, and we look forward to receiving our first long -term volunteers from these individual programmes in the next few months.

*We have had lots of overseas visitors this term, amongst them the Bacon family of London, Richard Jackson and Kevin Caulfield, the Patterson family from Boston, USA. All were very supportive in their individual ways, and we thank them enormously for their kindness and generosity.

* Carrie and Gabrielle ran the swap-shop with great aplomb and crowd control last term! It is a constant source of pride and joy for me to see our children clambering to change their books, desperate for something new to read. My personal quest with Observatory Junior School is to create an atmosphere which helps instill a true love and passion for books: through books comes knowledge, entertainment, enlightenment and a lifetime's enjoyment. To this end,we have managed to form a partnership with a German company who are based locally, who will provide volunteers to help the school run the library. We will be opening it on the 21st of April 2008. We are very excited, and grateful to all the people who have helped make this possible.

*And finally, the students: we have had a very productive term with the children: they have worked very hard, and although it was a short term, we managed to cover a lot of ground. We continued to place our children with individual learning partners, as well as run literacy hours for the grade 3's and 4's.We were able to ensure all the children went home with a book and some extra work to do over the holidays, so they would not 'go off the b oil' after such a long break!
We look forward to welcoming them all back next week, refreshed and ready to learn!

End of Year Lunch

We hosted a lunch for 120 people, consisting of donors, volunteers, teachers and dignitaries: we were able to share our progress and successes, our innovations and ideas for the future. Les Aupiaus, the well known author and television presenter very kindly came and gave us an inspirational talk. It was a great opportunity to give our thanks for all the hard work and dedication shown by the special people who support us in so many ways. Thank you.

The end of the year

We have had a very busy last term: we have had our grade ones, two and threes tested, thanks to Jaz, kasha, Charlie and Theresa: thank you all for that: this now ensures we are able to measure the progress our children have made: the results are looking wonderful so far!

Margie's Garden

I had a moment to spare last week: no, not true, I was hunting for one of my children: I came across the quiet, green corner which Margie has put together with the help of the children. it is a little oasis: she has a naartjie tree growing ( with the most fragrant of flowers) peas, potatoes,carrots, sunflowers: what a treat, and such a learning curve for the children. Pure dedication.

The Library Project.

Dust. Heat and dust. And more. The volunteers are working incredibly hard to get the library operational again. it is a bit like an onion: peal one layer, and more is found to be done. Sue has a great team working with her, including two fully qualified librarians..... what a find. We are so lucky to have such a dedicated team. We are so looking forward to be able to offer library sessions again at school: we want to encourage a learning, literary culture within the school: the swap shop has already caused a stir amongst the grade twos and threes (at lunch time the children are given a chance to swap a book and take it home), and we are very excited to be able to open the library to enhance the love of books and reading.

End of Year Testing.

The month- long volunteers ( Elizabeth, David and Charlie) were very instrumental in helping us to complete our reading tests on the grade 2's in record time! Thanks for all there input. Charlie is staying for another month,and is helping us with putting an end of term concert together.... ( amongst one million other things).We admire her sense of purpose, and 'can- do' attitude.... a gem.

A letter from a parent to Cynthia Grant, one of our volunteers.

What a wonderful letter that Siyanda's father wrote to Cynthia earlier last month:I know Cynthia won't mind me sharing this with you.

'Dear Cynthia,
Thank you very much for the parent's guide programme that you guys have compiled have compiled and gave us! I am Sure it will go a long way to helping both Siyanda and me with his school work. This has been a great help already. If there are any other programmes like this in the future,I would really appreciate it if you could pass these on. Again, thanks a million.
Thanking you in advance, Regards, S.E. M.(Siyanda's father).'

What an accolade.It is always a treat to get such positive feedback: it reinforces the knowledge that we are on the right track!

Honouring Leigh Anne.

Commitment,dedication,flexibility and fun are the words that I use to describe Leigh Anne. The smile, the laugh and the quiet, yet positive, encouragement that she gives the children is a joy to behold. Both in her one-on-one sessions and her group teaching, Lee- Anne shines. We are blessed that she found us. Our thanks.

New Volunteers

Leona,Fiona,Emily:new volunteers who have made such a difference to the running of the centre. We have completed a term of literacy hour with the grade twos and are now in the process of testing them all, so we can monitor improvements. It has been a very dynamic term, with lots of shared practice,something that I think we have all loved and truly become enriched by. Leona's enthusiasm and encouragement, Fiona's creativity and calmness and Emily's energy have been a fresh injection of enthusiasm and newness.Angels.

Some of our Grade Two Children

Xolani

Dilshaad and Patience

The wonderful Carrie in action.

update on the Astronomical group

Well Done Boys!
The Quiz team competed in the second round of the Astronomical Quiz on the 23rd August at the Observatory against 18 other schools. They tied for first place with Tygerhof Primary school with 29 points out of 30. Our team was one of the eight schools selected to go through to round three, and this will take place on the 6th September. Four teams will be selected for the fourth round when the Western Province Team will be selected for the National competion in October.
The group photograph of the Quiz Team with Sivuyile Manxoyi from the Observatory.
The Quiz Team are Ayavuya Genu, Vusumzi Gubeni,Thando Nombande, Tefo Mahola and Lubabalo Ngejane. Sihle Mncina and Ntsika were the supporters.

Well done to the astronomy team.

On the 16th July 2007 Mrs. Naidoo received an invitation from the SAAO (the South African Astronomical Observatory) asking our Grade 7's to participate in an Astronomy Quiz.

There were eight Grade 7's who were interested and we set out to learn about the planets, comets, meteorites and black holes. We had an interesting visit to the Planetarium were we learnt more about interesting stars in our universe.

We studied the history of Astronomy and Space Travel and prepared ourselves for the first round of the Quiz on the 3rd August 2007.
Unfortunately we were only allowed to take a team of four with a reserve.

Thando Nombande from Grade 7W, Vusumzi Gubeni, Ayavuya Genu, Tefo Mahola, Lubabalo Ngejane from Grade7O.

Our team was placed second, jointly with Grove Primary School with 27 points out of 30. Ahead of them was Pinelands Junior School, in first place with 28 points. The team was very excited and are now preparing for the second round, to take place on the 23rd August 2007 at the Astronomical Observatory. Good luck with round two.

Carly: a lovely new addition to our team

Thank you, Carly: a calm, quiet influence within the Shine Centre, Carly joined us last term. An angel. She is a wonderful addition to our team: always willing to lend a hand, a very hard worker, and an absolute hit with the chilren, who simply adore her. Her energy and enthusiasm is so very much appreciated: we just love having her around.

Parent Workshop.

We have now hosted two parent workshops within the last two months: our last one was attended by 70 parents, which was a very pleasing turn -out. We were so happy to present our material; we had a nutritionalist who talked to the parents about the best kind of breakfast to feed the children, and the importance of trying to keep unnecessary sugar out of the diet, a review of the 100 most common words ( or key words), plus a presentation of the sounds of the alphabet: the distinction between the name and the sound the letters make. In addition, Maurita gave a lovely presentation of the importance of shared reading: the power of cuddling up, choosing a book, the language enrichment that takes place in a warm and secure environment, and the fun and learning that takes place. We have been so thrilled with the response to these mornings, that we aim to provide a workshop once a term. it is a wonderful way for us to get to know the parents, and brings us closer to our goal of creating the 'teaching triangle:' teacher, child and parent. A very worthwhile and inspiring morning.

An exciting new project.

We have started a new project. Instead of taking out two or three children at a time, we have decided to split the class,and work with 4 small groups of five children at a time. How have we done this? We have four volunteers a day who work at a station in the Moonshine Room with five children at a time, leaving the teacher to work with half the class, ensuring more specialised attention. Quick 15 minute activities: group reading, 100 key words, 'have- a- go' writing, and shared reading. it is fast, fun and effective.It is early days yet, but the lively, busy and industrious hum that can be heard during the session indicates that the children are happy in their work: a sure sign of learning.

Nadia's story

“English is very difficult and I don’t know what you’re talking about” said my young Zulu-speaking Learning Partner early on in our relationship.

“Learning Partners” is the only way to describe our 2 year association because I have certainly learnt as much as (I hope) he has - although, to be honest, I’ve sometimes felt my biggest contribution was to give his class teacher an hour’s break twice a week!

I have to admit that my volunteering at the Shine Centre wasn’t entirely altruistic. I’d recently retired at the age of 73 after a long working life and was wondering how to avoid mental stagnation. Not being a teacher (nor even a grandmother despite having 4 children of my own) I was initially nervous. Would I cope? Would he?

As it turned out, I think we were a well-matched pair. I liked his chutzpah and saying what he thought, even if it wasn’t always complimentary. He was fascinated by my wrinkles and blotched hands and delighted to discover that he can play chess and I can’t!

As he frequently showed a strong aversion to anything resembling ‘school work’, I learnt to devise alternative means of getting through to him. After weeks of unsuccessfully trying the conventional ways to teach him the difference between “b” and “d”, I realised that he knew how to spell his name (which has a ‘d’ in it) and we easily adapted the capital ‘b’ from his favourite car – a BMW.

There were even occasions when, if he was upset or miffed about something and wouldn’t talk, we ended up writing notes to each other.

Over the years we’ve become more than Learning Partners: we’ve become friends and we’ve had fun. His aim is to become a lawyer and it saddens me that I won’t be around to see him reach his goal.

Go well young friend. Persevere with your legal dream … and get your BMW! I’m going to miss you.

Louise and Mihlali

Mihlali writes...


"When I was starting at the Shine Centre, I couldn't read stories. It made me feel sad because I couldn't read. When I looked at a page I saw lots of words I couldn't read. I used to look at the pictures to help me read. I was guessing sometimes.

Then Louise was helping me write 'f' from top to bottom. We read little cards with words and then I became better at reading. When I could read all 100 words on the cards I felt very happy. I wrote my own stories and drew pictures too. We also played card memory games. I found this easy because the pictures helped me. We also did sums and spelling.

I felt happy and excited when I could read. Reading has made me able to do everything. I can now read the boxes of food, in the shops, books, signs, magazines and newspaper stories and the TV guide. I can also read a recipe. Now I feel proud of everything. I got a wire peacock for reading all my 100 words. I felt very proud and happy. When I came to my class all the class wanted to see. They felt happy for me!

I had to work hard to read and now I can read nicely. I understand the stories I read. I am a big girl now and I can read on my own. It's nice now to be at school!"

Margie and Sihle

Sihle's Story:


Sihle came to the Shine Centre programme but after a year was still battling enormously. When a company was prepared to offer him further specialist assessments we were also able to help with his convergence and other speech difficulties. Using the information provided by the Educational Psychologist an Independent Educational Programme was set up. Margie, his volunteer, offered to come in and work with him each day. She also helped scribe for him during exams. When we tested him in Grade 5 he was still reading at a Grade One level. Sihle is now in Grade 7 and is able to read at an age appropriate level. Margie tells of the day (while doing paired reading) that he indicated to her that he was able to continue on his own: "I can understand everything the teacher writes on the board now." It was one of the happiest days of her life.

A Tribute to my Children, by Kathryn Torres

All of you, without fail, have worked so hard. All 21 one of you. Simthandile, Lufefe, Asive, Lwando(x2), Rita, Mpande.....You have enriched my life more than you can tell. I have been the learner, you the teachers: your hard work, determination, enthusiasm and overall zest for life has been a revelation to me. How patient you have all been with this lady with a funny accent.... we have all learnt so much from each other. I was reflecting on this last weekend as I produced reports for you all: our discussions about books: the author, the role of the illustrator, what a full stop indicates, why we use a question mark, what an exclamation mark says to us, how the magic 'e' changes vowel sounds, rhyme and rhythm, the love of words,our pairing games, clapping syllables, fun phonic games, eye-spy, paired reading,......
It has been a pleasure to see you all, every week, over the last six months. Now an exciting new development has been initiated, and I will seeing you twice a week in groups within the classroom. Mrs V, Maurita, Carrie, Jenny Leatt and I will rotate within the classrooms everyday for literacy hour, so although I won't be seeing you in the Shine Centre, I will still be enjoying your company, and I look forward to watching you all grow in confidence and academic prowess!

VOLUNTEERING AT THE SHINE CENTRE by Gail Moffat.

As a sponsor, we are invited to visit many new and worthwhile projects during the year, but our first introduction to Observatory Primary will always be a memorable one for me.

We found ourselves in a cosy little classroom, which was named ‘The Shine Centre’. Learners were huddled in little corners or sections with their ‘volunteeer mentors”, enjoying a session of reading, or playing educational board games with their volunteer. The vibe was relaxed, yet concentration prevailed and each group or pair were totally absorbed in what they were doing.

We were so taken with this concept that we decided there and then that this was one of the areas at the school which we, as a Company, would like to get involved with and support. Based on our”hands-on” strategy and to get more of an understanding of how the centre operates, I decided to volunteer an hour a week myself, and really get the ‘feel’ of the benefits this centre offers.

The last year has been so rewarding for me, getting to know “Candice” – a gentle, grade 3 learner, and noting her progress. The centre has grown, with 48 volunteers and 78 learners receiving assistance, I have met some wonderful people through this initiative. Maurita has been amazing and keeps us all updated and enthused!

Sadly I will not be able to continue as a volunteer, due to work commitments, but will continue to visit and be involved with the Shine Centre and the school in other ways.

I would like to take this opportunity of thanking Mrs Naidoo, Maurita Weissenberg and all who are involved with this wonderful initiative for the amazing work which they are doing, and last but not least, would like to thank Candice for working so hard on her reading and being such a star with those puzzles!

Gail Moffat

Social Involvement Manager

Truworths

A letter from Maureen Hobbs.

I have not done much work at the Shine Centre for a while as I was away for a month and then the strike has kept children away.However, I just want to say that I am missing you all and hoping that we can all get back to the centre as soon as poss.

I am a retired teacher, have taught art from Junior to Training College level as well as having 7 years with Mentally and Physically handicapped children. I joined the ranks of the volunteers because I miss being with children and because I related (initially, and still do) so well to Maurita as a person with such commitment and vision. There is a good, welcoming atmosphere in the Shine Centre,and you, Kath always make me feel that whatever I do, no matter how small, that my time and input is appreciated.Thank you.

I love books and children and so the Shine Centre is a good place to be. It is difficult to know if I am really making any difference, as I only come once a week,but I remind myself that children are like plants….you have to trust that they are growing if you have done the best you can to nurture them.

It’s a special quality and nurturing time for the children who come to the centre, I do often see improvements in language ability,concentration and confidence and of course getting to know the children I work with a little better each time.



I find the children I have worked with so dear…friendly and loving and thoroughly enjoy the couple of hours a week.Thank you for the privilege of being part of the working group.

Maureen Hobbs.

From Anthea Pinheiro: working with Glodi.

I started with the Shine centre about 2 years ago and have been working with Glodi Itowa since then. When I began he was halfway through Grade 3 and is now in Grade 5.. the time has flown past. I wish that I had huge miracle stories to pass on about how he has progressed but working with Glodi has been slow and has required much persistence and patience. This is not due to a lack of ability but because Glodi came to Obs from the Congo and has had to learn English literally from scratch (never mind Afrikaans and Xhosa).

In a learning environment, Glodi can often be extremely quiet and shy (Carrie has started working with him recently and can attest to this!). Of course, on the soccer field at break time he is another person altogether! It took me a long time to break through his shyness and to get him to actually give anything back to me in the form of conversation or information about his life...or even to get a smile from him. I have sometimes felt tremendously discouraged and have wondered whether my time with him was actually making any difference at all. However, towards the end of last year things changed and Glodi is now much more enthusiastic and chatty and so much more confident. His reading ability, while still way below a Grade 5 level, has improved to the point where he feels more empowered and his vocabulary and general grasp of English is just good enough now to enable him to engage in conversations with me (as long as the topic is interesting to him!). My absolute best is when I say something that he thinks is funny and I am rewarded with his infectious chuckle and winning smile..then I really know that he is understanding me and is connecting with me. Glodi loves to read and adores stories and he now very proudly reads on his own. I always offer him the choice of reading with me or alone and he always chooses alone...I admire his guts and am very proud of him.

In terms of work standard, Glodi has a long way to go and I worry about how he is coping in Grade 5 where the topics covered are often complex, even for English speaking children. My older daughter is in Grade 5 so I am in touch with what is expected of the children at this stage. When Glodi's teacher asks me to cover things like EMS work with him and I try to explain concepts like taxation, resources etc with him I do wonder how much is getting through but I am comforted by the knowledge that he is getting a better understanding of these things than if he was just left to sink or swim on his own.

There are still days when I wonder if I am really helping but I also know that the one-on-one attention that children in the Shine Centre get is so vital in an environment where the teachers are often not able to give each indidual the attention that they really need. I have recently taken on 2 more learners, both in Grade 3 and am looking forward working with them both through the year.

I am really enjoying all the recent changes that have been made in the centre and feel so much more supported this year so a huge thanks you to all those who have worked so hard to expand the project and who are always there to guide us volunteers.

The Shine Centre gives me the opportunity to feel that I am doing something (albeit small) to give something back and I am hugely grateful for the chance to do that.

A Message from Maurita

Dear Shine

We seem to be bombarding you with messages at the moment. Sorry about that.

This message is for Learning Partners who work with Grade 2's or very
weak Grade 3's. I gave another workshop this past Wednesday. Some of
the volunteers asked for a copy of the assessments on phonological
awareness. If you look at them, and even better, use them, you will get
an idea of how to develop phonological awareness and indeed, how your
little partners is doing.

These assessments can then be added to their file thus building up a
profile on them. You will need to have Adobe in order to access them.
If you want a hard copy, they will be filed with all our readinga-z
books by the end of next week and you can make copies from there. Ask
Ginette.

On the subject of assessment of our Grade 2's, please won't you get your
learner's Individual Education Plan (IEP) from Ginette. It's in the
Grade 2 folder. Read through what we set out to do and see if you can
comment on each area by the 15th of June. Kath or I can help you with
it if you have a query.

If anyone has hanging files/folders that they no longer need we would be
greatful. Just one costs R5 and we will need at least 64. I recall
someone saying they had loads that they didn't use any longer but I
can't remember who that was.

I have ordered our books for the Grade 2 readers which we should get
very soon. Thanks again to the Table Bay Hotel for funding this.

I am also handing in our readinga-z mastercopies in to Custom Graphics.
They have kindly offered to do make lots of copies of these booklets for
us as long as we provide toner and paper. Still a huge saving. So if
anyone has our mastercopies, can we have them back by Wednsday. We
would still encourage you to make your own copies for your child. as
Kath, Eileen,Jenny and I have about 30 children between us to cater
for. Ideally we want all chidren to own these books but it will take a
while to get there.

Have a great weekend.

Regards
Maurita

Eye Testing

*Last week, every Grade 2 learner that is part of the SHINE Centre (55 children in all) were given an eye test. While a majority of the students were fine - there were around 10 children who had problems with convergence, or 'meeting of the eyes'. Anne Chadwick, who administered the eye test, gave us two simple exercises that will be helpful to the children. She recommends that it is done about once a week with each child. The exercises are below.
CONVERGENCE EXERCISES:
1) Hold a pen at eye level 1/3rd metre away from the child's nose. Focus on the tip and move the pen towards the eyes, trying to maintain a single image for as long as possible. The pen should eventually be within 8 cms of the child's eyes. Hold that near position for a few seconds and then repeat the exercise 5-10 times.

2)Hold the pen at eye level as near to the face as it can be seen single. Look at the tip of the pen for a few seconds and then change focus to a distance object. Do this several times and increase the number with practice. This forces the eyes to converge and then to relax with ease therefore making close work more comfortable.


*Please make sure you have signed up for a station/table in the room for the day that you come and keep to your times. The sign up sheet is located to the RIGHT of the main door inside the SHINE Centre (main room). On certain days (Wednesday in particular), every table is filled so it is important to stick to your table and time.

*Mrs. Naidoo has requested, for security measures, that ALL volunteers please sign in at reception (the window to the left of the main window with bars) and don't forget to wear your name badge. As of 21/5 everyone has a name-tag.

Thanks everyone! Have a wonderful rest of the week.

Carrie M.

A Donation

A big thank you to friends of the Shine Centre, Louise Reichmann and Mark and Henry Gunning, for the very generous donation that they made after a visit to the Shine Centre.
Louise wrote;
'I was very moved by the work you are doing at the centre and having heard so much about it for the
last few years it was great to see it all working. We are so lucky being
able to send H to a school with just 18 kids in a class and the individual
attention he gets as a consequence. About time we gave something back!!'
London May 2007

The Sunshine Room

Book Appeal

We have put an advertisment in the SACs school newsletter for next weekend, appealing for grade one and two level books: in addition, we have asked for any word games, educational board games, cards, alphabet based games which have been used, loved, and are looking for a new home. We would like to ensure that we have a continuous steady flow of material to draw on and rotate. We often pass on material to the aftercare, and we would like to be in the position that we can pass on books to each classroom, to help supplement their book corners. If you have anything which you think could spare, please bring it in: we will be eternally grateful. Many thanks for last weeks' donation: we got a lovely box of toys, games and books, which have been sorted, and are already being used.

A to Z books

A-Z books.
You will notice over the next few weeks a series of photo-copied books which were initially sponsored by a Canadian friend of the Shine Centre, Caro MacDonald. Thank you Caro. These books have proved to be so successful and popular amongst the few students we piloted them with, that we have decided to apply for funding to get a set copied for each child. In addition, we have a parents workshop next weekend, where we will be suggesting each parent contributes towards the cost of a set of copies for each child , to own and take home.Please look out for these books, and if you can't find them, either find Carrie in the office, or Ginette, who will be able to point you in the right direction. In the meantime, if you would like to donate a set to your children and start working with these lovely books immediately, please do not hesitate to ask for a copy of the master and make your own copies. We look forward to hearing your response and the children's reaction to them. Enjoy.

Workshop last Tuesday.

We had a very informative workshop last week, which was pleasingly well attended by both established reading partners and new faces: thank you for your continued support. Maurita was able to give us some further pointers on teaching literacy: the workshop gave us the opportunity to discuss our own individual requirements with our children, and we were able to share methods and techniques to aid the learning-to-read process. We were given two very helpful documents, which Maurita has sent all of those with access to e mail a copy. The Tips on Teaching Phonological Awareness and Teaching the Alphabet are helpful tools, reminding us of the teaching and learnign process. it was a very useful way to spend the hour, and I think we all came away excited by the new developments at the centre.

Tips for the end of a session.

Finished your session?

Reflect on something positive that took place today as you walk your partner back to class.

Be generous with your affirmation.

Ask them what they think went well.

Praise them for their efforts.

Let them know if you won't be seeing them next week.

Time To Think

LISTENING TO IGNITE THE HUMAN MIND by Nancy Cline.

There are 10 components to create a thinking environment in your home, business, class or Shine Centre session.

Attention
Listening with respect, interest and fascination.
The quality of your attention determines the quality of the other's thinking. Give them unwavering eye-contact.
Do not interrupt! Don't think you know what they are trying to say. Don't give them your ideas and opinion. Just listen.

Equality
Give equal turns and attentions. Let everyone have their say.
Keep agreements and boundaries.
Treat each other as thinking peers.

Appreciation
Have a 5:1 ratio of appreciation to criticism. In other words for every one thing you criticise have five things you appreciate. “I am so pleased with they way you wrote that word so carefully, you listened to the story so beautifully and could tell me all about it at the end. Your memory is excellent. Now let's look at improving the way you write your 'e'. Thank you, for trying so hard!
(always try and end off with an appreciative comment!)

Ease
Make sure that when you are trying to create a learning environment there is freedom from rushing or a sense of urgency.
No 'quickly, hurry up and finish the page – we have a lot to get through!'

Encouragement
Do not create a sense of competition.
No ' let's see who can do this the quickest'


Feelings
Allow sufficient emotional release to restore thinking.
You don't have to solve the problem but give them the time to release a problem or feelings of anxiety.
Most people and certainly children cannot think when they are anxious.
(I had a humbling experience with a little boy I am helping with reading at the private school I work at. I have worked with him all year with a sense of urgency as his reading is two years below his grade. I never stopped to really give him anything other than a reading lesson. Until one afternoon, we did some creative writing around feelings. He released so much pent up sorrow and anxiety that he did not stop crying for 30 minutes. This little boy is so lonely. I am not sure how much I can change his life for him. I suspect not at all, but I am going to make sure that our sessions together follow these suggestions.

Information
Provide a full and accurate picture of whatever it is you are working on.

Place
Create a physical environment that says, “You matter.”
(I would like to think that the Shine Centre does that.)

Diversity
Everyone adds quality because of the differences between us. Be it cultural, physical, emotional or mental. There should be no such thing as 'they' when you speak about other people. No generalisations.

Incisive Questions
Ask yourself incisive questions about the child or the situation.
What might you be assuming that could be limiting things.
If you assume something more freeing about what new ideas there might be.
What assumptions might your child have about themselves, their abilities, their teacher, their class or you that may be holding them back.
By asking them incisive questions you may discover things you did not know and so might they.

The African Moon Room

With funding from friends and family, begging and borrowing, we have been able to put the African Moon room together. We have set up a lunchtime session every afternoon, when up to 20 children can come and watch an educational video, read a book, have stories read to them, play games and have fun whilst learning. it is very popular, and we often have more than our quota of 20: the 'non-shine' children have caught wind of the fun and learning that takes place,and we often have tentative little knocks on the door, with extras wanting to join us!

Carrie

SHINE CENTRE UPDATE
You may have noticed a new face in the office over the last few months. We have a wonderful American girl, Carrie, who is volunteering at the Shine Centre: she is just so incredibly efficient, and such lovely presence: she is so able and capable, (plus the children adore her). She has proved to be such a valuable member of the Shine Team: we hope she stays forever! As part of a project, Carrie took some photos of the centre, and I thought I would share a few here.

MIHLALI MOFFAT-A SHINING SUCCESS, by LOUISE KERBY.

I started working with Mihlali at the start of 2005 and what a journey it
has been for both of us. She was really struggling with her reading and at
the start of our journey could hardly read a simple story book. She
struggled with the letters and her spatial awareness was not good (top,
bottom, left and right). We started very slow and back at the beginning and
it is a testament to her courage, motivation and enthusiasm that she has
come so far. So it seems fitting to write this story at this point in our
journey when our time at the Shine Centre is almost up and she is able to
spread her wings and soar with her journey in education.

Mihlali has a dream to become a teacher and whether she does or doesn't it
not the issue, she is already teaching the children in her neighbourhood
with her blackboard and her story books. So let me talk to you about our
journey and perhaps I will get her to write something for herself so that
you can read about her journey from her perspective too.

I quickly realised that Mihlali was really struggling and that the best
place to start was at the beginning. So that is what we did. We started
learning to draw each letter of the alphabet as I realised she did not know
the flow and where to start and finish each letter. I smile as she still
writes an 'f' from the bottom no matter how many times we have practised the
'right' way! But I have chosen to let this one go... We practised the sounds
and writing each letter and each week I would read a story with her and she
would follow as best she could. To be honest this felt like a waste of time
and I really wasn't sure if it was making any difference at all. But the one
thing you realise is that you have to persevere and that we did.

We then spent time with matching cards (cards I made in pairs with various
shapes on each) comparing shapes and position of shapes on the cards to
practise that sense of top, bottom, left and right. I had a strong sense
that she was not reading at the start and only looking at the pictures and
guessing the story line and this was hard to understand where to intervene.
Then an old teacher friend (as I am not one!) said to me to build a pattern
in Smarties and ask her to copy it and watch the process. This is what I
did. It was for me my 'light bulb' moment in understanding how I could
unlock this potential. As I watched she started building the pattern from
right to left and this most certainly would make reading from left to right
tricky. I now knew how she was approaching the challenge of reading and it
would have been challenging with this approach!

So we carried on with the paired reading, re-reading books from the previous
weeks and included in our regime an attempt at conquering the 100 sight
words. I thought we were never going to make it. But we soldiered on and
each week we had a challenge and started with only 10 words for quite a few
weeks until Mihlali mastered them and we were able to add a few more. I made
flash cards with each of the words and once again made pairs of each word
and initially I asked her to match the pairs visually and then we would talk
about the word, what it means and say a short sentence including this new
word. So each week she slowly improved and then it felt like we reached a
plateau and once again it was frustrating as I thought we were not making
progress.

Then one day I decided to throw the entire 100 sight words at her and run
through the lot and see how she handled it, as I figured as we read each
week we were learning more and more and being exposed to many in the little
books we were reading. So off I went. I thought I would throw caution to the
wind and jump right in and to my surprise she knew about 60 of the 100
words! I was over the moon with her progress and more importantly her
courage to try and give it a go. I was bowled over with surprise!

So each week we would wiz through the 60 she knew and we would persevere
with the others that were harder. And as she mastered them so they were
added to the pile that said 'know'. And each week the 'do not know' pile got
smaller and each week the 'know' pile grew bigger. Then Mihlali reached that
magic day when she knew all 100 sight words. This was a major breakthrough
and one that helped the paired reading a great deal.

All along the way we have read each week and each week we also played some
games. Picture memory games were easy for Mihlali and this reinforced which
of her strengths she was relying on to get her through. We then started
practising writing the 100 sight words, focussing on the sounds and blending
sounds and also making sure each week she retold each story we read to
improve her comprehension ability and once again get her confident speaking
the language. In addition I would sometimes read a story to her and ask her
to tell me about the story once I had finished reading. This was helping her
to fine-tune her auditory skills.

At the start of my journey with Mihlali I was also keen to get to know her
better and try to understand more about her family. So each week I asked her
to draw me a picture and then the week after she would tell me about the
picture and I would write a few lines retelling her own stories. This was
also very good for me as each week she drew another picture of her family
and so I got to pull together all these threads which ultimately gave me the
big picture. This process was excellent for 2 reasons. One being my
understanding as indicated prior, the other being the fact that now we had
more relevant stories for Mihlali to read. Her own stories.... At this stage
in the Shine Centre's history, it had very few relevant books for these kids
and most books were children's books from England, which were quite frankly
useless and irrelevant to township kids. We build up a huge collection of
her own pictures and stories and each week we would read a few and so with
repeat reading Mihlali improved.

And so very slowly I started reading less and less each week until she asked
to read and this is how it has been for about a year now. Mihlali reads
beautifully now and has courage and confidence to try a difficult word even
if she has never seen it before. She has basic tools to help her unpack the
information. This brings me to another point in our full circle journey....

I was at a local bookshop one day (shortly after starting with her at the
Shine Centre) and found this local story about a little girl in a classroom
who was battling to read and how all she saw was a jumbled page of letters
and how the other kids in the class made fun of her as she struggled to
read. As I read further this sounded just like us... So I read further. Each
day after school she would walk home and meet an old aunt in a rusty old car
on the farm and she would tell her stories and they would spend hours each
day in the car telling stories until one day she found an old book under the
back seat - Cinderella. And so she learnt to read in the veldt in a rusty
old car and slowly her confidence grew. At year end the headmaster came to
the class to hear each child read and up until this moment this task of
reading aloud to the class filled her with dread. But this day she took a
few deep breaths and started to read... We read this story a few times and
at the start I told Mihlali she was like Sari and one day she would be
reading like a champion too. And so she is!

I have got to know her family and keep in touch with her mother. I have made
it my mission to build her own storybooks library at home and also to make
sure she has pens, paper, books and toys to fuel her imagination. In one of
the workshops we attended, it was brought to our attention that the problem
township kids have is that they do not have many toys and interactive toys
allow for play and stories develop from this type of play. I have a great
understanding with her mother as it was important for me that she understood
my motivation for getting involved.

This has truly been a very rewarding journey for both of us, especially me
and it brings tears to my eyes when I think of how much Mihlali has grown
over the 2 and a half years we have worked together. What I truly admire is
her motivation, her courage to try new things and her willingness to learn
and grow. I will follow her progress even after we stop work at the Shine
Centre and I look forward to seeing for fly.... We have one final term
together and a few pointers to focus our time and energy. I feel confident
she is better equipped with tools to continue her education.

Message From Our Leader!

Dear Shine Partners

For Shine Centre volunteers that come on a Monday, I was hoping to see
you all to give you some feedback on your learning partners. However, I
am unable to get time off from Forres School this week as it is my last
session there. I will see you all next term.

I will be available for feedback in the first week of next term and will
email all those who have learning partners in Grade 3, 4 or 5 a summary
of their learner's progress.. You should get this during the next week
or two.

We have assessed every Grade 2 learner at Observatory Junior this term
and for anyone who has not seen these assessments please ask Ginette or
myself for them. We have about twelve Grade 2 learners who are just
managing to cope with the work and would really benefit from just a 15
minute session of paired reading. If anyone thinks they wouldn't mind
taking on a second learner for just another fifteen minutes please let
me know.

Out of 80 Grade 2's twenty-five are 'at risk' (ie know less then half
of their sounds, cannot read many three lettered words and are unable to
read basic text). Twenty are 'poor' which means that they can only
manage seventy five% of the above, twelve are 'satisfactory' (just
managing to read but still quite shaky) and 22 are managing quite
nicely. Myself and two volunteer teachers need to see all the children
who are" poor" and 'at risk' at least twice a week.

School begins on Monday 16th April. I would like to have a meeting on
the Monday 23rd April at 9.30am. Could we all try and make that meeting
as I really need to start working with the children as soon as possible
next term and if I don't have to have the same meeting every morning of
that week it would really help me a lot. There are some really
important things I want to discuss with you at this meeting and I really
feel it is valuable for us to have this time together.

If you cannot make the meeting could you let me know?

Thank you to everyone for all the hard work this term. Two more rooms
have been decorated and resourced, some really fabulous volunteers have
joined us and we are almost registered as a Non Profit Organisation. I
think we have achieved a lot and I am looking forward to seeing the
fruits of our work. We also have a set of 64 new reading books. I will
talk more about these books at the meeting.

Please can I ask you all to send me a summary of how this term has gone
for you and your learner. It only need be a paragraph. Please feel
free to add in anything you feel you would like for next term. You will
find proper Report Sheets on the black trays in the Shine Centre.
Please fill in your name, your learning partners name and grade and the
date.

Last of all, due to reasons of security, Mrs Naidoo has asked that
everyone signs in at reception on arrival; puts on their name tag; and
then just before you leave the school, hang up your name tag again. The
name tags are hanging off a ribbon alphabetically.

Hope you all enjoy a break over Easter.

Best wishes
Maurita.

The Power of Words.....

'People shine when you show them that they matter.'

Creating our own sentences

Key Words....

Some history

After spending eighteen months as a volunteer offering academic support to historically disadvantaged learners at Observatory Junior School, it became evident to Maurita Weissenberg that there was a need to provide the school with a full-time educational programme. She set up a trust called the School Partners Trust with the aim of looking at community and business collaboration. A decision was made to copy a project launched in the UK called Education Business Partnership. Thus the Shine Centre came to be.

The average class at the Observatory Junior School contains forty-three learners of greatly varying maths and reading ages. A significant percentage of these children are two or three years below the class average in reading and mathematics and often the language of instruction is the learner’s second or third language. The results are continual poor results and test failure leading to low self-esteem. In class learners with learning disabilities such as dyslexia receive minimal remedial support and usually no other specialist support since most parents are from low-income groups and cannot provide this.

The Shine Centre aims to help learners in these situations. Besides the Reading Partners Initiative where volunteers are paired up with individual children, two of the volunteers (retired librarians) have also re-opened the school library which had been closed for a few years. Today the library is open to children and classes on a daily basis.

Our Purpose

The Shine Centre aims to provide historically disadvantaged learners at primary school level with educational support. It is a voluntary project, run at the Observatory junior school, to help children who are struggling with reading and literacy. Volunteers (or learning partners) are paired with individual children to help with their reading. They spend at least an hour a week with a child, reading in pairs and playing games such as word association to help with their literacy. This enables the learner to receive individual attention from an adult who also acts as a role model.

Simthandile.

Guided Reading

new space

We have some exciting changes at the Shine Centre. Maurita has managed to acquire 2 new rooms,
and there has been a flurry of painting, cushion making, furniture moving, resource shifting: we have named the rooms as well: Sunshine, Moonshine and the Shine Centre: cute, no?! These will offer us an opportunity to work with larger groups if we want to, or offer us much needed space in the middle of the week, when we tend to be very crowded!

Photo opportunity

I hope over the next few weeks to receive the wonderful photos that Josie Borain took of the Shine Centre. Josie came in last week, and took hundreds of photos of the volunteers and children, which we hope to post on the blog as soon as they are available. I intend to get all our
volunteers e mail addresses, and give everyone a lesson on how to blog: it really is so easy, and it could be a fun and dynamic way to share our stories: our successes, our frustrations, our joys and dreams for our students, and ourselves. In the future I hope that the blog is added to on a very regular basis, with news of how our students are doing, events that are happening, profiles of some of the special people that help keep the Shine Centre moving forward. Watch this space.

2 weeks into the teaching year....

We have painted the new room, taken over what was originally the smokers room, and we are growing from strength to strength.... our volunteers have started with enthusiasm and energy, and the feeling on arrival at the centre is one of a productive, fun and vital learning environment. Our students are keen and ready to learn: it has been wonderful to see our established volunteers and students become re- acquainted, and exciting to pair up our new pupils and helpers.

2007- a busy year ahead

Maurita is busy with workshops all week, introducing new volunteers to the scheme, and welcoming establised helpers back.