Remember the wonderful staff member who piped up many years ago and asked the question: ‘Wouldn’t ÎÞÂë±ä̬ schools be more effective if we all worked together on solutions with multi-faceted teams of staff members from across each ÎÞÂë±ä̬ school?’
The last fortnight has seen much of this work come to fruition with the ÎÞÂë±ä̬ Head Office car park regularly filling up with Dr Gregg Weaver (Chief Education Officer – ÎÞÂë±ä̬) holding multiple meetings each week to unite ÎÞÂë±ä̬ schools in their purpose and outcomes moving forward.
LMS Team
The Learning Management System (LMS) for ÎÞÂë±ä̬ schools was covered in our last edition of ÎÞÂë±ä̬ News. This team is tasked with making recommendations to the SLT (Senior Leadership Team) and the ÎÞÂë±ä̬ Board on a preferred LMS to be used across our ÎÞÂë±ä̬ schools.
Recent product meetings have now been held with teams from software solution providers ‘SchoolBox’ and ‘Canvas’.

HSR Team
The Health & Safety Representatives (HSR) are elected members of staff who serve within our schools to (1)identify hazards, (2)bring them to the attention of the school leadership, and (3)promote workplace health and safety across ÎÞÂë±ä̬ to ensure our workplaces are safe.
If your school feels safer in 2023, that may be due to your vigilant HSR doing their part in providing a happy and productive workplace. Mr Rhys Vallance (Risk & Compliance Manager, ÎÞÂë±ä̬) met with the ÎÞÂë±ä̬-Wide HSR team (comprising ÎÞÂë±ä̬ school members) recently to ensure that they can continue to be trained to spot hazards and identify risks that may pose a threat to health and safety, and pass on good and successful ideas they have had for their own sites.Â

ICT Ecosystem Team
This team is dedicated to finding a common ICT ‘ecosystem’ (ie. Mac, PC or Linux as opposed to a hybrid model made up of different operating systems) through discussions and product demonstrations. Two meetings of this group have taken place so far this year, with a third meeting scheduled for early 2024 in which the group will visit an educational establishment to see some of these ICT products in action.

Parent Communications App Team
This team is made up of ÎÞÂë±ä̬ school representatives who are planning to trial the app entitled ‘Parent Orbit’ which will allow enhanced parent communications with ÎÞÂë±ä̬ parents following a successful presentation at a recent Senior Leadership Team (SLT) by Mrs Lize Janse van Rensburg (ÎÞÂë±ä̬’s Application and Technology Officer). The second meeting for the team, held this week, agreed that a thorough review of the app’s functionality and planning was required for the implementation in 2024. The EnrolHQ rollout’s success over 2023 has paved the way for enhanced collaboration between ÎÞÂë±ä̬’s operational teams within schools and the ÎÞÂë±ä̬ ICT representatives, Mr Wayne Fewster (Head of ICT – ÎÞÂë±ä̬) and Mrs Janse van Rensburg.
