A no-fee school in Lentegeur has defied the odds and become a community hub of learning. Their secret? Building relationships.
This year the school, Cornflower Primary, celebrates its 40th anniversary.
“We run active programmes addressing persistent social issues in our community including gangsterism, drug and alcohol abuse, single parenting, and sexual abuse,” said long-serving educator Grant Williams (56). “Our role extends far beyond academics.”
Williams is one of several long-serving staff members at the school. The longest-serving member is the principal, Cloretta Ontong (57). Ontong started at the school in 1990 and Williams in 1992.
Both say the school’s most influential principal was Paul Hendricks, who has since moved on to work in the education department.
“He was always meant to be serving the broader Western Cape because that was just the kind of person he was. This office was too small for him.”
READ MORE: Imperial Primary in Beacon Valley celebrates 40th anniversary
Influential reign
Hendricks’ influential reign at the school started with a change in motto. The school’s original motto was “Striving in Adversity”.
“He felt that they needed to move away from being reminded that they are in adversity and he felt that we needed to change the motto. As a staff, we got together and then we changed the motto to ‘Commit to Excellence’,” Ontong said.
Williams added that the change in motto was a shift towards a change in mindset and it started with the teachers.
It was also under Hendricks’ leadership that the school started forging relationships.
The neighbourhood watch was given a container space to work from on the school grounds, the school started using the neighbouring Dock’s Mission church hall for events and several non-profit, governmental and corporate partnerships were established to get programmes running at the school, such as the computer lab and state of the art astroturf sports field.
The school also opens its doors to nearly every sporting code, if a partner is willing to come on board, so that their learners which leaned more towards sports and extra curriculars than academics, would have a multitude of options but also to create a learning space for the community.
“The school closes at 15:00 but at night it mustn’t be a white elephant. So then we gave the opportunity to churches and to other organisations to make use of the building and in that way, we were also protected from all the elements that were around,” Williams said.
Not without challenges
The school’s computer lab was also opened to the community for classes and the other schools were also given access to Cornflower’s sportsfield, making the school a constant hub of activity. But that does not mean it is without its challenges.
Ontong said one of the school’s biggest challenges is late coming and congestion at opening and closing times because most of the school’s learners are from outside the area, some coming from as far afield as Delft.
The school also faces the same adversities as the broader area.
“A couple of months ago, not too far away, we had two gangs shooting at each other. Very often we have to keep the learners inside the school premises at dismissal time, just from a safety point of view,” Williams said.
“And that’s another challenge. Many of the children have to be transported here because the parents of the children in the Lentegeur community take their children to schools outside of the area,” Williams said.
He explained that the open spaces at the school are then given to learners from the surrounding areas who cannot be accommodated in the areas where they live.
“So those come learners in by some sort of transport and what we’ve seen is that the transport is not really a good transport system. There are drivers that are erratic and they overload the taxis. When they come here, they would be hooting from the road, from the corner or closer to the school, which affects the residents.”
Ontong added that the school is planning to build an undercover pick-up area on a section of their garden but already know that this won’t solve the whole problem because some drivers instruct the learners to wait outside the school on the street corners so that they can get in and out of the area more quickly.
“And then we have some learners that can’t afford the transport, so they have to walk,” Williams adds.
She says the school’s feeding scheme, which is supplied by Peninsula Feeding Scheme, is managed by three women from the community. “And they prepare breakfast, they prepare a lunch, and sometimes there’s a snack too,” Ontong said.
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