Montsamaisa Excels Through Joint Efforts

Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Monday January 27, 2020 16:18

The school made it to top 10 nationally after attaining position seven with a 67.8% pass rate and scooped position one in North-East region.

The North East region has over the past years been dominated by Setlalekgosi JSS, which this year came second regionally and 10 nationally with 64.5% pass.

In an interview, Ntaise said Montsamaisa’s superiority was a collaborative effort by the staff together with parents who came up with initiatives that moved the school up the ladder.

He further told The Monitor that one of their secret weapons to success was introducing the parenting system within their school.

According to Ntaise, parenting system is whereby teachers are given about five students each and expected to play the role of a parent at school level.

He further said the teachers would be expected to monitor the student’s performance and behaviour within the school environment.

The overjoyed school head added that they also introduced Saturday study, which was strictly   set aside for remedial teaching in order to better their results.

“As the school management we have regular consultation with different departments and we give them feedback so that they can improve their teaching strategies so as to yield marvelous results,” he said.

Montsamaisa JSS school head also commended both the non-teaching and teaching staff for lending a helping hand to the students from families struggling economically by raising funds amongst themselves.

He said the staff would each contribute money and buy school uniform to the needy students so that they do not feel left behind.

“The initiative helps the disadvantaged students   to feel empowered and equal to others hence giving them a chance to focus on their studies and stress less about their family background.”

Ntaise further said there was a combination of commitment and active participation on the part of the parents to the school and to the students.

When breaking down the statistics he said last year the percentages of students whose reports were collected during the consultations days stood at 92%.

He added that parental involvement was very effective at their school because about 88% of   them attend the Parent Teachers Association (PTA) meeting on scheduled days.

Montsamaisa school head also thanked the area Member of Parliament, Wynter Mmolotsi and councillor Uyapo Nyeku and other stakeholders for their undying material and emotional support, which contributed to the school’s exceptional performance.

When speaking about the school performance, Ntaise was happy as a clam when he spoke highly of the Form Three group of 2019.

He also said that the school performance has shown a remarkable improvement over the past years.

He said: “For instance we attained 56.6%, 63.3% and 67.8% for the year 2017, 2018, 2019 respectively. This shows that our performance has been upgrading. Last year we got position three regional and 11 nationally which wasn’t bad.”

He said currently Montsamaisa JSS managed to bag 11 As, 75Bs, 95Cs, 65Ds, 12Es, 9Us from the 267 students who sat for the JCE.

The proud school principal said Montsamaisa JSS beat the odd of being located in an economically challenged environment and unfavourable geographical area mostly driven by drug and alcohol abuse to perform very well in the just released JCE results.

“We were able to beat other schools in the region even though we are located within the Block’s area, which encompasses a spectrum of drugs and alcohol abuse.”

He also said even though most of their students are well-disciplined they have in the past registered cases of those who brought drugs and alcohol into the school.

Ntaise said the situation ameliorated when they partnered with Kutlwano Police Station which is a walking distance from the school.

He also revealed that some of the challenges they encounter as a school include scarcity of   the working space.

“We house most students in the region but there is shortage of classrooms. For instance all our form one classes which comprises six classes attend their lessons in the outdoor teaching space,” he added.

He further said the school is hit hard by shortage of teacher’s accommodation. Montsamaisa school head also applauded their best student, Junior Pheko, who was close to getting a merit after attaining seven As and two Bs.