Drag your child away from the TV and the smart phone, and play dominoes with him or her! Why? Because it is great for their brain and mental arithmetic. There are different levels of the game which will be appropriate for different levels of child development. The level at which…
I belong to the Facebook community group “People who live in Midrand” and occasionally see someone asking for recommendations as to the best school for their child. The result is that someone or other recommends just about every school in the area. So, really, the question was a waste…
A couple of years back, when we were really struggling, we bought a second hand bus to help those parents with transport problems. It was more trouble than it was worth! This year, thanks largely to the Department of Education grants, we’ve been able to buy a brand new Iveco…
I was blown away when I came across the magic pyramid. I don’t know who discovered it, but here it is – I simply had to sit and figure out why it worked, and it turned out to rely on the fact that 9 times any of the…
2021 was a tough year for learners and educators alike and I guess 2022 will continue with similar challenges. But, at least the year ended with a bit of fun at the Mall, where the leaners went for an end-of-term lunch and a chance to climb on the playground…
Yes, we have been doing our level best to keep Covid 19 out of Gallagher Combined School, but even so, we consider ourselves blessed to have not had a single case from the start of the pandemic. At the start of the pandemic, we would have had few guidelines…
Whilst there are a number of remedial schools in Midrand with class sizes limited to between 12 and 18 learners with special needs, there are some schools with over 40 children in a class. Gallagher Combined School have limited their class size to 25 so that a grade of…
I received this one from Dalene, the school’s next door neighbour (aka grandma to the children). And, for those of you who have forgotten their algebra, the math is spot on! …
We realise that the formal curriculum does not prepare our children for their lives in the future. In fact, with the dramatic development of new techology, such as drones, driverless cars, robots, artifical intelligence etc, nobody knows what that future will be like. The best we can do is guess.
I had to Google that to see whether it was, in fact, an original thought or whether I had just dragged it out of my subconcious memory. Seems it’s original. It came to me recently, when, midst all this panic about Covid, I was (again) reflecting on the ineptitude of…
I hated French at school, but all us dummies had to learn it. The more average kids learned French and German, and the clever ones Latin, French and German. So there I was on the bottom rung of the academic ladder, but still having to struggle with a subject that…
I was reminded of this law when lockdown moved to level 3 and we were able to buy wine again. As a special treat, I bought two bottles of Sauvignon Blanc for R185 each. We normally spend around half that price. The wine was divine, but then I commented to…
Your choice of school for your child is going to have a significant impact on his or her future. If your child is happy at school, then the chances are that you will see good grades. An unhappy child will not be a good learner. Here’s what you should be…
Interestingly, there are varying results from different studies conducted in the USA and apparently advocates of Class Size Reduction (CSR) are as guilty of cherry picking results to suite their argument as their opponents, who argue that the cost of CSR outwieghs its benefits. Having said that, although many states…
My wife and I were thrilled to watch a small flock of at least five Rosy Faced Lovebirds from our balcony in Morningside. They appeared to be nesting under the eves of a house, but despite many later sightings, they have not re-visited that particular house, so perhaps they were…
While learning the Japanese abacus, you can’t help becoming fascinated with numbers and arithmetical tricks. Here’s a simple Japanese method of multiplying using intersecting straight lines …
If you’ve ever been an investor in say, listed shares or property for rental, you will know that some investments will be better than others. The wise investor knows when to pull out of one and re-invest in a better one. He or she has to take into account the…
I guess that if funds are limited (and what family actually has money to spare at the end of every month?), the choice between public and private schooling can be largely influenced by the family income. However, there are other considerations. I guess you have to start by looking at…
During the March holidays, seven of our top learners joined four volunteer educators at the school for an intensive boot camp to prepare them for the upcoming Olympiads.
Probably the thing that is most worried about is money, or lack of it, but what is this stuff we call money? Early man used barter to exchange anything that they had in excess for other goods that they required. The problem with barter is that you need to find…
Surprise, surprise! No difference at all!…
