Agenda

09:00 – 10:00 | Screening, Identification, Assessment and Support–Process of assessment (as aligned to the National Curriculum Framework)

Lisa Voortman

Head of Education

GROW with Educare Centres

From a young age, Lisa knew she would be a teacher. Her passion for children and play-based learning is contagious. As a result, she is a true advocate for quality early learning education in every neighborhood. Lisa studied Education at Rhodes University (1986) and Special Education and Teaching at Stellenbosch University (1988). 

After running her own preschool for many years, she co-founded GROW Educare Centres, a social impact organisation, with Tracey Chambers in 2014. She established the organisation’s first ECD centre in Cape Town in 2014. Since then, the organisation has grown to support 45 GROW partner preschools across Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape (in 2020). Recently the programme rolled out nationally and over 600 centres are supported with step 1 of the GROW programme.

Lisa is responsible for quality education outcomes, training and mentoring of teachers, curriculum development, the teacher internship programme, and monitoring and assessment of learner development to ensure that quality education is realities at all GROW centres.  She has also developed online teacher training programmes that combine classroom-based interactive training with best practice videos and online tasks. 

Her favourite place is on the floor, reading to little ones who inspire and motivate her.  She is determined to challenge the status quo that children in disadvantaged communities cannot access quality early childhood care and education which is essential for their future success and the socio-economic future of South Africa.

10:00 – 10:30 | Online School Management Software Solution and Management Dashboards

Marie-Anne Kleynhans

Managing Director

Edupac Software Support Services (PTY) Ltd

Her 30+ years’ experience in the Software Enterprise Development Industry ensures the on-going accredited development to deliver an International Education Management Software, e-Learning (LMS) and Timetabling Solution using leading edge technology.

It is her vision that Edupac Software Support Services will empower all Education Institutions and Education Government Departments with our easy-to-use online School Management Software Solution and Management Dashboards.

Marie-Anne Kleynhans has been actively involved in Software Development strategies, Skills Development and Support Service delivery of Educational Management Information Solutions for schools and colleges since 1993.

10:30-11:00 | Tea/Coffee Break

11:00 –  12:00 | e-Teacher professional development and enhancing teachers’ digital skills

Melissa Bailey

Senior Education Specialist: eLearning Advisor 

Western Cape Education Department

Melissa Bailey is a former English language teacher with experience in teaching grade 5-12.  Melissa started her career in Cape Town, where she taught for 4 years at President High School, she then moved abroad to the Kingdom of Bahrain where she taught English at an all-girls private school for 5 years. While in the Middle East she became a Microsoft Innovative Educator and provided teacher professional development on digital skills. She is currently the eAdvisor at the Metro North Education District and served as an Adjudicator for the National Teacher Awards. She believes that every learner deserves a chance, and every teacher can make a difference.

Marchelle Fester

Senior Education Specialist: ICT Integration Coordinator

Western Cape Education Department             

Marchelle Fester is a former Intermediate Phase teacher and Departmental Head. She is currently an ICT Integration Coordinator at the Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute in Cape Town – the provincial in-service teacher professional development institute of the Western Cape Education Department. She also served as an Adjudicator and Mentor in the Provincial selection of the NTA’s in the Excellence in Technology Enhanced Teaching and Learning category. She believes that teachers play a pivotal role in assisting learners to develop essential 21^st-century skills by actively fostering and promoting the development of these skills within the classroom.

12:00 – 12:30 | Early Childhood Development Centres-Transition to DBE- (A practitioner’s voice)

Mmatsetshuweu (Ruby) Motaung

Executive Director

Tree-ECD

I present strong educational background and 26 years of extensive experience in Education and Early Childhood Education. I worked for Khululeka Community Development, Eastern Cape Department of Education, and National Department of Education and with the National Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) for many years.  In my previous work amongst other key critical roles I have been   passionately working very closely with Department of Social Development serving in the National Interdepartmental Committee (NIDC ECD) which is a structure that is working towards the implementation of the National Integrated Early Childhood Development Policy 2015 that I was also part of developing and advocating through national training. I am also serving in the ECD Intersectoral Forum that serves as the mouth piece for community development with ECD focus to DSD in policy implementation.  The forum is a platform upon which the Government and the Civil Society engage in ECD service delivery.

 I managed the project PIECCE which is the Project for Inclusive Early Childhood Care and Education. This is a multi-Sectoral teacher education project that is contributing to the professionalisation of the ECCE-birth-4 sector through the development of a standardised framework for the training/ qualification of practitioners working in Birth to Four. This project is a product of the policy I developed and gazetted in 2017 (Policy on Minimum Requirements for Programmes Leading to Qualifications in Higher Education in Early Childhood Care and Education (Birth – Four) for Educators and Practitioners working with all ECD stakeholders. I was also a National Trainer for Department of Basic Education for National Curriculum Framework for birth-4. I represented the DHET on Outcome 13 which is focusing on an inclusive and responsive social protection system where it is a response to the South Africa’s NDP 2030 that accords a central role to social protection in addressing the critical challenges of eradicating poverty and reducing inequality. I have Bachelor of Honours Degree in Education specializing in Whole School Evaluation. I have a collection of certificates and awards. 

12:30 – 13:00 | Preparing Learners for the Challenges of the 4IR

Wayne Stuurman

Director of Membership and Programmes

ISASA( Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa)

Wayne is an experienced Headmaster with a demonstrated history of working in the education management industry. He is skilled in Educational Technology, English, e-learning, Tutoring, Classroom Management and Psychological counseling. Strong education professional with a LDP focused in Organizational Leadership from University of the Witwatersrand.

13:00 – 14:00 | Lunch Break            

14:00 – 14:30 | The essential elements of ECD programs: Play-based & Sensory learning

Megan Faure

OT & Author

Co-Founder of Play Sense (ECD Program 2-4 years)

Megan Faure graduated from the University of Cape Town with a B.Sc. Occupational Therapy, having won the award for top research thesis in her year. From the outset her interest was in pediatrics. She has worked in various clinical settings including a pediatric rehab facility in New York, in private practice and a school for children with special needs. She has a practice in Cape Town, where she assesses and treats extremely fussy babies and those with sleep and feeding issues related to sensory processing.

Megan is the founder of ISIT (Infant Sensory Integration Training) and has presented numerous courses to professionals on topics including: Infant Feeding Treatment; Self-regulation; Infant and Toddler Behaviour; Infant Sensory Integration Training Course; Management of infant sleep problems; Management of Fussy Feeders; Infant emotional and regulatory function and the treatment of related disorders; Treatment of Toddlers; Treatment of infant modulation problems; Dyspraxia; Sensory Integration theory courses; Integrating SI and NDT; Sensory Integration treatment courses and Neuro-Developmental Foundations of Handwriting.

14:30 – 15:00 | Children’s theory of mind, habits of mind, executive functions and metacognition

Angela Salmon

Associate Professor-Teaching and Learning

Florida International University

Dr. Angela K. Salmon is an Associate Professor and Director of the Early Childhood Program. She is Habits of Mind Certified and founding leader of the Visible Thinking South Florida initiative (now Association for Thinking and Learning). She is the Chair of the International Conference on Thinking 2018. Her long-standing partnership with Project Zero at Harvard University has evolved into numerous research initiatives, national and international lectures, and publications.

Awards

World’s Ahead Faculty Recognition (2011), Thinker in Residence, invitation by the Independent Schools of Victoria in Melbourne Australia

Research Areas

• Interplay between cognition, language and literacy development
• Children’s theory of mind, habits of mind, executive functions and metacognition
• Language and literacy development as a result of teacher’s discourse in the classroom
• Implementation of play and music
• Building communities of practice

15:00 – 15:30 | The Future of Storytelling in Virtual and Augmented Reality

Despoina Zachariadou

Course Leader for MA Virtual Reality

London College of Communication

Despoina Zachariadou is the Interim Course Leader for MA Virtual Reality at London College of Communication.

Despoina is also an XR artist/director with six years of experience in virtual and augmented reality. As a practitioner, her work explores immersive and interactive extended reality-digital narratives, storytelling and the future of human experience in everyday interfaces intermediated with digital realities.

Despoina studied architecture engineering in Greece, where she was born and grew up. She then completed her MA in media production in the UK.

She has worked and collaborated in projects with cultural and industry partners including Gravity Sketch, the Royal Academy of Arts, The British Museum, Microsoft, Alexander McQueen, Unilever, Ernst & Young, and AKT Collective.

Her work has been awarded by the Aesthetica Art Magazine, the Kering Award for Sustainable Fashion, the United Nations and has been published by the POOL Magazine UCLA, LA, US, and Aesthetica Art Magazine.

Despoina has researched and worked with concepts of gamification and simulation in museum and art exhibition spaces, as well as in industry applications. Her focus has been particularly in the fields of environment sustainability awareness, art and cultural heritage explored through new media formats of contemporary virtual narrative environments and experiences.

Her most recent research and work builds upon her previous work topics evolving in the context of virtual reality accessibility and cross-platform participatory virtual reality performative experiences.

Her interest is in exploring the future of storytelling in virtual and augmented reality, with pushing the boundaries of performance and accessibility of virtual reality experiences. While also positioning the medium of virtual reality in the center of digital era socio-political discussions and artistic creation.