Cape Town - GrandWest Casino and Entertainment World has pledged more than R600 000 dedicated to helping learners improve in maths.
They’ve set up a maths intervention programme to help learners to feel confident ahead of their final exams.
Grade 8, 10 and 11 learners at AZ Berman High School in Mitchells Plain and Grade 9 learners at Excelsior Secondary School in Belhar are the two schools in the programme who received R340 000 and R291 300, respectively, from GrandWest.
It is a 20-week programme that runs every Saturday until November and Maths & Me Tutoring have been working with the learners.
“The complexities of maths can be incomprehensible to pupils who lack a good understanding of the core principles of the subject.
“The Maths Intervention Programme takes them back to basics to bed down their knowledge of key maths concepts,” Mervyn Naidoo, GrandWest Casino general manager, said.
AZ Berman have been working with Grandwest since 2019 and have been part of two programmes before, in 2019 and 2021, that yielded positive results and big improvements throughout the school.
“Our learners started believing in themselves, they became more confident in maths, as a result, they started improving in other subjects as well.
“Management considered the possibility of reintroducing maths in Grade 10 and in 2021 we reintroduced maths with a class of 42 learners,” Tamzyn Baynes, the acting deputy principal, said
She said the improvements have seen learners lose the negativity towards maths and the foundations laid have led many students choosing maths instead of maths literacy for Grade 10.
Rodney Layman, a teacher at Excelsior, said the partnership helped the learners and the school make great improvements too.
“As a maths and science school, we want to inspire our learners to continue in the fields of maths and physics.
“We wanted to equip our Grade 9 learners with the skills in maths so they feel comfortable with the subject,” he said.
Layman said learners have also developed new enthusiasm and optimism about maths and have started feeling more comfortable to take the subject further.
Both schools have benefited greatly from this partnership and expressed their gratitude to GrandWest and Maths & Me for the change they have brought to these schools and their learners.