Early indications show progressive start for UCT Online High School’s 2023 academic year

Executive Head of School and Chief Academic Officer, Banele Lukhele

Following its first full year, UCT Online High School surges ahead with a range of enhancements including a structured flexibility model, a first-of-its-kind guardian mobile app for parents, dynamic academic support and a gamification and rewards programme.

MyBroadband sat down with Banele Lukhele, the school’s Executive Head of School.

In July 2021, the University of Cape Town (UCT) announced the launch of UCT Online High School, becoming the first university in Africa to extend its expertise and impact to the secondary schooling market through an innovative online education system.

The university partnered with Cape Town based education technology company, Valenture Institute, to deliver the UCT Online High School – an innovative, affordable online school, offering the CAPS curriculum in grades 8 to 11, with grade 12 having commenced this January.

Through this partnership, UCT Online High School leverages state-of-the-art technologies to provide a data-driven remote learning experience to high school learners in South Africa.

Furthering its product offering in August of 2022, the online high school announced the addition of the Cambridge International curriculum, touted as the most affordable Cambridge International qualification in Africa.

In the same period, the school announced the addition of its Adult Matric curriculum delivered online for adult learners looking to rewrite or complete their matric qualification at an affordable cost per month.

Following its first full year, UCT Online High School is charged to go from strength to strength in 2023, and beyond.

“Dreaming up a solution is one thing but seeing the school come to life and hearing the stories of our learners and guardians has been life changing. The impact that we have made in one year cannot be put into words.”

“We have guardians that started the journey with us and have already seen the growth in, not only their children, but themselves.”

“From gaining independence, to building better communication, to career planning changes as a result of our “My Brilliant Future” series,” says Executive Head of School and Chief Academic Officer, Banele Lukhele, “a highlight in all of this, is seeing learners and guardians work closely with the school to keep us accountable and to cheer us on.”

“As a school, we have grown in leaps and bounds during our first year and I think this has given all of us an extra incentive to keep on pushing the boundaries.”

After one full academic year, its first 2022 cohort of more than 4000 learners across a range of grades, completed their studies and in the process provided valuable feedback and insights into learning behaviours and optimal learning scenarios.

With this data in hand, UCT Online High School was able to analyse and adapt to their learners’ progress – an aspect unique to online schooling which is considerably more adaptable than common brick and mortar schooling.

‘’We are proud to share that our 2023 academic year is off to a strong start as we enter our second year of operations.”

“We announced last year that we would roll out a range of enhancements ahead of the start of the new school year, including our structured flexibility model, a first-of-its-kind guardian mobile app, dynamic academic support and a gamification and rewards programme.”

“Additional enhancements will be introduced as the year progresses and as the school grows.’’ says Lukhele.

“The benefits of online schooling range from family to family, be it convenience for a traveling parent, learners with social anxiety who do not experience physical classrooms as safe spaces to learn, or learners who do not have well-equipped schools in their area,” says Lukhele.

“Learning online has no physical limitations and learners have multiple ways to engage with their content and learning community, so they can engage in ways that are best suited to their situation. UCT Online High School’s model also reduces the barrier of being available at particular times.”

“Learners have the content available to them to work through in their own time, within the set week.”

This learning process is guided by a workplan through this adapted structured flexibility model enhancement, and guardians have visibility of their child’s progress through the new ‘ConnectED Guardian app’, a first-of-its-kind for parents, where they can keep track of their child’s progress in detail, at any point in time.

‘’Online learning requires a closer relationship between the school and guardians. As a school, we must give guardians the necessary information, to see how their child is progressing.”

“The advantage of being in an online school is that we can give more visibility to guardians throughout the term.”

“Currently, guardians can see information such as module progress for the subjects that their child is enrolled in, assignments that are due, weekly summaries, as well as test and exam schedules.” details Lukhele.

UCT Online High School launched its ‘ConnectED’ guardian mobile app, a first-of-its-kind for parents – the app is available on all major app stores.

At the start of 2022, UCT Online High School followed a self-paced learning model which allowed their learners to work ahead of pace or take longer to complete certain subjects depending on their mastery of core concepts, but this year, it introduced the concept of structured flexibility with weekly module release and weekly deadlines.

“Last year, learners did arrive at the same endpoint, but many learners made these gains outside of the recommended benchmark pace. This year we are seeing learners achieving the same results within just a few weeks,” says Lukhele.

“We can certainly attribute this to multiple factors, including more stringent deadline management, the introduction of weekly work plans on the learner’s dashboard that show exactly what a learner should complete each day, as well as the gamification and rewards programme which allows learners to earn tokens for positive learning behaviours such as lesson completion, assignment submission, and course access.”

UCT Online High School’s gamification and rewards programme which allows learners to earn tokens for positive learning behaviours such as lesson completion, assignment submission, and course access.

As it approaches the middle of the first term, the school is showing promising early data which indicates that learner and guardian behaviour is shifting in a meaningful and productive way.

“Parents are significantly more engaged with their learners’ progress when compared to last year.”

“We’ve seen an over 100% increase in guardian portal views compared to last year, contributing to a week-on-week learner completion rate of over 80% for lessons and Schools Based Assessment over the course of the first three weeks of school.’’ notes Lukhele.

Breaking new ground

UCT Online High School has also welcomed its first class of Grade 12 learners in 2023. Lukhele is excited to help these pupils take their final steps before entering the working world or their tertiary educational institution of choice.

“Over and above the enhancements mentioned previously, this year we are paying particular focus on differentiated support for the different grades.”

“In line with this, we have a particular academic calendar set out for the matrics that will ensure all of the content is covered before they write their prelims and final NSC exams.”

“We have also allocated a fair amount of time to revision, which will be augmented by additional resources and academic support to cover knowledge gaps and exam related skills.” says Lukhele.

“They will be able to adjust to blended learning should they decide to study further and they will be prepared for remote or blended work spaces, if that is their next step.”

UCT Online High School has introduced the concept of structured flexibility with weekly module release and weekly deadlines. This includes more stringent deadline management, the introduction of weekly work plans on the learner’s dashboard that show exactly what a learner should complete each day.

Looking to the future, ‘’Additional plans for 2023 and beyond include UX improvements to our learning platform, extensions to our gamification and rewards programme, as well as additional data views and communication features to be added to our ConnectED app. We’re always being led by data while dreaming big, so watch this space.”, says Lukhele.

Applications for the 2024 academic year are now open, and UCT Online High School looks forward to welcoming your child to its education pathways. It offers a robust learning experience for South African high school learners to study remotely while still engaging in a highly social and personalised experience.

If you would like to learn more about sending your child to UCT Online High School, head here.