Constantia Primary’s Astroturf has made a big difference to the school since it was finished earlier this year.
Now the man behind that initiative is planning another project (“New turf for Constantia Primary”, Bulletin February 16).
Brad Bing, of Sporting Chance, is on a mission to get the school’s kindergarten area redone.
The school was established in 1910 and is located on the dusty ground at the corner of Spaanschemat and Ladies Mile roads.
About 250 pupils, from Grade R to Grade 7, attend the school and their parents work on the local wine farms or are domestic and blue-collar workers.
The annual school fees are R400 per pupil and only about 60% are collected.
The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) contributesR180000totheschool annuallyfor Grades 1 to 7 which equates to almost a quarter of the budget. An additional R121 000 is paid towards the Grade R tuition.
Since Mr Bing started running the physical education programme at the school he has seen a number of results. These include greater attendance of the pupils; a decrease in bullying, in fact no bullying has been reported at all for the entire year; and an increase in academic results.
“The maths results overall have gone from 18% to 46% in two years,” said Mr Bing.
He believes this is all due to having a full-time physical education teacher in the school who runs the sessions with the pupils’ teacher, who can bargain with the children. “If they don’t get better academic results, they won’t be able to attend the phys-ed and sport specific sessions,” said Mr Bing.
Mr Bing appreciates the past kindness of the community who helped to fund the Astroturf and he is now appealing for their support with a project to renovate the kindergarten area. He also wants to make the children safer on the roads.
“The greatest number of children killed in the Western Cape is on our roads. I plan to work with the traffic department to teach these young children about road safety, road etiquette, and more,” he said.
Apart from replacing the current metal jungle gym with a wooden one and installing a sandpit, he wants to paint road markings indicating how to cross a road safely, directional arrows, zebra crossings and road signage.
Contact Brad Bing at brad@sportingchance.co.za or at 021 683 7299 for more information.
