Introduction
The Base Ten Thinking Project arose out of research carried out by the First Rand Foundation Wits Maths Chair which showed that Grade 3 learners were not attaining the mathematical competencies required. Specifically, learners were not progressing from stick counting to calculating and reasoning, which is facilitated through the development of Base Ten capabilities. Having been successfully piloted in 10 Foundation Phase schools in Gauteng, the Project was implemented on a larger scale with Zenex Foundation funding.
Project Description
The scaled-up Project in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) involved 113 schools, 15,430 Grade 2 learners, and 130 Subject Advisors (SAs) and Departmental Heads (DHs). The focus was on training and coaching support for teachers, and the provision of learner workbooks and teacher guides. The Wits team used different training models for each province: In Gauteng, the Team trained SAs and DHs who thereafter supported teachers via the ‘train-the-trainer’ model; whereas in KZN teachers received direct training with further onsite support from Wits team-trained SAs and DHs.
Evaluation Findings
The evaluation was conducted by Eric Schollar & Associates between 2021 and 2023, focusing on fidelity, uptake and impact factors.
Fidelity:
- Training and coaching were incomplete in relation to the intervention design, impacting negatively on outcomes;
- A significant number of teachers and DHs only entered the Project in the second year, affecting attendance rates and the number of coach visits;
- Cascading never occurred in Gauteng as teachers and not the DHs and SAs (as per the ‘train the trainer’ model) attended the training sessions;
- Teacher substitution at training sessions had a negative impact;
- All participants received the training resource material: the most successful aspect of the intended outcomes.
Uptake of the Project:
- Positive response to materials across the board with regular use;
- Basic structures of the programme were used, with most teachers reporting seeing improvements in comprehension;
- DHs found the training more useful than the teachers;
- Gauteng Teachers viewed the teacher manuals and learner workbooks more positively than those in KZN (possibly because the manual had not been sufficiently tailored to the KZN context);
- The 15 minutes allocated per worksheet was insufficient and could have been doubled. As a result, the completion of the 107 worksheets was not achieved.
Impact on Learner Performance:
- Learner performance data showed no positive impact on learner performance;
- In Gauteng, learner performance both in Control and Project schools remained the same;
- In KZN Control schools showed a sharp decline, while Project schools remained the same;
- A more favourable result would have been achieved had input (training and coaching) and the throughput (finishing the entire workbook) been comprehensively implemented.
Conclusion
The Base Ten Thinking Project is aligned with the Zenex 2015 strategic priority of improving mathematics outcomes and mitigating learner backlogs. Whilst the piloted project worked well in 10 schools, advancing the Project to a provincial level never yielded the desired results. This Evaluation Report enables Zenex to produce a Learning Brief where the lessons, including constraints and opportunities, learnt through this and other related projects, will be summarised. Key amongst these lessons is the guideline that implementation of a project as intended is crucial to the outcome, as is a realistic timeframe for learners to complete tasks assigned.