Affiliates

The Polyoak Packaging Group formed the Teachers Plus Foundation, a not-for-profit company and public benefit organisation, to offer practical solutions to South Africa’s education crisis. The Teachers Plus Foundation is based on the belief that education is a capacitating investment and a tool of empowerment. It seeks to invest in education and empower future teachers by offering scholarships to talented students from high-economic-need communities. By making it possible for these students to acquire the qualifications, support, and experience they need, Teachers Plus aims to produce outstanding teachers in the field of mathematics. The Teachers Plus Foundation supports these students in undertaking a distance-learning Bachelor of Education Degree and preparing them to become effective and professional mathematics teachers.

Teachers Plus and the NumberSense Mathematics Programme (since 2023)
The Brombacher & Associates team have partnered with Teachers Plus to provide training in mathematical content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. Based on the experience accrued over the years in the field of mathematics education, the Brombacher & Associates team lectures Teachers Plus students from each year group in all the mathematical content areas using the NumberSense Mathematics Programme to illustrate the learning trajectories across all content areas. The students also receive and work through the NumberSense Workbooks over the year. In this way, NumberSense seeks to empower the next generation of mathematics educators.

Established in 1995 to improve teaching and learning outcomes in language and mathematics in South Africa, the Zenex Foundation is an independent education grant maker. Zenex partners with government, service providers, and school communities to improve the teaching and learning outcomes of previously disadvantaged learners and schools across South Africa. To date, the Zenex Foundation has invested over R1,5 billion in the South African education sector and seeks to create an equitable and just education system by empowering young people within the education system.

Zenex and the NumberSense Mathematics Programme (2023-2024)

Zenex partnered with Brombacher & Associates between June 2023 and December 2024 to implement two in-school models in urban Quintile 1–3 schools in the Western Cape’s Metro South Education District. The purpose of this project was to research the most efficient and cost-effective model to address mathematics backlogs in Grade 4.

The two in-school models provided bespoke NumberSense Workbooks and mental mathematics booklets to all the participating schools. Furthermore, all the schools received termly training and assessment development support. The difference between the two models is that teachers in model one received weekly in-class coaching while model two omitted this.

The goal of the pilot was to compare the results of the two in-school intervention models. The study sought to understand whether in-class coaching is a necessary component with which to address learning backlogs. Depending on the results, the pilot will then be upscaled to the most effective model, thereby endeavouring to more effectively address learning backlogs within the education system.

JumpStart is an NPO with a background in youth development programmes. Their name, ‘JumpStart’, and credo – ‘Thinking it forward’, encompasses all that they do in order to give those less-privileged a decisive ‘jump-start’ through three essential keys to development: education, qualification and employment. Since 2002, it has run youth education, skills development and social entrepreneurial initiatives to sustainably empower South African youth. With origins in the ICT sector, the programme grew into an industry-accredited learning and employment programme that is known today as the JumpStart Software Labs.

Two key factors have had a dramatic effect on the success of the JumpStart Software Labs:

• The first came from the learners themselves. From early on, a culture of “Think It Forward” began to develop within the JumpStart Labs. Previous learners gave of their own time and new-found expertise to jump-start their peers and new recruits. This fostered a mentorship relationship amongst the learners which continues to this day.
• The second significant factor was the close partnership with private companies. The number of software engineers in South Africa is limited and the opportunity exists to grow this capacity with local resourcing. The JumpStart Engagement Model, a commercial service offering to the local economy, was initiated to fill the gap. Under private company mentorship, the learners took to the market with their new-found careers to deliver on real-world software solutions.

More recently, JumpStart has extended its programme into schools in the South African townships of Diepsloot, Eldorado Park, Soweto and the Underberg region of KZN. The emphasis here is on educational interventions to address the pre-requisite foundations in Numeracy and Computer Science. JumpStart then partnered with Aarnout Brombacher of Brombacher and Associates in using the NumberSense Mathematics Programme to address the area of numeracy.

JumpStart and the NumberSense Mathematics Programme (since 2011)

JumpStart has adopted the NumberSense Mathematics Programme as a vehicle for making a difference in the mathematical experiences of children in schools supported by JumpStart. Schools are supplied with workbooks for the children, appropriate training for the teachers and year-round, in-class and in-school support by a team of appropriately qualified and trained interns. We call these interns the ‘JumpStart Tutors’. The tutor is there to support the teachers in the NumberSense Mathematics Programme and to provide on-the-ground, quality assurance of the programme’s success. The tutors are often unemployed matriculants and JumpStarts aims to help develop their academic and career aspirations while they intern at JumpStart schools. In addition to the workbooks, training and support, the JumpMedia Labs and JumpStart Software Labs have partnered with Brombacher and Associates to develop both video and software support for the programme. This support will enable the programme to scale effectively.

The video materials will consist of short vignettes that deal with topics such as the importance of the development of number sense and the implementation of the NumberSense Mathematics Programme. These videos will offer support on how to use the workbooks effectively and discuss the role of the different features of the workbooks. Software that is currently being developed will assist the project manager to monitor the progress of the children in their workbooks at all schools and in so doing enable the project to deliver workbooks to children as they finish one workbook and need the next. Other software applications include management of annual testing and monitoring of progress suites. As connectivity in rural schools is not always possible, the NumberSense Mathematics Programme applications are made accessible via mobile tablet and iPad, enabling teachers and field workers to capture the information on site with immediate remote access and reporting.

Shikaya is a non-profit, civil society organisation that recognises the crucial role that teachers can play in deepening and strengthening South Africa’s democracy. As such, Shikaya supports the personal and professional development of teachers to create a South Africa in which young people in schools are inspired and supported to become responsible citizens and future leaders in our democracy, valuing diversity, human rights and peace.

Shikaya and the NumberSense Mathematics Programme (2014-2022)

Shikaya has partnered with Brombacher and Associates to provide in-class mathematics training to Foundation Phase teachers in schools across South Africa. As part of the project, NumberSense Workbooks are supplied to every Grade 1, 2 and 3 child in each school. Teacher support and training is provided alongside the distribution of the workbooks so that they are used in the best possible way. The mathematics teacher training project started in 2014 with 3 schools in the Central District in Cape Town and has rapidly grown to 12 schools: 8 in Cape Town, 2 in East London and 2 in Port Elizabeth. Key similarities between the project schools are that they are situated in low socio-economic areas and have teachers that are eager to learn. Each Grade 1, 2 and 3 teacher is visited weekly in their classroom by a coach who instructs the teacher in their mathematics teaching.

Brombacher and Associates enjoyed the positive relationship with Shikaya and trust that their combined efforts helped to improve the standard of mathematics education in the Foundation Phase across South Africa.