The Bertha Centre partnered with Dr Allistair Witten, founding director of the Centre for the Community School at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and the Western Cape Government’s After School Game Changer Initiative, to conceptualise and run the pilot of the Leading Innovative Partnerships in Extended Education (LIPEE) course in 2017. The course has since run once a year and is aimed at developing high-quality innovative and collaborative relationships between key stakeholders within the educational ecosystem. The purpose of sustaining and leading these partnerships well is to build a coherent system of holistic learning and teaching support across the extended school day.

Within the South African educational sector there are many social purpose organisations carrying out important and impactful work in and around schools to support the holistic development of learners in the face of these challenges. Their contributions, though important and necessary, often sit on the periphery of the school's activities and are not integrated into its core operational plans or that of the educational district. In situations like these, the effects of programmatic interventions become diluted, and the sustainability of the work is affected negatively.

In many instances, the leadership and management of schools are eager to develop the technical capacity required to effectively understand and embrace the contributions of organisations that have demonstrated a positive impact. The key outcome should then be to develop these key relationships and integrate them into formal teaching and learning across the extended school day (during and after existing school hours). This is the key focus of the LIPEE course, which builds on the Centre's systems innovation and entrepreneurship experience and research.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?\ ● School leaders, like principals or members of the school management team, accompanied by entry-level teachers\ ● Social purpose organisations supporting education and government officials at district and circuit level.

We intend to host this course again in 2021.

Please sign up to the Education Innovation newsletter to be kept updated.