Children in areas such as Lavender Hill in Cape Town are exposed to gang shootings on a regular basis. Photo: David Harrison
Zanemfundo Primary School in Philippi, on the Cape Flats, recently saw a group of armed men storming the school and demanding protection money. Teachers and children were traumatised by the event and many refused to come back to school.
Incidents like these are not uncommon at many South African schools. In gangster-ridden areas, violence on school property is a regular occurrence.
“Before we built the wall, we had gang shootings here at the school twice or maybe three times a week,” says the principal of Levana Primary School, Shamiegh Charity.
She had to secure private funding of R7.9 million to erect an extra-high wall around the school in Lavender Hill, outside Cape Town, to protect learners and teachers. Since the wall was built, there have been no more incidents of violence on school property. But last year, a learner was shot dead on a street corner right outside the school.
In many low-income areas, children might be safe at school but they are at risk of all kinds of violence, neglect and abuse in their homes. Trauma is a reality for most South African children. It is estimated that, by the age of 17, six in every 10 children will have experienced a traumatic event.
In addition, statistics show that an estimated 13 million children live in poverty. Of the matric class of 2024, 79% were recipients of social grants, with 35 200 receiving the foster child grant.
The effect of trauma on the learning brain is significant. “When someone experiences trauma, their brain goes into fight, flight or freeze mode. If this trauma is ongoing in childhood, the cortical part of the brain is not able to develop properly. This impacts on behaviour, as well as learning,” says Judy Strickland, founder of the Hope House Counselling Centre.
“The limbic and survival brain are engaged and on red alert but the thinking parts of the brain, the cortex and prefrontal cortex, are disengaged to the detriment of normal.”
Strickland describes a desperate situation for many schools. “Instead of being safe places of nurturing, learning and human development, many SA schools instead hold up a distressing mirror to their surrounding communities. These are beset with poverty, crime, gangsterism, substance abuse and other mental health issues — all of which traumatise people”.
It can come as little surprise that, according to the 2024 matric results, almost 50% of learners who started in grade one had dropped out of school along the way.
Strickland and others have called for awareness around designating schools as “trauma-informed”. Once a school is trauma-informed, it can look at special training for teachers, a more holistic experience for learners — and improved academic outcomes as well.
As a trauma-informed school, Christel House in Ottery, Cape Town, trains teachers in neuroscience, the scientific study of brain chemistry. This training emphasises how strategic activation of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, endorphins and oxytocin can significantly reduce the debilitating effects of trauma on children.
As examples of how the training works, it has young women like Aluta M, who was the school’s top matric in 2024. She was once living on the streets of Gugulethu with two unemployed parents and a constant fear for her safety and where her next meal would come from.
“Brains can adapt and they can change for the better,” says educational expert Eric Jensen.
He has done years of research into the subject. It comes down to teachers becoming the responsible, caring and motivational adults that these children, regrettably, often do not have at home.
I have seen first-hand that, to improve academic results, you need to open more than a child’s mind — you need to open their hearts. This means providing an extended, more inclusive educational package of which academics is only one part.
Providing a supportive environment means ensuring a child is fed, clothed, has safe transport to school, counselling if needed, and a social worker to address urgent issues at home. Most importantly, they need adults they can trust and such relationships take time and effort to build.
To break the cycle of poverty, the school has to be seen as, and function as, a caring community. It is all worthwhile when children go on to qualify as doctors and lawyers and credit their school with making it possible.
The school becomes more than an academic facility, it becomes a haven and a refuge for children who need to feel safe before they can learn. The model works and we need more schools to understand that, if they want their academic results to improve, they need to look after the psychological well-being of their children too.
Ronald Fortune is the chief academic officer at Christel House South Africa, a nonprofit, no-fee school that has had a 98% matric pass rate average over the past five years.
