Description
Jonathan Jansen goes back to school: to the Cape Flats high school next door to where he grew up.
After learning that the school got the worst matric results in the Western Cape in 2023, Jansen signed up to help out. He spent two years in the principal’s office, teaching some of the science subjects and getting to the bottom of extreme pressures bearing down on teachers and pupils, for whom it was impossible to leave the trauma of broken families and violent crime at the school gate.
With his characteristic warmth and insight, Jansen takes readers inside chaotic classrooms as he works alongside teachers to reverse years of decline. He exposes the complex web of low expectations, dysfunctional organisational culture and bureaucratic interference that keeps underperforming schools trapped in failure while setting in motion practical shifts that spark real change.
