A new school focusing on skills for youngsters in Wellington will bring much relief to parents in the Drakenstein Valley.
The Wellington School of Skills Centre, formerly known as the Wellington Youth Care Centre, is a safe learning environment for learners with special needs who are not coping in mainstream schools.
These learners are identified in the mainstream schools by a screening identification assessment support process, before they are referred to a school of skills facility.
According to the acting principal Dorothea Albanie, who has 37 years of teaching experience, the Wellington Youth Care Centre closed its doors at the end of 2016. The Wellington Youth Care Centre was known as the industrial school for children who had previously clashed with the law or was in need of care.
Albanie said: “The MEC for Education in the Western Cape has transformed the buildings of the Wellington Youth Care Centre and staff to a skills school. On 1 February the first learners and their parents were welcomed to our school during an orientation session.”
She explained that one of the main goals of the school is to focus on the school’s life skills and to take care of the personal and social well being of the learner.
The study learning areas for the 31 learners being offered by 15 teachers are Afrikaans Home Language, English First Additional Language, Mathematics and Life Skills.
Each learner will also do two technical workshops selected from Arts and Crafts, Woodworking, Welding and Metalwork, Hospitality Studies and Mixed Farming.
But for Albanie and her team, their future plans are to reach out to the community by offering various programmes.
“A word of thanks to the community of Wellington for their support in the past (1966-2016).
“We trust by the end of this year to have 120 entries and to build a positive working relationship with the community,” says Albanie.
