Green Shoots is a South African education organisation founded in 2012 by two ex-teachers to design and implement sustainable, scalable & inclusive technology enabled education solutions.
Green Shoots targets primary school mathematics, because a focus on strong foundations in maths built in the lower years opens so many future opportunities for the learners.
Teachers and schools in South Africa face large primary classes of 45-60+ students, to which they have to deliver an overcrowded primary maths curriculum. It is almost impossible for teachers to mark and grade so many mathematics books every lesson. Hence teachers are not able to plan ongoing lessons to accommodate the current understanding and progress of their many learners.
Green Shoots offering consists of the GS Suite which are online tools for maths teaching & learning, ‘warmware’ which is a comprehensive and ongoing stakeholder implementation and integration support, and real-time, customised learner progress dashboards for all stakeholders from learners to education officials. The Maths Curriculum Online tool (part of the GS Suite) has twice weekly, online exercises mapped to the entire year’s curriculum. Learners get immediate feedback on their marks and teachers have a real-time summary of what learners know and don’t know.
In 2012, Green Shoot started supporting 16 primary schools. Now in 2020, Green Shoot has progressed and is currently supporting 398 schools, 171,888 learners and 4,056 teachers across three provinces.
Inclusivity is a core value that guides this solution. Green Shoot doesn’t have a ‘premium aspect’ for more economically advantaged schools. ALL schools get the best solution which is accessible with low or no connectivity, implementing an offline solution for school use, and on any device with the basic processing capacity, e.g. all browser enabled cell phones and not just smart phones. The schools that are successfully supported come from across the socio-economic & geographic scale. Green Shoot works with schools from rural farm schools (around 100 learners) to large urban township schools with more than 1200 learners.
