Homework Club

We've not posted much about The Gathering's Homework Club for a while, despite posting loads of stuff about the Soup Kitchen, so here's an update on things....

As the school year winds towards the end we've had a few kids drop out of the Homework Club.  Some have moved away from Firgrove and some just think they're too cool for school.

Homework Club

Thursday saw our last two Homework Club sessions of 2017 and each of our kids have done themselves proud.

We've had some great feedback from some of their families and hearing how certain kids have increased their maths grades from 1s to 5s and above is fantastic.

Also learning that none of our kids are repeating the year is also great news, especially for one young lad who has been stuck in Gr4 for three years!

Reopening Homework Club

This is a post that is far too long overdue (thanks for nothing Covid!) but is exciting nonetheless.

At The Gathering we had to close our Homework Club down back in March 2020 as the initial lockdown began, and due to a number of issues we have only just been in a position in which we could set about reopening it whilst also doing our best to ensure that the children attending are as safe as possible.

Tablets For Homework Club

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28

Sometimes it's hard to fully grasp the reality of this scripture, especially in the midst of difficult and trying circumstances.

Showcasing Homework Club

We've had the honour of hosting a few visitors at The Gathering's Homework Club over the last few days and it's always a joy to talk about it and to share our story and how we got to where we are now.

It's been quite a journey from not having a clue what the Homework Club would look like to now being a growing and confident outfit, and we're always happy to share the journey with others.

2018 Gets Going

Finally, 2018 gets going.

The New Year is a strange thing out here in that it falls in the middle of the summer holidays, with industry shutting down for a few weeks, so most people don't go back to work until the second week of January. Schools only went back last week and so The Gathering's Homework Club only just started this week and won't do a full week until next week.

Wednesday and Thursday were brilliant as The gathering's Homework Club kicked off again and welcomed 11 new kids and 21 returnees. The Homework Club is full now and we have quite a waiting list which is great.

Having learnt a few lessons last year, we started the year with a few ground rules and boundaries which seemed to go well, I guess time will tell.  The big difference though is that we now have eight kids per session so Precious (our facilitator) can't sit down, so she was constantly walking around the table and that kept things a lot more orderly.

Homework Club Awards Ceremony

This is a week overdue but it was great to celebrate another fantastic year of The Gathering's Homework Club last Friday 23rd as we held our now annual Awards Ceremony.

It's always a joy to celebrate the kids achievements and to show their families just how well they're doing, and some of our kids are doing incredibly well.

Homework Club

We are thrilled that The Gathering's Homework Club has restarted. 

It's actually in its second week of the new school year and already we're full with quite a long waiting list.

We also have quite a lot of Gr7s from the local primary school asking to join so we are going to have to look at ways of accommodating them too. What a brilliant problem to have!

Disjointed Week

It's been a funny old week.

It has been a week of small jobs and disjointed routine, but somehow in the midst of that it has also been quite satisfying. I'll explain the disjointed bit up top...Paula is now in Spain for some valuable time with her big Sis & family, she left on Wednesday and her penance for abandoning us was 34 hours of travelling 😂. So I'm attempting to impersonate Super Dad for a couple of weeks but I'm not very good at impersonations.

Homework Club

After many months of planning and preparing, we were able to unleash our excitement as we launched The Gathering's Homework Club yesterday.

We are running two sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays from 3pm - 4pm and 4:30pm - 5:30pm serving 6 children per session (12 in total) and we already have a waiting list too!

The sessions began with a sandwich and drink before the kids were finally able to get to grips with the tablets. They've been longing for this moment for a while and the joy and excitement was palpable.

It was a hectic afternoon as we grappled with teething issues and just generally figured out how it is going to work in real time, but despite the stresses involved in all of it, it was a fantastic afternoon!

Homework Club

After a day of Homework Club admin, it's great to have 32 letters about to be delivered to various families in Firgrove telling them that their kid has secured a place for 2018.

It's been a great journey since we set out in January last year with 12 kids and not really knowing what the Homework Club would look like.  Here we are a whole twelve months later and we're setting off with 32 kids and looking to expand it to 48 sooner rather than later.

Please stand with us in prayer as we believe that The Gathering will grow through this outreach into the community.

Homework Club

Hot on the heels of gaining our NPO registration we've had a great morning meeting with Green Shoots to talk about and plan for our Homework Club starting in the new school year in January. We'll be using their Maths@Home programme which is very exciting.

We're clear on our hardware needs and hope to have this all sorted in the next couple of weeks, we've got our internet connection sorted, so now we need to identify our facilitator, get some training in place and sort a few policy and admin procedures.

In the next few weeks we'll also start identifying which of the kids that come to our weekly Soup Kitchen will be best served by joining the Homework Club and then we'll be ready to rock n' roll in January.

Please do join us in praying for God's provision in every way.

Thank you LORD!

Homework Club 2019

It was great to see The Gathering's Homework Club back up and running on Wednesday & Thursday this week, and it promises to be another great year.

The kids were really buzzing about the restart with many of them hanging around The Gathering for a day or two prior to the restart and it was great to welcome so many familiar faces back and to meet a whole load of new ones..

The late start was due to it taking a while to find the right person to be our Facilitator, but once Marie was appointed the final admin went in to full swing to get everything ready, and it was so good to be back doing what we love.

Homework Club Party

We had so much fun at The Gathering's end of year party for our Maths@Home Homework club on Friday.

22 kids were eager to get in with a few siblings and friends trying to slip in too, but we managed to contain the numbers.

To Be Continued...

It was with a little tinge of sadness that we served our last Soup Kitchen in The Gathering's current home. although we're not officially in our new home until the 1st of July we'll be serving next week's Soup Kitchen from there.

The sadness however is far outweighed by the sense of excitement, not just amongst The Gathering's members but our Soup Kitchen regulars are seemingly just as excited. As we were telling the guys about next week they all told us that they already knew about our move, which means the local grapevine is working well.

We also hosted our last Homework Club for this term and the kids were a little gutted to realise that it won't be running during the school holiday. We're definitely sensing an opportunity for some kind of holiday club in the Summer holidays.

A Random Post

Here are a few random photos from the last week or two which I wanted to post but didn't get around to.

The first couple are of our Soup Kitchen which is growing massively now that winter is here. The fact that we were regularly feeding 40+ people through summer was quite something, but now we're feeding 70+ and still more new people are coming each week.

Green Shoots 5th Birthday

Paula & I had the privilege of attending Green Shoots 5th Birthday Celebration last night.

For those that haven't kept up, our Homework Club at The Gathering runs Green Shoots Maths@Home online programme.

Our Homework Club is a complete joy to run and as an extra privilege last night I was asked to share a little about the impact Green Shoots has had on our learners and the wider community.

Unfolding Tragedy

Please pray for Firgrove and more specifically her children.

Late last year we found out that two of The Gathering's Homework Club kids are leaders of rival gangs. Initially we found this quite amusing given the diminutive stature of said kids and the fact that they're only about 10 or 11 years old.

Heartbreaking

As The Gathering's Homework Club runs down the last few weeks of the final term, we uncovered a tragic truth today that is also a damning indictment on the South African education system, but which also underlines why as The Gathering we want and need to take possession of the building we currently Gather in so we can better serve our community.

Maths @ Home Presentation

We were thrilled to welcome Mark from Green Shoots to The Gathering on Wednesday night to give a presentation on their Maths@Home project which we will be running from January.

This followed an excellent evening last Wednesday of visiting the homes of many kids who attend our weekly Soup Kitchen. The response from their families was brilliant and that was reflected in the turnout for last night.