Transforming leadership and schools, the Principals Academy Trust is a beacon of hope

Imagine a school principal, often working in isolation, facing a myriad challenges in under-resourced communities. Now, imagine them having a dedicated mentor, an experienced former principal, who offers not just advice, but a supportive space to reflect, strategise and grow, all while maintaining accountability. This is the essence of the Principals Academy Trust (PAT). Founded in 2012, PAT has emerged as a significant change-maker empowering school leaders in marginalised communities to convert schools into beacons of hope and learning.

PAT was born out of the recognition that effective educational leadership and management are the most critical factors in improving learners’ performance, particularly in communities grappling with the devastating effects of deeply unequal education and racial discrimination.

Rick Haw, a University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB) alumnus, together with Bruce Probyn, a distinguished retired principal with 27 years of experience, and educationist Alan Clarke, identified a shortage of leadership development and business principles in the education arena.

In response, they established a trust that collaborated with the UCT GSB to design a leadership programme that mentors principals on how to transform their schools.

“In 2013, we launched a programme that welcomed principals from marginalised communities in the Western Cape. These principals were coached by retired school leaders, including myself, over a three-year period,” said Probyn.

“During their second year, they attended a specially designed programme at the GSB which taught them to think differently about schooling and was tailored specifically for school principals.”

Proven results 

Daily Maverick visited Thembani Primary School in Langa, Cape Town, where Probyn works with principal Joyce Ngezana. Ngezana credits PAT with helping her lead the school, making it a clean, inspiring and healthy environment for learners.

“The mentoring and my wellbeing are very important. That is something that I have learnt from them. When you are a principal sitting in here, it’s a very lonely place. It’s a very cold place. So, when you see somebody coming with such assistance, it brightens your day.

“My mentor does not impose his ideas on me, but he listens. For the past two years, we’ve been doing great. Our results have improved very well. So, it is not only what we are doing as a school, as teachers, but it is through the support that we are receiving,” said Ngezana.

Learners at the school receive a meal every day, and the school hosts events to improve the learning of pupils.

Lethu Yeko, a Grade 2 teacher at the school, said, “This is a free school; we encourage each other to do good. It is fun and peaceful.”

Schools under siege 

PAT has supported more than 350 principals across 310 schools in the Western Cape, predominantly serving communities burdened by socioeconomic hardships.

Probyn drew a stark portrait of these communities: “We work in the Western Cape, in places that we’ve all heard of for the wrong reasons …  gangsterism … poverty, unemployment, teenage pregnancy, drugs — all of those are present in all of our schools.”

Probyn said gangsterism in the communities had increased significantly, an assertion supported by news reports and police statistics. Assaults, robberies and even murders have been reported on school premises, with hundreds of gang-related cases reported annually in the education sector.

Read more: Havens of havoc — the alarming rise of violence in South African schools

Probyn said, “I was in a school yesterday [when] the principal answered the phone and said, ‘I see they’re shooting around the school now. When you go out, don’t go along that road.’

“The other issue is the large class size, and that’s getting worse. When we started, the class size was 32; it then jumped up to 40 and now, in reality, we’ve got schools that have got class sizes that are 50 to 55, so that is a massive ongoing problem, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to easily change because of the constraints of funding.”

Small Wins

PAT's vision is clear: to enable school leadership teams to create a sustainable, positive culture that supports effective education.

Jeremy Gibbon, the executive director at PAT, explained that one of the challenges principals face is that when they are appointed, there is no formal requirement for additional training to prepare them for the role.

“That would be utterly unheard of in any other large organisation or company around the world. Nobody would appoint a leader of a company or a large organisation without that person having been through some training,” said Gibbon.

This is why the development of the Principals Management Development Programme (PMDP) at the UCT GSB was such an important innovation, he said.

At the heart of PAT’s model is the belief that effective school leadership begins with personal mastery. This helps principals build self-awareness, emotional intelligence and strategic thinking.

Led by Mike Abrams at the UCT GSB, the Personal Mastery programme boosts principals’ confidence and deepens their understanding of their roles, fostering more empathetic and effective leadership.

Complementing personal mastery, PAT promotes systems thinking as a vital problem-solving approach, guiding leaders away from quick fixes toward lasting, sustainable solutions. It also applies Karl Weick’s “Small Wins” concept to help principals manage challenges without becoming overwhelmed.

Probyn recalled how the “Small Wins” concept helped transform a school in Mitchells Plain, a gang-infested community.

“The new principal said, ‘No shouting in the foyer.’ And they worked on that. Then there was no shouting in classrooms, no shouting on the playground ... it was a massive ripple effect.”

Another example involved senior girls who were missing school because of a lack of hygiene products. Inspired by leadership at the school, “They raised funds to provide hygiene products ... and then spread this to other schools.”

Wisdom from retired principals 

Gibbon said another crucial element of PAT was the mentorship provided by retired school principals to current school principals.

“There are very few leaders of big organisations who don’t have a dedicated mentor or coach who’s working with them. A key part of our strategy is using the expertise and wisdom of retired school principals to support current school principals. They spend an hour or two every two weeks over a three-year period, mentoring and coaching new principals, and it’s a profound impact that those coaches have on the experience and just the capacity of the principals in action,” he said.

PAT measures its impact by utilising quantitative and qualitative indicators. The data tell a compelling story of success. PAT schools, on average, show strong gains in systemic and matric results, consistently outperforming provincial and national trends.

Before the Covid-19 disruption, primary schools with PAT-mentored principals improved by an average of 20.2% on PAT’s Performance Index, and secondary schools with PAT-mentored principals saw a 16.4% increase in university-entrance matric passes, significantly outpacing the provincial average increase of 5.8%.

In 2023, 11 PMDP-alumni schools received provincial Top Ten and Top Five awards for academic excellence.

Beyond academic results, PAT monitors nine critical development areas for functional schools, including delegating, teaching and learning, planning, and demonstrating holistic systemic change and a more positive school culture.

A powerful example

The impact of PAT extends beyond schools. More than 10% of PMDP alumni have been promoted to circuit managers at the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), overseeing more than 20 schools. These alumni bring an unequalled understanding of the education ecosystem to their new roles, extending PAT’s ripple effect to a district level.

Principals also form a vital peer network, sharing issues, experiences and advice, building a community that continues to interact long after the programme.

PAT’s mission is significantly amplified by strong partnerships. The Capitec Foundation has been a key sponsor of the PMDP since 2013. The WCED is another crucial partner, offering ongoing support and guidance. Other partners include DataDrive2030 and Huddle Education.

Celebrating a decade of impact 

PAT was recently honoured with the prestigious Excellence in Practice Award from the European Foundation for Management Development. Gibbon said this was a powerful recognition of the impact PAT had made over the past decade.

“We have had countless coaches and school principals come through the programme. The award, and the case study documenting the collaboration between the Graduate School of Business and the Principals Academy, tells a story of meaningful impact in extremely difficult circumstances. None of these schools serve wealthy or well-resourced communities; these are challenging environments, and achieving sustained change there is no easy feat,” he said.

“It’s humbling to see what principals achieve despite profound adversity, from shootings near schools to lack of basic materials,” said Probyn.

In communities grappling with immense challenges, PAT’s mentorship and leadership training have proven to be a game-changer for many schools. PAT empowers principals not only to survive but to thrive, creating a ripple effect that elevates academic results and fosters a culture of hope and safety within their schools. DM