Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Starting a low-fee private school? Hear from Spark's Stacey Brewer and their 10-year journey.
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Starting a low-fee private school? Hear from Spark's Stacey Brewer and their 10-year journey.
Around the Table with George Eadie is a podcast dedicated to telling stories of success and scale relevant to the South African Education system.
Here we speak with Stacey Brewer the courageous and wildly competent leader who has led Spark to where it is today with 24 schools and 15,000 learners. Have you ever thought about starting a school? This podcast is for you.
In the conversation, we speak about the pros and cons of incorporating as a for-profit versus a not-for-profit entity. We go into the learning model and how this model was a departure from the norm of what made a good school in South Africa 10 years ago, but which soon became the point of difference for Spark enough to drive tremendous interest and demand in the market for the schools.
Stacey and her team have engaged intimately with the benefits and limitations of technology along the way.
She shares how Covid was a truly tough time for the school where collections dried up, without a 'big brother' government element, it was stressful. However, despite this, the deep alignment between the school leadership and the funders as to the position this school holds in society allowed it to navigate those times and last much longer and scale further than any non-profit equivalent schools that were started at a similar time.
Stacey also speaks about their commitment to teacher professional development at over 200 hours a year per teacher to underpin the academic standards of the school.
00:00 Introduction
02:16 What was the founding story, how did it start?
04:45 Rationale for non-profit versus for-profit business models for schools?
13:10 Spark's Fly assemblies, culture, core values, and Spark Creed.
15:03 Learning Model.
19:25 Social and Emotional Learning & Character Development.
19:45 Use of Technology.
23:00 Helping parents understand the new model.
24:50 Big turning points and hardest moments along the way?
27:35 Future Outlook.
30:55 Learning about learning, & teacher professional development
33:30 How does SA solve the schooling and teacher supply crisis?
35:30 Cost to open an SA school versus Spark school.
36:45 Advice for someone starting out creating a school.
39:25 Final comments open to shared learning
View all episodes
By The Answer SeriesAround the Table with George Eadie is a podcast dedicated to telling stories of success and scale relevant to the South African Education system.
Here we speak with Stacey Brewer the courageous and wildly competent leader who has led Spark to where it is today with 24 schools and 15,000 learners. Have you ever thought about starting a school? This podcast is for you.
In the conversation, we speak about the pros and cons of incorporating as a for-profit versus a not-for-profit entity. We go into the learning model and how this model was a departure from the norm of what made a good school in South Africa 10 years ago, but which soon became the point of difference for Spark enough to drive tremendous interest and demand in the market for the schools.
Stacey and her team have engaged intimately with the benefits and limitations of technology along the way.
She shares how Covid was a truly tough time for the school where collections dried up, without a 'big brother' government element, it was stressful. However, despite this, the deep alignment between the school leadership and the funders as to the position this school holds in society allowed it to navigate those times and last much longer and scale further than any non-profit equivalent schools that were started at a similar time.
Stacey also speaks about their commitment to teacher professional development at over 200 hours a year per teacher to underpin the academic standards of the school.
00:00 Introduction
02:16 What was the founding story, how did it start?
04:45 Rationale for non-profit versus for-profit business models for schools?
13:10 Spark's Fly assemblies, culture, core values, and Spark Creed.
15:03 Learning Model.
19:25 Social and Emotional Learning & Character Development.
19:45 Use of Technology.
23:00 Helping parents understand the new model.
24:50 Big turning points and hardest moments along the way?
27:35 Future Outlook.
30:55 Learning about learning, & teacher professional development
33:30 How does SA solve the schooling and teacher supply crisis?
35:30 Cost to open an SA school versus Spark school.
36:45 Advice for someone starting out creating a school.
39:25 Final comments open to shared learning