Barefoot Days/Kaalvoetpret and CAPS

After completing our Barefoot Days or Kaalvoetpret curriculum, we thought it would be interesting to see how they compared to the CAPS requirements for Grades R-3. Footprints has never attempted to follow CAPS. We believe:

If you teach your children the three R’s and just read enough books to your children, and live an interesting life, working and playing, in relationship with one another, you can EASILY cover everything required by state education policies and more!

Deon Louw, Deputy Director from the Department of Basic Education in the Western Cape has repeatedly stated:

“Parents are allowed to make use of any curriculum which is not inferior to CAPS and which may include any online support.”

So, how do Barefoot Days and Kaalvoetpret compare with the requirements of the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) or Kurrikulum- en Assesseringbeleidsverklaring (KABV) in Afrikaans?

On examination of the CAPS document for Life Skills in the Foundation Phase (Grades R-3), we were pleasantly surprised to see that Barefoot Days and Kaalvoetpret are well-aligned with the topics prescribed by CAPS. It was actually very surprising to discover how many of the prescribed topics our programmes cover! The other two subjects that CAPS requires are Language Skills and Math, which we won’t discuss in this article.

What are Life Skills?

CAPS describes life skills (and we would agree) as being “central to the holistic development of learners. It is concerned with the social, personal, intellectual, emotional and physical growth of learners, and with the way in which these are integrated.”

In the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) the subject Life Skills in Foundation Phase (Grades R-3) has been organised into the following study areas:
Beginning Knowledge, Personal and Social Well-being, Creative Arts and Physical Education. 

We will describe these in more detail shortly. The CAPS document states:

“Through Life Skills learners are exposed to a range of knowledge, skills and values that strengthen their 

• physical, social, personal, emotional and cognitive development; 
• creative and aesthetic skills and knowledge through engaging in dance, music, drama and visual art activities; 
• knowledge of personal health and safety; 
• understanding of the relationship between people and the environment;
• awareness of social relationships, technological processes and elementary science“

One of the most important roles of the teacher, or in this case, you, the parent, is “to provide learners with an environment that is safe, clean and caring, with adequate opportunities to play and explore the world under the careful guidance of their teacher. The teacher should provide:

• routine, structured and free play activities for learners that are enjoyable and manageable; 
• a range of resources for routine, structured and free play activities; 
• a well-managed, child-friendly and freely accessible environment. 

All Foundation Phase learners, but Grade R learners in particular, should not be stuck in chairs behind desks all morning. They rather need comfortable spaces with blankets and cushions and workspaces with chairs and tables in which they can play, work and move around freely.” [our emphasis in bold]

YES! Don’t try to replicate a classroom at home. Classrooms are seldom ideal for learning!

“Generally the Foundation Phase timetable consists of routine activities, free play activities indoors and outdoors, and structured activities. Routine and free play activities have been built into the Life Skills CAPS document because they usually involve learners in physical education or health education.” [our emphasis in bold]

This means that when you are going about your daily routines in the home, when you are training your children to dress, to tidy up, to make beds, pack away toys, to practice good hygiene, when you train them in good manners and respect AND when they are playing freely, you are meeting the requirements of the national curriculum. It all counts as learning. It is all vital for your children’s education and well-being. Do NOT only count structured activities and learning from books as education. Your conversations too, your warnings to avoid danger, to explain things you encounter in nature, out in traffic, out in public all count. These are all teaching moments. This is holistic education, not just textbook-based learning. In fact, any curriculum, without YOU, would be likely to fail in some measure. The moment-by-moment teaching, guidance and discipline of a loving parent is essential for the healthy, holistic development of your child. A classroom teacher can never replicate the long-term love relationship that you already have with your child!

Don’t underestimate your importance in your child’s education.

Also, don’t underestimate the power of free play. We love the saying: “Play is the work of childhood.” There is scientific research to prove that this is absolutely essential for good brain development in young children.

Physical skills learned and practised during free play, support the learning in the two study areas of Physical Education and Creative Arts, according to the CAPS document. Their examples of free play activities include: 

Free play inside	Free play outside
Free art (painting, drawing, modelling)	Water (and mud) play
Tearing, cutting	Sand play
Pasting	Sensory play
Fine motor activities (pencil grip activities, tongs, tweezers, puzzles, threading, weaving etc.)	Gross motor play (climbing, swinging, balancing etc.)
Sand box	Block play
Fantasy play	Ball play
Book area	Wheel toys
Discovery areas (interest table, matching/sorting cards; sensory activities)	Construction
Music area	Gardening
Writing area	Caring for animals
Block play	Outside art activities

In contrast to free play, structured activities are short teaching and learning activities, often guided by the teacher/parent. These are provided in the Barefoot Days and Kaalvoetpret programmes.

“Perceptual Skills
The development of perceptual skills in young learners is extremely important in laying a foundation for all future development and learning. Perception means using the senses to acquire information about the surroundings, environment or situation. The development of perceptual skills potentially occurs throughout all learning.“

The activities in Barefoot Days/Kaalvoetpret cover all the following, which are listed in the CAPS document:

Don’t stress if you don’t exactly know what these are. In our “Mommy-manual” we offer plenty of explanations about why and how to encourage the development of all the skills your children need. We provide activities, exercises, games and crafts that stimulate and improve these skills.

The CAPS document requires 6 hours per week to be allocated to Life Skills per week in Grades R-2 and 7 hours per week in Grade 3. If we consider that your children are awake and learning these skills with you all day long as well as enjoying free play, which is prescribed, then you can relax knowing that as home educators, you will easily meet and exceed that requirement.

An important note on Topics. The CAPS document states:

“Topics
Beginning Knowledge and Personal and Social Well-being in the Life Skills curriculum are organised in topics. The use of topics is suggested as a means to integrate the content from the different study areas where possible and appropriate. Teachers are encouraged to adapt the topics so that they are suitable for their school contexts. Teachers are also encouraged to choose their own topics should they judge these to be more appropriate.” [our emphasis in bold]

While possibly as many as 90% of the topics in Barefoot Days match those suggested in the CAPS document, they don’t have to. Also, as we recommend, you can explore any other (related or unrelated) topics that may arise and interest your children. Children are naturally curious and we encourage you to explore their questions and find answers together.

“A suggested order for the topics is provided as one of the important principles of early childhood education is to begin with what is familiar to the learner and introduce less familiar topics and skills later.”

Barefoot Days and Kaalvoetpret were created with this view in mind, as illustrated by our diagram below. 

And yes, we have chosen our own topics and adapted the topics suggested in the CAPS document to the home education context, which the CAPS document encourages. The few topics in the CAPS document that our programme does not cover are things that you will most likely naturally talk about with your children as you go through daily life, for example how food is stored, how to avoid danger in the home (electricity, fire, medicines, poisonous substances etc.)

In addition, we include a host of topics that are NOT suggested by CAPS, such as music appreciation, poetry for kids, learning about insects and other creepy crawlie animals, the art of great masters, art and culture from the African continent, traditional dances and famous landmarks of the world, to name a few. Barefoot Days and Kaalvoetpret go above and beyond the CAPS requirements, giving you and your child a mutually enriching programme.

As a mother you will learn more about parenting, child training and home education as well as learning about all the other interesting things that your children will be learning!

The table below is a summary of the topics recommended in the CAPS document. Remember that they are suggested topics and may be changed by the teacher and also that the sequence of the topics can be changed. Therefore, we as home educators, do not have to follow their guidelines to the letter! In the CAPS documents, the same topics are revisited in each subsequent grade, until Grade 3, in the same order each term, but with greater detail or depth, or some variation of the topic, to suit the maturity of the learners.

This sort of age-appropriate flexibility is built into our home education programmes too. You may, but we don’t expect you to repeat the same lessons year by year. We offer other much-loved, tried-and-tested learning materials that will extend and stimulate your children’s learning in the years ahead!

To show you how Barefoot Days/Kaalvoetpret and CAPS recommendations compare, we have summarised the topics for each term in the table below and ticked the topics that Barefoot Days and Kaalvoetpret also cover, although they might not be approached in the exact same way or the same sequence.

CAPS	BAREFOOT DAYS/KAALVOETPRET
Beginning Knowledge and Personal and Social Well-Being
Term 1	Term 1
Me	✅
At school	The homeschool
In the classroom	The home
Days of the week	(Moms usually teach this anyway)
My body	✅
Summer	✅
Shapes and colours around us	✅
Festivals and special days	(Families celebrate these as they see fit)
Term 2	Term 2
Home	✅
Safety	(Moms usually teach this anyway)
My family	✅
Weather	✅
Autumn	✅
Sound	✅
Sight	✅
Touch	✅
Taste and smell	✅
Festivals and special days	(Families celebrate these as they see fit)
Term 3	Term 3
Winter	✅
Transport	✅
Jobs people do	✅
Water	✅
Fruit	✅
Vegetables	✅
Dairy farming	Chicken farming
Wool farming	Farm animals
Healthy environment	(Moms usually teach this anyway)
Festivals and special days	(Families celebrate these as they see fit)
Term 4	Term 4
Spring	✅
Birds	✅
Reptiles	✅
Dinosaurs	Insects and creepy crawlies, pets
Wild animals	✅
Finding out about one wild animal	The Big 5, The Small 5, Your local 5
Sport
Festivals and special days	(Families celebrate these as they see fit)
Creative Arts
Terms 1-4	Terms 1-4
Creative games and skills (movement, dance etc.)	✅
Improvise and interpret (drama, music, singing, etc.)	✅
Create in 2D (draw, paint, design)	✅
Create in 3D (constructing and modelling)	✅
Visual Literacy (looking at things like books/art and discussing them)	✅
Physical Education
Terms 1-4	Terms 1-4
Locomotor	✅
Perceptual motor	✅
Rhythm	✅
Co-ordination	✅
Balance	✅
Spatial Orientation	✅
Laterality	✅
Sports and games	✅

Assessment

The quoted paragraphs below are snippets from the CAPS document that convey the main points about assessment in the early years.

The CAPS document describes assessment, in general, for all grades, as follows:

“Assessment is a continuous planned process of identifying, gathering and interpreting information about the performance of learners, using various forms of assessment. It involves four steps: generating and collecting evidence of achievement; evaluating this evidence; recording the findings and using this information to understand and thereby assist the learner’s development in order to improve the process of learning and teaching.

Assessment should be both informal (Assessment for Learning) and formal (Assessment of Learning). In both cases regular feedback should be provided to learners to enhance the learning experience.“

In the foundation phase, the CAPS document states very clearly that only informal assessment is required and it can be done on an ongoing basis. This is how parents evaluate their children’s learning in home education anyway. No special testing or measuring is required!

“Informal assessment of Life Skills during the Foundation Phase is conducted on an ongoing basis. One good way to do this is to keep an observation book.”

“Assessment can take place individually, in small groups or in large groups during free play and as part of structured activities.”

“Assessment is recorded and reported to parents. It is not necessary to keep a formal record of all learner’s work in Life Skills. It is useful, however, to keep some work that can show progress over time.” [our emphasis in bold]

Take a peek inside Barefoot Days or Kaalvoetpret

To get an idea of the kinds of learning activities that you and your children will enjoy when you use one of our ‘foundation phase’ programmes, you can download a sample here:

If you are ready to order, simply click on the “Add to cart” button on our products below and complete your purchase in our online shop: