Getting to know CAPS

Starting this year, public schools and some private schools in South Africa have fully switched to the CAPS curriculum, with the first batch of CAPS-educated learners matriculating at the end of the 2014 school year.

With all of the changes to the South African national curriculum in the past decade or so, CAPS might seem like just another confusing acronym for parents and teachers to remember, and another annoying policy shift that requires everyone to buy new textbooks and start over. CAPS really isn’t that complicated, though, but it’s important to understand what it’s all about.

CAPS stands for Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements. Simply, it is a revision of the current National Curriculum Statement (NCS), and introduces more streamlined and comprehensive sets of guidelines and assessment criteria for each subject in each grade. The purpose of this is to make teachers’ jobs easier, giving them clear guidance on what to do. It also makes learners’ lives easier, by establishing clearly what it is they are to learn in fine detail and how their work will be assessed.

Overcomplicated terminology is also out the window, making it so much easier for parents, guardians and learners themselves to understand exactly what they’re doing: for example, the old terms “Learning Outcomes” and “Assessment Standards” are done away with, and have been replaced with “Content” and “Skills”. Even better, primary school learners will no longer study “Literacy” and “Numeracy”; they will now do “Language” and “Mathematics” instead.

The upshot of all this – the new terminology, the week-by-week planning for classrooms to follow – is that everyone needs new textbooks that are completely aligned with the new curriculum. Luckily, Paperight has a great selection of CAPS textbooks available at any of our outlets nationwide.

X-kit Achieve!

The X-Kit Achieve! series from Pearson has been developed based on meticulous research and feedback from learners and teachers. These study guides offer exercises which cover understanding, application and problem-solving skills. They also include concise explanations, plenty of practice and sample test and exam papers with answers. Available for Grade 10 and Grade 11 students.

Study & Master Study Guides

Cambridge University Press’s Study & Master series have been specially developed by experienced author teams to meet all the requirements of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). These new and easy-to-use courses not only help learners to master essential content and skills, but also gives them the best possible foundation on which to build their knowledge in each subject. Guides for seven subjects are available through Paperight for Grade 12 students.

Everything Maths

Siyavula’s Everything Maths textbook for Grade 10 students is not just a Mathematics textbook. It has everything you expect from your regular printed school textbook, but also comes with online video lessons and explanations which help bring concepts to life. Summary presentations at the end of every chapter offer an overview of the content covered, with key points highlighted for easy revision. All the exercises inside the book link to a service where you can get more practice, see the full solution or test your skills level on mobile and PC.