Social interaction has always been a concern for many parents of home-schooled children. Wingu Academy who is SA’s best rated provider for online schooling from home has never seen this as a challenge, but rather as an opportunity to provide learners with an array of Social Clubs and activities to belong to, and “thrive with their tribe”.
Current clubs range from the usual chess and study groups to fitness, photography, science, anime to gaming clubs. In fact, learners at Wingu Academy are so excited about the clubs that the school can boast an amazing 60% of learners have already enrolled in one or more social clubs.
“We believe that it all has to do with being in touch with our learners’ interests and offering the activities that are most relevant to them,” says Ross Laubscher, Student Development Team Leader at Wingu Academy.
One of the most popular clubs is the Gaming Club with 106 students enrolled in this club alone. We even have our very own Minecraft server! Minecraft is a popular, child-friendly computer game that combines exploration and survival skills in a unique and fun way. In simple terms, it’s like digital LEGO – which you can use to create anything from a small hut to a huge, sprawling metropolis. Where the only constraint is your imagination!
It is also a great educational tool that is being used all over the world to teach valuable skills such as mathematics, problem-solving and basic programming.
Wingu released its very own locally hosted Minecraft server, exclusively designed for Wingu learners. It offers a safe place where learners can connect and play with classmates, outside of the classroom. They can collaborate on big projects, by using teamwork to collect resources efficiently, build structures faster, and share ideas. The server hosts both design and Redstone challenges that are intended to encourage not only innovative and creative designs, but also technical skills.
This is just one of the 10 awesome clubs for learners to participate in. To much excitement and on request, a science club was introduced this year for all the budding young scientists calling themselves “The Experimentals”. In this club, we will be exploring the wonderfully wild, weird and wacky world of science, while having fun with some at-home experiments and science project.
Belonging to a social club has many benefits:
- Learners can interact with each other outside of school.
- It provides a sense of belonging with like-minded learners.
- It keeps learners entertained while learning new skills.
- It provides a platform for teachers and learners to connect on a more personalised level.
- It promotes healthy competition among the learners, which is an important life skill to learn in order to thrive with resilience.
- Some of the clubs have presidents and club panels and this fosters responsibility and leadership skills
“We launched the Wingu Social Clubs as a way to accentuate the holistic development of our learners and provide a safe and fun space for our Wingulians to make friends and learn more about topics they are interested in outside the curriculum. Wingu is truly the closest you will ever feel whilst distance learning.” says Panashe Tiffany Saungweme, Associate Director of Human Capital at Wingu Academy.
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