South African schools need a trauma-informed approach to the curriculum – Oprah Winfrey

Dineo Bendile

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey is on a mission to influence the South African education system into adopting a trauma-informed approach in its curriculum.

Last week Winfrey, through her school the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (OWLAG), hosted a gathering of teachers and counselors in Midrand to discuss the impact of trauma on learning and strategies to support children.

The proposed strategies are based on the Neurosequential Model (NM) in Education, which has been in use at Winfrey’s institution since 2018 to address the needs of the learners, who come from disadvantaged and often traumatic backgrounds.

In an interview with Inside Education at the Gallagher Convention Centre, Winfrey dismissed any plans of opening another school in South Africa, and said her future efforts would be focused on seeing the rollout of the Neurosequential Model (NM) in as many local schools as possible.

“The work continues but no more