About School Refinery

School Refinery presents principals, teachers and homeschooling parents with a learner-centred approach to teaching as a solution to a number of challenges arising in classrooms. By providing consulting sessions, workshops and courses, School Refinery upskills teachers to successfully deal with diversity in the classroom, such as different cultures, varying cognitive abilities and appropriately responding to the needs of each learner. It can be seamlessly applied to public, private and faith-based schools.

“Being responsive to each child’s needs  ensures that we are making schools better places.”

School Refinery offers a first consultation FREE of charge so you can determine if this is the right fit for your classroom and school. No-obligation quotes are provided to help you plan within your budget.

Meet Shakira Akabor

School Refinery is the brainchild of Shakira Akabor.

Shakira is an academic tutor and PhD candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Since 2003 she has been teaching in a mainstream classroom at primary school level. She is especially passionate about the ways in which we can include rather than exclude children in our classrooms, particularly those learners with different learning needs. Shakira is the host of School’s Out, an ITV Networks educational programme which airs on Saturday mornings at 10 am, DStv channel 347.

Shakira lives in Pretoria with her husband, 3 children and 2 cats.

Below is a sneak peek into Shakira’s current doctoral study entitled The intention and impact of visible rewards as school-wide practice at two Gauteng high schools.

“A very successful workshop. I enjoyed the group-work and feedback sessions. I wish the parents could be involved somehow.”
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Muhammad

“I found this workshop beneficial, it was also fun and interactive. I certainly enjoyed it! I feel that I can now handle matters with parents more professionally.”
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Aliya

“Thank you Shakira, this was very useful to me! I enjoyed the workshop immensely.”
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Nuha

“I really enjoyed this workshop! It has made me more aware of my professional behaviour and how I would need to respond to learners in class.”
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Sarah

“When I initially heard of the 5-hour Ethics workshop, I thought it would be long and boring. How wrong I was! I enjoyed it thoroughly. Would like to attend more of your workshops.”
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Abdulla