Our Vision
To ignite a movement of transformation in education, where highly motivated school leaders create a future where all learners have access to a high-quality education and the opportunity to reach their full potential.
Est. 2007
Nearly twenty years inside South Africa’s schools.
Dinaledi was founded in 2007 by a group of coaches and educators testing one question: could coaching change Cape Flats schools? Two schools became forty-five. A pilot became a methodology, built for this context rather than imported into it. The work has not changed: walking alongside whole school leadership teams, year after year, until the change holds.
When a school’s whole leadership team grows together, the change holds long after we have gone.
A leadership crisis, not a resource crisis.
South African schools have been studied to exhaustion. Reports tell us what is wrong. Workshops tell teachers what they should do. None of it sticks unless the school itself changes how it is led.
- Dinaledi’s first pilot, in two Cape Flats high schools from 2008, coached maths and science teachers alongside their principals. The lesson shaped everything since: unless the whole school management team is involved, change does not hold.
- The support is a long relationship, not a training event.
- Nearly twenty years on, that lesson has become a methodology, with the independent evidence base to defend it.
Dinaledi means “stars” in Sesotho.
Much of the work is helping the people who lead a school rediscover the fire that brought them into education, then building a team around them strong enough to keep it lit.
“It is my view that educational coaching is a highly desirable intervention in the SA school context. With few exceptions, all the staff who were coached were singing the praises of the coaches and the sessions.”
Dr Mark Jacobs, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, evaluation of the 2008/9 pilot
Our Mission
To strengthen educators’ leadership skills and re-ignite their passion to inspire vulnerable learners to flourish.
In practice, that means working with whole school management teams, not the lone principal, over a year or more, until a school can lead its own improvement and sustain it long after we have gone.
Five convictions that shape every engagement.
These are the operating assumptions that determine which schools we work with, how we structure the work, and what we measure.
Civil society
We believe in the generosity of civil society to drive positive change, and that, properly channelled, it is sufficient to transform South African education.
Conversations
We believe in the power of transformational conversations, held over time and with skill, to inspire growth and unlock leadership.
Educational leaders
We believe that educational leaders, not consultants and not officials, are best placed to effect durable change. Our role is to support them to do it.
Young people
We believe in the potential of young people in under-served settings to become South Africa’s future leaders. The conditions, not the children, are what need to change.
Mind shift
We believe educational transformation is about mind shift and behavioural change. Tools and content help; they do not substitute for the harder work.
The light by which we lead.
Our values shape how we show up for one another, how we partner with schools and communities, and how we engage stakeholders across the educational ecosystem.
Ubuntu
We are because you are.
Radical Empathy
Leading with our hearts.
Purposeful Action
Igniting change from within.
Integrity
Our word is our bond.
Trust
Confidence built through consistency.
Collaboration
Together, we go further.
Nearly twenty years, in stages.
From a two-school pilot in the Western Cape to a leadership practice working across multiple districts, one school at a time.
2006–07
Foundation
Five coaches meet in 2006, each putting R50 into one bank account to keep it open. They register the NPC the next year, and that founding generation is still close to the work.
2010
Outcomes evaluation
Impact Consulting’s year-long independent evaluation of four schools in Delft and Nyanga finds that through the 2010 teachers’ strike, matric results at the coached schools fell 4% on average, against 22% at the other schools in their circuit.
2014
District partnerships
Dinaledi enters its first formal district partnership, with Metro South Education District, broadening from individual schools to district-level work.
2018
Emerging Leaders Development Programme
In response to a succession crisis in school leadership, Dinaledi launches a programme for high-potential educators preparing for SMT roles.
2021
School Diagnostic Tool
After a decade of refinement, the 31-statement School Diagnostic Tool is codified. Its findings track the Department’s own Whole School Evaluation and IQMS measures.
2024
Independent evaluation
Drs Patrick Ebewo and Knowledge Shumba of Tshwane University of Technology complete an independent evaluation. Its interview findings are later published, peer-reviewed, as Ndlovu et al. (2026) (opens in a new tab).
2026
Today
Forty-five schools, a fourteen-strong coaching faculty, five WCED districts, nearly twenty years. The work continues.
The horizon
The years ahead
The ambition we began with, carried further: more schools leading their own change, a broader faculty, and leaders who stay and grow.
How we’re run.
Dinaledi Educational Coaching is a registered non-profit company (NPC). An independent board provides oversight, a leadership team runs the organisation day to day, and a faculty of practitioners does the work in schools.
A more just and hopeful future for South Africa’s children.
Our values shape the daily work, and the work is in service of that future. We build toward it with schools, communities, and partners across the educational ecosystem.