Generalist educators in South Africa shy away from music in the subjects Life Skills (Dance, Drama, Music, Visual Art, Physical Education and Personal and Social Well-being) and Creative Arts (Dance, Drama, Music, Visual Art) and universities are not delivering generalist students for the subject demands. In-service educators as well as subject advisors have often had no music training. The twofold purpose of the study reported on in this article was to determine the extent of challenges experienced in the music component of Life Skills and Creative Arts in South Africa and how this can best be dealt with.Mixed methods research was conducted to ascertain the problems experienced with music tuition in Life Skills and Creative Arts classrooms. It was found that generalist educators have to teach music, whether they have the requisite skills or not. The subject has low status and is frequently used as a filler subject for teachers. Lack of music knowledge, scarce resources, limited support and everchanging educators are some reasons for the absence of quality music tuition. Mentoring by competent subject advisors and senior educators and the re-alignment of school and university curricula will assist music in enjoying its rightful place in the school curriculum.

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This article aims at revisiting the CAPS critically and comparing contents for early numeracy instruction. A possible alternative to the CAPS is intended. Setting:In this article, we describe a maths learning programme for Grade-R (Meerkat Maths) that combines and integrates empirical findings and curricular demands. The presented maths training aims at teaching maths in such a way that it suits children's development, raises a positive attitude towards maths and also meets educational expectations.Methods: Contents of the training programme and the CAPS are compared against the background of empirical research on numerical development and predictors for arithmetic performance. Results:The results reveal that research based math instruction can be conveyed in a formal training programme. Conclusion:Keeping in mind the qualifications and training of Grade-R teachers, teacher training is necessarily embedded in the programme. Thus, the described programme is a comprehensive application of recent research for maths classes in the early grades.

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