Memorandum of Understanding
Welcome to Imago Education! We are glad that you are registering with us and look forward to working with you during the coming academic year (or period). This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) applies to all the classes that we offer. Its purpose is to facilitate a happy and fruitful relationship between us; you can see it as a manual for a successful study programme, so please read it carefully and be careful to implement those requirements for which you are responsible.
The fundamental principle which must guide our work together is that learning is a partnership between tutors, students and their parents — and the most important person in this partnership is the student. The student, and only the student, can build the knowledge and understanding that he or she requires; we call it “activating your inner genius”. Tutors are responsible for guiding the student through the curriculum, for providing appropriate teaching and learning activities and for giving meaningful feedback to parents. Parents are responsible for encouraging, mentoring, providing resources and a conducive working environment, and ensuring that the student does the work that he or she is required to do.
The following sections provide some detail as to how our responsibilities need to be worked out in various aspects of the study programme.
1 Homeschooling and overall responsibility
[1] Imago Education provides support, guidance and tutoring to homeschooling families; it is not a school. This means that parents take ultimate responsibility for their children’s education, including any relevant legal requirements.
[2] Parents will need to register their children for exams at the exam venue of their choice. We will provide advice and assistance, but we cannot register on your behalf.
2 Lessons
[3] Imago Education’s tutors are responsible for providing lessons that are educationally sound and address adequately the requirements of the relevant curriculum. Lessons and tutoring are provided for all weeks during the specified school terms, except in cases where students write exams at the end of their course. In such cases, there are no classes during the final term of the course. Please see $$our calendar for term dates.
[4] There are normally no lessons on public holidays.
[5] Students need to be faithful in their attendance and diligent in their participation in the lessons. Students must make every effort to attend class, unless prevented by illness or other unforeseen events. We request that parents (not students) notify the tutor if it is necessary for a student to miss a lesson.
3 Online lessons
[6] Some courses are delivered via a combination of in-person and online lessons. Some courses allow students to choose between in-person and online attendance and some allow only one or the other.
[7] Where online lessons are offered, Imago Education is responsible for the hosting environment (Zoom, etc.) and for providing a learning experience that is adapted to this environment.
[8] Parents need to ensure that students are equipped with adequate hardware and software, and that the internet connection is fast enough (preferably 20 MB/s or more upload and download) and is working properly. The following equipment is required:
a. A desktop computer, laptop computer or tablet with a large enough display. For computers, the display should be at least 15 inches and for tablets 10 inches. If the screen is too small it will be difficult to see the tutor’s writing on the whiteboard or the details of slides that might be presented. Mobile phones are too small for meaningful participation in online lessons.
b. An adequate camera and microphone. The built-in cameras and microphones found in laptop computers are often inadequate for meaningful participation in online lessons. We therefore strongly recommend the purchase of a good webcam which has an adequate built-in microphone. As an example, the Logitech C310 (available from Takealot) works very well for this purpose.
[9] During online lessons students must keep their video feeds on at all times, and must remain engaged in the lesson throughout, just as if it were an in-person lesson. The nature of online lessons is such that many normal communication cues (facial expressions, verbal comments, body language, interpersonal interaction) are severely restricted. It is therefore essential to maximize the communication that we do have available to us, and this means keeping video feeds live at all times. If a tutor cannot see a student and his/her responses to the lesson it is simply impossible to teach effectively.
4 Homework and assessments
4.1 General
[10] Homework is arguably the most important component of the whole learning process, since it is by applying themselves to properly graded learning exercises that students build knowledge, understanding and skill in their own minds. This knowledge, understanding and skill cannot be imparted or transferred; it must be constructed through the student’s own mental activity just as an athlete’s muscles are developed through his own physical activity. Homework is all the more important in the homeschooling context, where actual tutoring time is much more limited than in a traditional school. Parents and students must please take note that class time is in no way sufficient for mastering the subject curricula.
[11] It is the tutor’s responsibility to provide the necessary graded and incremental homework assignments for each class. Quizzes, tests and other assessments will also be used to assess students’ progress and to provide feedback to them and their parents. Some assignments will simply be assessed for completeness and some will be assessed in greater detail. This feedback will enable students to address areas in which their mastery of the subject is insufficient. Each student’s progress will be recorded in a central database and progress reports will be available to students and their parents on an ongoing basis via the Imago Education website.
[12] In some cases, feedback on the homework will be provided orally during the lessons. Where this is the case, students should take notes on the feedback.
[13] Parents need to help their children by providing text books, exercise books and other necessary stationery. It is also important to ensure that students have a place where they can work without unnecessary disturbances or interruptions. Most students also need guidance and assistance in setting up an effective work schedule and in learning to discipline themselves to keep to the schedule. These skills take some time to learn and implement properly, so parental love, patience, encouragement and support are essential! This is especially true for students in the earlier phases of their studies (early high school and IG).
[14] Students must commit themselves to working diligently on all homework exercises. In almost all subjects there will be homework exercises for three, four or five days in the week, and it is important that the homework be done daily rather than in one block once a week. The way a student approaches the homework is also critical: the aim is not simply to finish for the sake of finishing, but to think about whether one understands the material and where one might be struggling to understand. Unless explicitly stated to the contrary by a tutor, students must bring all relevant homework, exercise books, text books, etc. to their lessons.
[15] Homework submitted after the due date will usually not be marked. A tutor may seek to help a student by marking late assignments, but this is not always possible, especially during the period of exam preparation. Marking late assignments often creates a great deal of additional work for tutors.
4.2 Online submission of homework and assessments
[16] Depending on the subject, some or all homework and assignments may need to be submitted online via the Imago Education website. This allows for a much more efficient workflow and saves tutors many hours that would have to be spent collecting and collating assignments from different sources. Online submission is not a complicated process, but we do ask that students and parents work together to ensure that the submissions are done properly. Please attend to the following:
a. The student’s work must be scanned clearly and legibly into a pdf document (maximum size 10 MB, but preferably less than 5 MB). It is best to use a scanner, rather than simply taking photographs with a phone. The scanners included with multi-function printers work well; if you need to purchase a dedicated scanner, the Canoscan LIDE scanners are small, effective, economical and easy to use (available on Takealot). When scanning, a resolution of 200 dpi in full colour produces a clear, legible document which is not too large.
b. If a phone is used to scan the homework, please ensure that the pages are straight and parallel to the sides of the image, that the lighting is even and the writing is clearly legible. Use the settings on the scanning app to make sure that the final scanned document is neat, legible and of a suitable size. (The Simple Scanner app for Android phones usually works well, but experiment with the settings to get the best image.) Tutors may ask students to resubmit work which is scanned in such a way as to be difficult to read or unduly messy.
c. The uploading process is possible using a phone, but is much easier to complete using a desktop or laptop computer.
[17] We request that parents assist their children to work out an easy and efficient workflow for submitting their work online, bearing in mind the requirements set out above. Once you have developed the workflow, scanning and submitting assignments will be quick and easy.
4.3 Possible cancellation of studies if homework is not completed
[18] As much as we might like to implant knowledge and understanding without any work from the student, this is simply impossible. Adequate completion of homework is therefore a requirement for a student’s ongoing attendance and participation in the lessons. If a tutor notices that a student is not submitting homework, or the homework is inadequately completed, the student’s parent will be notified so that the situation can be addressed. If the student persists in not doing the homework, even after sincere efforts to correct the problem, Imago Education may cancel the student’s registration for that subject.
5 Communication between tutors and parents
[19] Because we are working in partnership we encourage communication between parents and tutors. Communication may be via email, telephone or WhatsApp — or any other convenient channel. We do, however, request that parents understand the demands on our tutors, and that they are not always available to answer questions and discuss issues immediately. Normally, communication will take place during office hours. We have allocated Mondays for administration, and it may be that a tutor is not able to deal with a query until the following Monday. We appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter.
[20] Should a parent or tutor feel that some aspect of a student's work or participation in class requires detailed discussion, a meeting can be arranged, either in-person or online.
6 Website accounts, electronic communication and storage of information
[21] In order to comply with the POPIA Act, we need your permission to collect and store certain information.
[22] In order to facilitate online homework submission, reporting to parents and general communication, we require each mentoring parent and each student to $$create an account on the Imago Education website. Parents hereby grant permission for their children under 18 to create such an account.
[23] The information required to create and operate the website account, as well as information related to homework and assignments (or any other tutoring-related activity) is stored on the servers of our hosting provider (currently Siteground). The privacy of your information is highly respected and carefully protected; we will not under any circumstances share your private information with a third party.
[24] Various WhatsApp groups will be created to facilitate communication between Imago Education, tutors, parents and students. Typically, a students’ group will be created for each class. Parents hereby grant permission to include their own and their children’s mobile numbers on such groups. It should be noted that the mobile number of each group member is visible to all other group members. All such groups will relate directly to the work of Imago Education.
7 Finances
[25] The payment options for each course are specified under the class details section of each course. Invoices will be sent out at the beginning of each month, and we request that payments be made by the 15th of each month.
[26] Cancellations must be made in writing by email to
(For further details about our fee structure, please see this article).