In an attempt to make education more accessible to the wider population of South Africa, the Department of Education (DoE) has gone to great lengths to introduce and implement a new paradigm of teaching and learning in primary and secondary school education. New educational and operational competencies have to be learnt to bring 'life' into teaching in the classroom, to enable learners to grasp knowledge, engage in reflective thinking, and apply knowledge in real-world situations. Research suggests that educator quality impacts on learners' outcomes more than any other variable throughout a learner's primary and secondary school years. Among the different human resources in schools, educators and school management teams are the means for delivering quality education in the classroom). This study focuses on operational competences required of secondary school educators to succeed in a classroom.