15 January 2010
Newsletter 1/2010
Dear Parents
Welcome! To all our new community members I trust that this year is only the first of many more years to come here at the College. To those returning, I trust that the rest was worthwhile and that we are all re-energised for the many activities in this new year.
This year besides the new pupils who are joining us, we welcome the following teachers: Mrs Ashwell (Grade 4), Ms Green (Music), Mr Visser (Maths), Mr Mtuwa (Maths) and Mrs Heilgendorff (who has returned from the UK after an absence of a year).
Our Grade 12 results were released last week Thursday. I trust everyone saw the front page of the Pretoria News where there was a huge picture of our Head Boy from last year Lawrence de Jesus who managed to achieve 9 Distinctions – this is a unique event in the life of the College. The comments he made to the reporters showed the calibre of the person he is! The group as a whole did very well given that many schools are down on their results. Serena Kalboskof also did very well by getting 5 Distinctions thereafter we had close to 50% of our students who got more than one distinction. The total number of distinctions was 71. The breakdown is: 19 Life orientation, 12 Geography, 9 Mathematics, 4 English and Accounting, 3 in Life Science, Afrikaans and Hotelkeeping. Every other subject got at least one or two distinctions. This number is slightly more than last year which is encouraging.
The pass rate however is not the same as last year. We had one person who did not pass. This is indeed very sad for us, as this is the first time since 2002 that a pupil has failed. However the percentage of pupils who managed a University entry is much the same as previous years i.e. 87%. These statistics are important in light of the fact that it is important for all of our pupils to realise, it is possible to fail Matric and for that matter to fail in life. It is what we do with that failure that really counts.
Much has been written in the public domain about the pass rates. I would like to say I support the efforts that Examination Bodies are doing to ensure that our children are adequately prepared to leave school with a good standard of work ethic. It would be far more irresponsible of these bodies to satisfy the politicians and the public at large, by allowing vast numbers to pass their Grade 12 year when they are not adequately prepared. This preparation is twofold, the schools have to be providing the correct level of teaching and the pupils need to be providing the correct levels of commitment. My experience is that when that is been done pupils pass and more importantly pupils pass well. Good luck to our new group of Grade 12’s
The Calendar should accompany this newsletter. There are two very important dates for parents.
The first is next week Thursday 21st January – we have the New parents welcome at 18:30
This will be followed by the AGM of the PTA at 19:00.
The AGM is the one opportunity parents have of hearing about what happens in the College
The second is “The Information Evenings” (This is when you will be addressed by your child’s class/grade
teachers.) These will happen as follows: Foundation Phase on Tuesday 26th January (18:00)
Intermediate Phase and High School Wed 27th January (18:00)
Please note we then get to see parents again at Parents Evenings at the end of term one and two.
This makes a total of four occasions during the year that we get to see parents with the specific idea
of discussing your child’s academic progress.
Once again welcome home and may 2010 be as good as the effort we put in to it!
Yours truly
PR ROSS
HEADMASTER