COMMITTED Cape Town teachers and principals are reaping the benefit of their hard work, especially at schools that had the odds stacked against them, but still saw increases in their matric pass rate.
Steenberg Secondary High, located in a poor area rife with gangsterism, is one such school that achieved a 26.2% increase, with a 92.7% matric pass rate.
The school’s proud principal, Isaac Arendse said the school was motivated by defying the odds.
“We even had two learners who were in jail, involved with drugs and illegal ammunition. I arranged with the department and police stations for them to write while in jail. We went to court with them. Their bail was denied and they were sent to Pollsmoor Prison.
“They got bail afterwards, wrote their exams and passed. We will go as far as we need to, to encourage and support our learners,” he said.
Arendse said they were motivated and wanted to keep raising the bar.“We were never focused on a big leap in our pass rate, only on improving our results. We strategised to improve the results, and did our best to create an environment that is conducive to learning.“We have brought in motivational speakers, curriculum advisers and early induction and orientation for them. We want to prepare them as best we can. “Our educators work hard and we’ve already started parent-teacher meetings to get the parents involved.
Of the 454 high schools in the Western Cape, 346 achieved a pass rate of between 70 to 100%, an increase from the previous year’s performance.
Bellville South High and Range High School also managed to exceed their own expectations, with an increase of 20% or more in the 2021 matric pass rate.
School principal, Racquel September said their pass rate target was 65%, “But our learners surprised us and out did themselves”.
September said teachers worked hard to ensure that socio-economic issues in the area did not get the better of their pupils.
“These students face many problems. Some have experienced death due to the pandemic, some come from single-parent homes were there are many financial difficulties,” she said.
The principal said the school tried its best to support pupils in the second year of the pandemic.
“We had a lot of support from the WCED, we had extra classes for the learners after school and over weekends. I believe the motivation from the teachers also pushed our kids to excel,” she said.
September said this year the school planned to help pupils by expanding their extra classes.She said they would focus these lessons on specific topics and past papers.“We know that everything that worked for us last year worked, so we just want to keep pushing our students and giving them the support they need,” she said.
Perchwin Jacobs, the computer applications technology teacher at Bellville South High School, said he believed that all the extra classes and summarised content were pivotal to the school’s success.
“We want to build on their existing knowledge without overloading them. We want to teach them how to answer questions and how to write matric final exams.
“We had full cooperation from the learners and we couldn’t have reached this milestone without that,” he said.
Range High School in Matroosfontein achieved a 29.6% increase, with a pass rate of 77.6%.
School principal Peter Arendse, who was at the school for the last six years has now retired after 38 years of teaching.
He said the school could not have given him a better farewell.
“It came as a big surprise, but with the help of the department of education and the dedication of our teachers, it was made possible. We were marked as an under-performing school, and that was a big wake up call,” he said.
Arendse said having a team of dedicated teachers was significant to their success and would continue to be in future.“Parents play just as much of a role, they need to support the learners. Our formula for success was brought together by having learners play their part and help from the department’s circuit managers.“Our support staff, like cleaners and security, also play a part,” he said.
Current principal at Range High School, Peter Hendricks, said he hoped to uphold the level of success the school had achieved.